Connection at Forge Mill Needle Museum

Last year I was fortunate enough to be selected as a guest artist for Cwilt Cymru, a group whose work I had admired since seeing it in the Spirit of the Celts exhibition.  The theme of the current exhibit is Connection, and I have chosen the connection with my mother as the focus of what I produced.  Since my mother's side of the family is entirely Welsh it seemed appropriate and I had been planning a series of pieces on my relationship with my mother for some time.

 

The first piece was an enjoyable and fairly straightforward quilt to make, called My Mother Made Spitfires, focussing on my mother's experience as a war worker at Vickers Armstrong's Castle Bromwich factory near Birmingham, where she was involved in making parts for Spitfires.

 

 

 

 

The hours were long, the factory a target for bombing, and the work heavy (the machinery she operated, a capstan lathe, was later deemed unsuitable for women to operate).  Even so, her wartime experiences, as she described them to me, were full of fun, films, fashions and dancing.  She had more freedom and more money than she had had before and like many others at the time had a determination to enjoy life to the full (the fact that life was uncertain at the time probably had something to do with this).  It was during these years that she met my father, a GI she married shortly before his return to the US in 1946.  The quilt tries to draw together the different aspects of her life at the time.

 

The poster at top left is used with permission of the Imperial War Museum.  Other images are adapted from contemporary sources, and the photograph near the bottom right is a photograph of my mother, printed onto Extravorganza and overlaid onto hand-dyed fabric.

 

The poster suggested the colour-scheme for the quilt: the base fabrics are cottons hand-dyed in various combinations of orange and purple.  Some of these have been digitally printed with images from the time and my own words describing my mother's experiences.  Overlays of digitally-pinted Extravorganza have formed a basis for applique, and the whole piece has been free-machine quilted.

 

 



The second quilt Turning Ugly was a different matter.  Originally I had planned to take a different area of my mother's life as the focus and to produce something relatively "safe", but as time went on my thoughts constantly got drawn to the years after the war, in particular a two-year period from November 1949 which were the worst two years of mine and my mother's life.

I was conceived shortly before my father's return to the US.  In the early days of her pregnancy, with my grandmother ill, and possibly getting cold feet about the whole experience, my mother did not take up any of the three passages allocated to her as a war-bride.  In 1949 my father divorced her.  She also lost her looks when she suffered a form of facial paralysis called Bell's Palsy which she never completely recovered from.  In November 1949 she married a recently-widowed father of two small daughters and we went to live with them in a village between Chepstow and Tintern in the Wye Valley, a beautiful part of the country made hideous for us because of the violence and abuse we both suffered.

The idea was to produce a quilt that had a sort of "double-take" effect: that looked beautiful on the surface but became other than that when you looked up close.  Originally the words that described the experiences were going to be obscured (as in the piece at top left) but as the quilt was being made, things changed.  The pieces of the story first became blurred but readable if you tried hard (written in inktense pencil overlaid with organza) but in the end they were written in stitch, on the surface of the quilt.  And one set of words - describing in outline an experience which I kept hidden even from myself, but which has been like a sort of invisible ghost haunting me all my life - emerged as I was writing it.  So that the quilt became in itself what it was never intended to be - a sort of therapy.

 

 

My neighbour pointed out that I had probably saved myself quite a lot of money in therapy costs - and I had a quilt at the end of  it.  It's been a very painful and difficult process but I now feel lighter and happier than I've felt in my life.  One thing that bewildered me - the last stage was quilting the larger squares: and it came out - unplanned - like this:

 

 

 

 With very free, joyful lines of quilting redolent of growth and natural forms - exactly the way I felt as a result of the process of making the quilt.

 

The exhibition - which contains beautiful pieces by the six permanent members of the group as well as the other three guest artists - opens at Forge Mill, Redditch tomorrow (11th Feb).



A Really Good Day - with Wonky Bits!

Saturday was the latest meeting of Contemporary Quilt Region 14, a workshop with tutor Janet Bottomley on Liberated Piecing.  One of the best workshops I've ever been to - loads of fun, excellent teaching, and plenty of ideas for future projects (just need the time to make them now).  You can find out more about Janet from her blogs:  A Quilters Journal  (her personal blog), her City and Guilds/Contemporary Quilt blog, and her teaching blog.  For anyone involved in running a quilting group she would be an excellent choice for a workshop that could appeal to both traditional and contemporary quilters.

