Peaceful Daydream Blues

I made this quiltie for a trade with my good Internet friend Val.
We both love vintage ladies and both love flowers so the perfect theme to choose was "Vintage Flower Ladies"

I knew straight away the image I wanted to use. I wanted to give the impression that she was daydreaming near a shady stream on a lovely summer afternoon.

The background is my favourite.
Layers of felt, organza and painted nappy liners all stitched together and zapped with the heat gun. This was then covered with a chiffon scarf and flowers, leaves and swirls were free machined over it all.
This is my favourite technique as the outcome is different every time. I never seem to get the colours I think I will get and the texture changes every time. I just love the surprise of it all.

The flowers have heavily beaded centres.
There is a little tassel like embellishment with a "peace" disc hanging from it.
I found one little acrylic flower in the right colour way to add as a falling blossom.
The lovely lady is printed on to iron on cotton (from Crafty Computer Paper) and fused to the background.
A Sari Ribbon edging finished it off nicely I thought.
I'm happy to report that Val liked it ;0)

Before I go I wanted to tell you that I have been working very hard on my website.
It has a fresh new look, new items in the Art Gallery (with a closer look at my Mesoamerican items) and a brand new For Sale page.
I mention this as it is the only place will be selling on line at the moment.

I hope you will take a look at my website and I hope you like it.

Abstract and Pink and Orange

The "lottery" challenge this month at Textile Challenges is for a Colour Combinations ATC. I drew Pink and Orange.
The quiltie theme at Unlimited Textiles is Abstract.
Hmm, I thought these would work so well together.

The result: Abstract in Pink and Orange ATC and Abstract in Pink and Orange Quiltie.
The background is a piece of cerise cotton with a pattern in the same colour but deeper shade. I stitched other fabrics to the base with zig zag stitch in orange thread. All the pieced fabrics are hand painted pieces from some of my favourite projects. One or two of my favourite commercial fabrics sneaked in too!

Wot no beads!!!
That is right. For once I think beads would have been overkill. Well I think so, hmm maybe just..... NO not this time ;0)

Wall Flowers Panel

As well as working on the big Mesoamerican project with Jan for Textiles for Two, I am working on my own project on Nature from the inspiration around me in the North Devon countryside and coast.

This is my latest piece based on flowers growing against and old wall.
The base fabric is a piece of handmade felt I did last year. I trapped all sorts of bits and pieces with wool tops between soluble film and machined a close grid pattern over it all. I gave it a vigorous wash in hot water to felt the wools and dissolve the film. And that is how it stayed for a long while!

I recently found some gorgeous organzas in a fabric shop in Barnstaple. This one was a very pale lavender with embroidered flowers and leaves.
I used it as an overlay for my felt and machined a rambling stitch between the flowers. That looked OK but was missing texture. I love texture.
So out came my heat gun an the surface got a good blasting ;0)

I expected to get a lovely crusty surface that would feel like a stone wall but I didn't expect the flowers and leaves to pop out quite as well as they did.
I burnt all the organza away from the edge to leave it quite rough. I added beads to the centre of the flowers and some little beads and sequins around the background.

I'm not sure how I will finish it yet, maybe I will apply it to some velvet, I think the contrast in textures would be good but whether it will be a wall hanging or a framed piece, I just don't know.

Unfinished Symphony

The first swap of the year at Unlimited Textiles was an "Unfinished Symphony" swap.

The idea was to send an unfinished piece of work to your partner for them to do with what they wanted to make a finished piece of art.

I received a piece of experimental knitting and crochet from June.

Of course I pounced on the lovely flower motif at the top and with some hand painted cotton, some extra fancy wools and some needle felting I made this postcard. There are little beads at the centre of the flower and scattered on the "hillside" with a little silver ladybird peeping out from behind that flower.

