Leeds West Indian Carnival - 44th Year 2011

Just a few of many photographs!

Digging for Bait

Made for the Hannah's Room Beautiful Batiks Challenge, this will be at Uttoxeter Racecourse (Quilts in the Garden) from 15th to 17th April.  Based on a photograph taken by my late husband in Whitby some years ago:

Admittedly not my usual style which is probably why I found it so much fun to do (once I got round to it, after much agonising - however the agonising was productive, as it went together like a dream in the end.  Quite a challenge for me too in using the commercially-produced fabrics, having to work with colours already there, rather than dyeing the ones I really wanted: learnt a lot this way!  And I love the way the patterns echo the fossils that you find in this part of Whitby!

Techniques are straightforward - curved piecing, improvised as I went (but only after trying out various ideas in paint and cut paper which is probably what made it so easy in the end), with the figure cut from a fabric also made from curved strip-piecing.  Then overloaded with a variety of free-motion quilted patterns for the backgound, with drawn lines (quilted drawn lines that is) suggesting the figure.  Enormous fun to do!

Leeds Waterfront and Markets



New buildings on Brewery Wharf



Leeds Indoor  Market - Victoriana at its height



Dock Street - the old back-to-backs are now trendy new flats

Leeds Centenary Bridge at Brewery Wharf



Old footbridge over the lagoon



Warehouse conversions, new buildings and Leeds Parish Church in the background



View from outdoor market on Sunday





Peter Randall-Page at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

I'm lucky enough to live half an hour's easy drive from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, to my mind the finest sculpture "gallery" in the UK. This Autumn sees a major exhibition of the work of Peter Randall-Page, a UK sculptor whose work explores natural patterns (probably one of his most famous works being the his sculpture Seed at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

The majority of his sculptures are in indoor galleries and therefore I could not get photographs or - however tempting - touch them (some of the stone used such as the limestone is fragile enough to be damaged by the touch of numerous human hands). The bronze above is one of a series and is called Bronze Dreaming Stone. The sculpture below, definitely one of my favourites, is Secret Life. One of the fascinating things about it is the way in it changes with the effect of light.

I've been fascinated by nature's patterns for some time now and had decided, even before seeing this exhibition to make them the focus of my textile work for the moment so this exhibition was very timely for me. Luckily it's on for a couple of months yet so I shall have chance of several revisits. Highly recommended if you get the chance (only a mile off Junction 38 of the M1 and well worth the detour - you can also avoid motorway services and have a good meal in the Visitor Centre restaurant).

If you can't get to Yorkshire Sculpture Park you can see the sculptures (plus drawings and prints that are also on exhibition there) on http://www.peterrandall-page.com

Journal Quilts May - August

This series of four continues the steps theme by celebrating journeys. The first, a walk through Bolton Abbey Woods in May. There's a shelter on a path that takes you on a steep walk up through the woods and while you eat your lunch and draw your trees you look down on the view on which the first journal quilt is based.



I've called it May with its Light Behaving from one of my favourite W.H.Auden poems. It's made by first stitching the outline shape of the river onto the wadding, then cutting it back. I did this in hand-dyed viscose satin, two layers, one river-coloured, one green; flipped up the green to cut away the grey (avoids having two layers of thick fabric), then used reverse applique scissors (also called lace scissors) and carefully cut away the green where the river should be. Then laid pale viscose organza over the river, free-motioned outlines of the shapes and cut this back, and did the same with green hand-dyed silk-metallic organza over the trees. Finally had lots of fun with free-machine quilting, stitching very closely over the exposed edges to secure them (usually I use granite stitch (small overlapping circles) to do this, but there are other options). And isntead of binding I've couched down some metallic/viscose hand-dyed chainette.

The second is inspired by a view I had to reconstruct from memory. Driving to Contemporary Quilt Summer School I decided to take the scenic route through the Forest of Bowland; after taking a wrong turning it became even more scenic (I knew I was in the right direction so I wasn't actually lost, though there was a hairy moment when a signpost had got turned round).
I rounded a corner and suddenly came across this view - nowhere to park up and not really safe to stop on narrow winding roads so I had to simply drive slowly and commit it to memory. It was chiefly the colours, the golden field full of buttercups, the green hedges, the blue hills beyond. The whole area is the essence of The Shire in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkein knew the area well and used local place-names from this area, so I've called it Not All Who Wander Are Lost.