For those who, like me, were unclear about the difference between liberated and improvisational quilting, liberated quilting involves putting together traditional blocks in a non-traditional way, with a minimum of measuring, as in much African American quilting.  Improvisational or freeform quilting doesn't use blocks.

Below are some of the samples Janet brought, and you can see a corner of one of her quilts above (I wish I'd taken more photographs, but you can see more of Janet's work on her blogs.  I especially love her use of bright colours and fresh-looking fabrics, in particular her use of stripes - the blue quilt just peeping out in the picture above is particularly good.

 Anyway we were quickly on with the first blocks - stars and square in a square (occasionally pausing to flick through the books Janet brought)

and by lunchtime we'd completed our first blocks.  Being an adventurous group we soon discovered how to make things wonky, adapt and experiment with the techniques, and have lots of fun playing.

And - probably Janet's influence - there was a lot of orange about.  And some really nice fabrics, as in Lesley's beautifully wonky star.  

In the afternoon we experimented with asterix blocks, hash signs, and wonky houses and trees, but I got so caught up in the process I forgot to take photographs.

And we all went home grinning from ear to ear, with a new challenge - to use the techniques in our own pieces to be revealed at the next meeting.  Watch this space!

Big Buttons and Catching up

The Contemporary Quilt Group Journal Quilts for the October-January pieces are all required to use buttons, causing many people including myself something of a real challenge.  Looking through my button box I came across eight huge buttons and the idea of using these as focal points for composition proved irresistible.  As I have eight buttons I have challenged myself to double up and make two pieces per month.  I've also set myself the task of exploring complementary colours in each one.

The first, called Yellow Colour Field with Big Button is a collage of various fabrics - cotton, scrim, dyed wadding, felt and butter muslin anchored with machine quilting and embellished with couched purple thread and bits of silk carrier-rod - lots of  time playing with the arrangement but the stitching was straightforward.

The second arose from a series of samples I made for a workshop I taught on Improvised Curved Strip Piecing for Textile Without Limits.  It uses fabrics which originated I from Ghana along with some hand-dyed fabric.  This is also a tryout piece for something larger.  It's called Ghanaian Grid with Big Red Button.

Number three, which also uses fabric from Magie, dyed damasks and Zimbabwean prints, is called Big Button Blues.

The fourth one uses my stash of fabrics designed by Native Australian Artists.  My husband was born in Australia and was fascinated by Aboriginal Art.  Improvised curved piecing again but this time in crazy form.  Couldn't resist calling this one Big Button Dreaming!

Easy Little Gems

You don't have to be an expert to make a Little Gem: this is an example of a quiltlet that can be made by a beginner, or anyone with limited time.

This is one of three Little Gem Quilts I made for the Quilters Guild Tombola at the Festival of Quilts 2009 (see previous post for details)

The secret of making an attractive little quilt without having to have extensive quilting skills lies partly in choice of fabrics. It's worth using interesting fabrics because you get interesting results and with Little Gems being so small (A4 size) you can experiment with fabrics and still have plenty left over for another project, so it's a good way of trying out ideas about combining colours/prints and so on.

So the first stage is to audition your fabrics: if you're a perfectionist who can take three weeks over this, set a time limit.

There aren't many short-cuts which include coffee-breaks but this is one. When you can no longer see the fabrics for looking, leave them out and go and have a cup of coffee somewhere where you cannot look at them. When you come back you will see instantly what works and what doesn't.

After you've removed the cat, that is:

The next stage is to decide how to divide up the surface of the quilt. I like asymmetry (it also helps to make a very simple design look more interesting/complex). There are many ways of producing a sort of balanced asymmetry (of which more in a later post) but a useful one to start with is to divide into approximate thirds, which will give you a vertical division of between 3 and 4 inches.

Cut an oblong of one of your more interesting fabrics in the chosen width or a little wider (plus half an inch for seam allowances) for your narrower section and a length somewhere in the region of two thirds of the length of the finished piece (don't worry about exact - approximately eight inches works well) plus half an inch seam allowance. Add on narrow strips of fabrics that blend or pick up individual colours (small prints, solids or less defined patterns are useful for this) until you reach 11 5/8 inches (or a bit more - it can always be trimmed back later): stitch together using a quarter-inch seam allowance.

For the larger section cut one or two pieces of more interesting fabric the size you want, plus narrower strips of toning or contrasting fabrics. Join together to match the length of your first fabric strip.