Another shape jumped out at me - literally - and this little fishy art doll was born.
I did quite a bit of needle felting to make the lacy knitting a little firmer and make that lovely little tail.
The fishy is embellished with another little flower and beads and charms. There is a hidden fishy too for June to find.
I think this little doll is lots of fun and I hope June will agree.

Moon Goddess

My very last arch of the year long swap at Textile Challenges is for Carol Rowland.
Carol likes fantasy figures so a Moon Goddess came to my mind.

The background is calico painted and stamped with acrylic paints. The detail on the side is drawn with pen and ink.
The goddess herself is one of my drawings that I scanned into the computer and printed out on to cotton.

I get the printable cotton from Crafty Computer Paper. You print the image, cut it out, peel off the backing and iron in place.

I wanted it to look like she is gathering energy from the moon so I used metallic thread to sew the energy lines and added seed beads for sparkles.
The edge is satin stitched with metallic thread.

Mayan Sun

The theme for November on Unlimited Textiles was "The Latin American Way"
I really fancied doing something bright, colourful and based round carnival.

So what happened?
Well the thing is I have a fascination for Mesoamerican cultures and elements of this just slip into my work from time to time.
In fact I am working on a body of work on this subject with my good friend Jan.
So you see the Mayan vibes just took over ;0)

The background is made up from layers of cottons and organzas. I wanted the simple quilting to represent the stone blocks used in Mayan buildings.
The sun was an important symbol to these people and mine is made from some of my handmade silk paper attached to the background with seed beads.

This quilt is now on the way to Marga in Florida. Marga lives the "Latin American Way" so I hopes she enjoys my interpretation.

October/ November!

I'm not usually one for wishing my life away, but I am glad that this year is drawing to a close.

Our daughters wedding was, of course, a wonderful highlight, but I seem to have bounced from one wall to another and hitting the floor (actually) more than I have stayed upright!!


My muse has stayed away for quite a long time and I have to say I don't blame her!
She did pop back for a few days earlier this month and has just called in again today so some activity has been apparent in the studio of late.

Halloween is the day before my birthday - yes I
was born on All Saints day, you can tell can't you?
Can't you??
Well of course I love the festival Halloween brings as I have lots of people calling round and they get dressed up for me too. How wonderful is that ;0)
I love to hand out the sweeties and Fred the dog loves it too. His tail wags furiously at the hugs and pats he gets, he really does think it is his birthday.


The theme on Unlimited Textiles for October was Autumn or Halloween and our swaps were a 5ins quiltie and an art doll.
My art doll was the pumpkins, two for the price of one ;0)
They are layers of organza and cotton batting with felt and embroidery features. I was really pleased with them and their toothy grins. Claire liked them too.

My quiltie was an Autumn theme. The background is a piece that Laura (my daughter) made last year, it reminded me of a windy day.
I made an organza flower that was supposed to look like a Chrysanthemum but didn't, nevertheless it did look like it was blowing in the breeze.
I have it on good authority that June liked it ;0)

A Little Quiltie

There isn't any theme for our swap on Unlimited Textiles this month so I rummaged though my stash to see what would inspire me.

I found a piece of dress velvet. It has a gorgeous feel with little sequins on it. The print is in shades of pinks. From the lightest shell pink to deepest maroon. A very rich fabric indeed.

There in my images was this lovely lady with flowers the same colour as my fabric! I found some lace in the same colour ways and this little quilt was started.

I had some pink metal roses that seemed perfect and added some beading down the side of the image.

"Smell the Roses" journeyed off to Jill who liked her.
I have been doing a lot of abstract things just recently so it was a good exercise to go back to using images again.

Stone Wall Inspiration

This arch is for Hannah.
One of the themes she chose is Nature and she likes blues, green, golds, and purples.

Well this isn't strictly nature but is inspired by the walls in Devon.

We have lots of lovely dry stone walls and cob and stone walls.
Cob is a mixture of earth and clay.
I love the texture of these walls and the way moss clings to them. I have enjoyed seeing the rain sparkling on them this year too.