Hand-dyed silk habotai and taffeta, overlaid with gold chiffon (field) and blue (hills) organza, then free-machine stitched. For the binding I cut the rolled hem off the gold chiffon scarf I'd used, rolled in the raw edge and couched it down.

I had planned to combine a visit to my brother with Festival of Quilts, but in the end FOQ won out as I thought if I tried to do both I'd miss out be not being able to give either my full attention. So after making the decision in July I used a remembered walk from Christmas and imagined what the Dead Tree Walking would have looked like with late summer woodland colours behind.

More silk hand-dyed habotai with hand-dyed silk charmeuse fused on, and the whole thing FMQd.

Another walk in Strid Woods was the inspiration for my August journal quilt. A favourite place. The colours came from a photograph my late husband had taken of the Strid many moons ago at this time of year. This is the one I had most fun making. It's built up in layers. Silk charmeuse, viscose satin, silk habotai as a base layer, then built up in snippets and layers of silk organza, with some layers being partially cut back, with a layer of undyed white organza for the frothing water: a combination of onlay, reverse and shadow applique. The final layer was the stitching, added a bit at a time (I have a tendency to overdo it). I loved doing this, and though I have reservations about some aspects of it (this is normal for us all, right?) I really like the finished piece. Though I didn't enjoy binding it in velvet, it did work better than any other fabric for binding.

This one could end up being the first in a series. Now on to September and beyond...

to the woods, to the woods!

Same area as last week's walk: I bought a season-ticket which allows me into any of the car-parks on the estate, which is owned by the Duke of Devonshire - a lot of good walks around here and I hope to be to the more strenuous ones by the time it expires. Walked up the other side of the river this time, more up and down but with a high-level walk along much of its length. Paused here to draw breath, and to let a lively but pleasant school party overtake me. Having a camera gives you a good excuse for a pause when you need one.

LOTS of photos this time - some (not all shown here) taken for a project based on woodland. I started near lunchtime and paused to eat at the top of the climb in a shelter which looked out onto this view:

I also had some interesting company for lunch - part human, a very pleasant group of local people - and part avian:

Some walkers bring bird-food specially apparently. Makes a change from the rapacious sheep in seach of sandwiches elsewhere in the Dales!

Love these tree-roots on the exposed slope.

The high-level bit on this side of the river was punctuated with amazing views,

including the one above, a different angle on The Strid. (By the way I am amazed to learn that Brenda, one of my readers, has actually kayaked down the Strid)

And there were of course plenty of amazing trees: could you have predicted the shapes of some of these branches?

Or the shapes in these trees?

And finally, some time later, back to the other side of the river with its beautiful range of colours - very inspirational!

haiku festival

Not a great haiku but it was hovering around at the top of my head...

the flowing waters

of woodland rills and rivers

refresh my spirit

and I had a nice piccy to go with it!

may with its light behaving

Yesterday I made a return visit to Bolton Abbey in the Yorkshire Dales - a place we used to visit often when my husband was alive, but which I have not been to since his death nine years ago. The best bit was walking along the river to the Strid and beyond. The Strid is a narrow chasm in the river through which water rushes. It looks fairly mild here but it has been dry in the last week - it is more spectacular when in spate.

Though it looks harmless - in fact it looks as if you could jump across it - beware of trying: the pool below is thirty feet deep and it has claimed many lives over the centuries. Here's sa shot looking downwards:

I love the colours of the river, the mosses and the rocks, and despite the weekend crowds, I found a number of other equally appreciative people along the walk:

Not to mention the bluebells in Strid Woods - a real bonus.

A really magical walk - maybe the inspiration for May's journal quilt.

And in case you're wondering about the titles of this post - it's the first line of a poem by W.H.Auden one of my favourite poets, who was born in York and also loved the Dales:

May with its light behaving

Stirs vessel, eye, and limb