Decide how you want to arrange your two strips of fabric, and whether they need a further strip down the middle ot not. Press each strip, pressing seams to one side, going one way on one strip and the other way on the other. Either join your two strips of fabric together as they are, or join to a vertical strip. Press again.

Cut a fabric backing slightly larger than a piece of A4 paper, plus a piece of wadding the same size. Lay your Little Gem on top, and then either pin or stick the layers together using a spray fabric adhesive such as 505. Quilt in any way you like. Free-machining is good but if you feel nervous about that, straight or gently-curved lines with a normal foot is fine too.

Place your Little Gem on a cutting-mat and place an A4 piece of paper on top parallel to the edges. Using the paper as a guide, placing the ruler on the paper and lined up along the edge of it, cut to trim to size. Make sure the paper is lined up on the cut edge(s) before cutting each side in this way. If you don't have a rotary cutter you can pin the paper to the Little Gem and cut round the edge of the paper with scissors.

Finally bind the edges (see Little Gems website for links to sites telling you how to do this).

Have fun with it - it's a great way of experimenting with fabric-combinations!

Little Gems

For anyone who doesn't know by now, Little Gems are A4-sized quilts, being made in aid of the Quilt Museum in York, for a tombola at The Festival of Quilts in August. This is being organised by The Quilters Guild of the British Isles with particular input from one of its sub-groups, Contemporary Quilt, of which I am a member.

I had planned to make a few to send, but I ended up getting hooked. First two I made earlier - my first attempts at doing "arty" quilting a couple of years ago:

Next, one I made last summer, one of several on the theme of bubbles: this one has been cut down from a slightly larger piece, and is cut back applique with free machine quilting:

Together with friend Chris, I'm working on a session on Little Gems for my local quilt group, Night Owl Quiltmakers, in Leeds and thought I ought to try and expand the range of Little Gems that I had. The first uses a collection of quirky folk-art cat fabrics I have in my stash and is simply a collection of squares of different sizes:

Next I experimented with free-pieced squares and oblongs from my hand-dyed fabric stash:


And next, strip-pieced base with fused applique, attached with free-machine stitching and FM quilted:

From there I moved into print fabrics with the following view through a window:

There will be more - at present I am having loads of fun playing with print fabrics and asymmetrical compositions - of which more later! In other words, Little Gems are addicitive, and enormous fun. Above all you can use those precious fabrics you've been saving and try them out on something small so you'll have plenty left for later! Try them for yourself: you don't have to be a member of The Quilters Guild, or even British, to contribute.

More information at:

http://littlegemquilts.wordpress.com/

http://quiltersguild.org.uk/
http://quiltmuseum.org.uk/

Where Have I Been?

I'm amazed it's been a month since I've posted. So what have I been doing?

First the two art courses I'm doing - both at (apparently) a basic level but quite challenging enough for where I started from! The first of them has been drawing based this term, with lots of close observational drawings using and learning various techniques. The course is run by Leeds College of Art and Design at the Leeds Museums Discovery Centre, an amazing place where you find antique statuary cheek by jowl with clothes, furnishings and assorted objects from bygone eras, not to mention the zoological specimens, many from donated Victorian collections. One of the zoological specimens is the reindeer above, known to me and my fellow-students as "Lips" (yes he really did have these handsome lips!) and probably my most successful drawing to date.

We've also been drawing everyday objects for homework - here's an early drawing of a shoe!

I also managed to get to The Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate, where I met up with cyber-friend Julie http://mixedmedia-jem.blogspot.com/ and had a really good day out - wonderful exhibitions, especially liked the Art Cloth and Ruth Issett ones (but then I am a dyer!) and lots of retail therapy. Julie and I are planning a day in Bradford in the new year when our finances have recovered.

There are other things, which I shall post about later, but finally there's the Christmas present (or not as I really am not sure whether a: they will like it; or b: whether they can be persuaded to be honest about it if they don't - I'd welcome ideas on this!) for my brother and sister-in-law.

To go with their new red and pale gold bedroom. So far I've finished the top, and here it is with Django trying to assert ownership!

As well as oriental-inspired fabrics (mainly based on Chinese designs) there are also real Japanese fabrics and a few Javanese batiks.

All very relaxing and a great change from art quilting. The overall design is based on one by Kaffe Fassett with a few twists additions and mistakes added by me!