I think of these walls as part man made and part nature and a what a wonderful combination they make.


I started out making this arch by painting bondaweb and bonding it to organza. I blasted the fabric with the heat gun and allowed it to bubble and go quite hard in places.
I cut up this fabric into pieces I thought could represent stone slabs and stitched it down onto cotton velvet. I also put some strips of gold organza on and stitched them down and zapped with the heat gun again.
I added little beads to represent the raindrops, we have had a lot of them this year.

What you don't get here is the texture. It has a rough feel and I think feels a little like the stone wall it is made to represent. I hope Hannah thinks so too.

Nature

The theme for April at Unlimited Textiles was Nature inspired. We were swapping a 5" square quiltie and a bag.
I love nature and most of my work is inspired by it one way or another.

When I went to the Quilt Exhibition in March I took a mini class on needle felting so decided to use what I learnt on my little quilt.

I used clematis as my inspiration.
I roughly drew the flowers and leaves to the navy felt then used my Clover needles to felt the whispy wool to the design.
After some machine embroidery to give the flowers and leaves shape and definition I added little beads for the flower centres.


My bag was inspired by the sea and clouds. I layered strips of velvet, silk and organza then machined wavy lines all over the fabric. I added little beads to give a bit more movement and made a machine wrapped cord with some fancy wools.
The bag is just big enough to carry a moble phone on a walk.

Alis' Midnight Garden

I love Terri of StegArts work, it always makes me smile. So when I found out she was doing an online class on Paper Quilting I just had to sign up.

I have just finished my week one assignment and here it is ;0)
It was so much fun to do. The first part is lovely and painty and gluey and messy - just perfect. The putting it all together was a blast to see the picture take shape.

I only could find tissue paper with Stars on in Ilfracombe and as my background turned out a little dark I thought Alis' Midnight Garden would be a great title for it.
So I added a full moon to shine on the little star flowers.

I'm not sure how I will display this piece yet. I think it would look good in a frame but I will have to look around to get the right one.

Got my homework to do this weekend then look forward to the next weeks project.
Can't wait!

Art Nouveau

The theme for January's swap at Unlimited Textiles was Art Nouveau.
Well new year, new art.

I love this style. It flows and grows with spirals and curves and is just beautiful.
With my love of flowers it was certain what I would choose as my focus.

I had some lovely pieces of green silk that were too small to do much with but made great backgrounds for my flowers.
The flowers are organza. I cut out the shapes with a small point on my soldering iron.
I like to do this as the edges don't fray but I have to remember to wear a mask as the fumes are unpleasant.

I did a little detail with gold thread which quilted the items too.

The ATC's are zig zagged onto pelmet vilene and the quiltie (5" x 5") is backed with hand painted cotton.

The Flower

The main inspiration for this piece was the gorgeous clematis in my garden.
Its lush purple flowers are fading now and are paper thin. It is not hard to imagine that you can see my lovely Cob wall showing through the petals.

The fabrics are all painted, dyed and stamped by me - such fun ;0) - and pieced together in a crazy manner on batting, with the flower machined over it all.
Little buttons symbolize the falling blossoms.
I mounted the crazy quilt to some gorgeous navy velvet and made a machine wrapped cord from sari silk to hang it by.
The crazy quilt measures 7.5ins x 9ins the whole quilt measures 10.5ins x 11.5ins and its hanging length is
22.5ins

Do you remember the exercise Sue Bleiweiss set and I created the crazy backgrounds?
Well I tried to do a similar thing here. Not quite the same I know, I gathered the right colours together this time but I did just put the pieces on to let them have a life of their own and I left the edges raw with no or very little tidying.

I think the quilt does have a life and the edges seen to echo the feel of Autumn in its "aged" look.
Roger thought it had a Cubist look to it hence it became the "Picasso Garden"








You can find this piece for sale at my Etsy shop.