And finally a really welcome piece of news: the quiltlet in the previous post has been bought in the SAQA Auction by art quilter Jacque Davis - thank you Jacque!

quilting with friends

These are my friends (from left to right) Liz, Gayle and Elaine, working on the beginnings of a group quilt for our quilt group Leeds Night Owls (so called because the emblem of Leeds includes two owls) as our contribution to a challenge from The Quilters Guild of the British Isles to produce a maximum one metre square hanging which can be buttoned onto other hangings on two sides. The top and side edges need to be square to fit the format, but the bottom edge can be irregular. Without giving too much away at this stage I can tell you that our will be - irregular that is. This is just the first stage - a strip-pieced background - and there will be a lot more people involved than the four of us!

It's been some time since I've worked on a group quilt, and it's been a really fascinating experience learning to shift my own ideas around to allow for the ideas of others and a real learning curve for the four of us working together, each with our own strengths and ways of working. Though I was taught by Elaine and have worked closely with her on one other project she is still able to come up with ways of solving problems I hadn't thought of (she really is an expert on how to do things perfectly!); and though I've known Gayle and Liz for years and thought I knew their work pretty well too I've discovered new things about their ways of working too. All of which has been an enormous learning curve - for all of us apparently. In my case it's certainly been a freeing up process - learning to share again after working so long on my own is really good for me and brings new ideas to my own work as well.

What's been amazing - and amusing - is the way usual roles have changed: Elaine the exact (so-called because normally everything she does is technically perfect) has been heard to say on several occasions "nobody'll notice that", "it's only the background so that bit can be covered up" and so on. Whereas Gayle who's normally very laid-back had to be almost physically restrained from pulling out and redoing work that looked fine to the rest of us.

All in all a nighly enjoyable experience and one we hope to repeat on a regular basis!

pieces and patches and studio helpers

During the studio makeover, which was at times more like an excavation, I found several pieces of patchwork I did some time ago. This is a sample I made for a workshop I taught on using mathematical progressions (I will do a tutorial on this in the new year) - hand-dyed fabrics and machine quilting.

The second is a different mathematical idea - I like the way the shapes form and unform in different parts of the piece.
I also found a number of improvisationally pieced bits. One I bound and kept separate as a small quiltlet (8" square). The colours were based on summer fields and landscapes and seascapes near Berwick-upon-Tweed.


At my friend Judith's suggestion I stitched three of these together to make a long thin wallhanging - a reminder of those warm summer days!


As usual while I was photographing these Django came along and insisted on having his photograph taken:



And for once I managed to get Pepper - who's somewhat camera-shy -


to pose for the camera! Pepper is, without a doubt, the nicest-natured cat I've ever known; he's even nice to other cats, even ones that he doesn't live with!

patchwork with dyed fabric

Two more quilts I found sorting stuff out - my two prizewinners!

This one's Jammin'. Made from a whole range of hand-dyed cottons I'd done at various times using different methods. Pieced very freely, based on chevron log cabin. Began by cutting four-inch squares from some of my favourite fabrics. Cut other fabrics into varying widths. Added these onto two sides of the squares until each block measured the right size or larger, cutting back to the right size. Then joined into blocks of four to make larger blocks, joined to make the centre, bordered, machine-quilted and bound (also by machine).
And - yes - it was as quick as that sounds.

The inspiration was Leeds West Indian Carnival with its clashes of sounds and colours.

The quilt was exhibited at the GBQF (the last one, under the auspices of The Knitting and Stitching Show) where it won a special prize for use of hand-dyed fabric. A lot of quilters, including traditionalists, enjoy it even though it breaks rules left right and centre! (A friend of mine overheard someone saying: " The pieces don't match. And everyone knows you can't put green and purple together. But I love it!"

Which is quite possibly the best accolade I've ever had!

The second quilt won Best Use of Colour at GBQF and second best in the bed-quilt category and for use of colour at Quilts UK. It's very large (over 100 inches square) and unfortunately I haven't yet been able to photograph it flat on. I tried it on the bed and this is what happened.

Hello Pepper!

Here's alarger picture that shows a little more quilt and a bit less cat.

The quilt's called Caging the Moment adapted from a line in a poem by Lous McNeice. It contains fabrics in 25 different shades of Blue-Violet 7RX, all flat-dyed in jars (adapt quantities from dyeing in a bucket, put dye and salt and soda into the jar. add wetted out fabric, put on the lid, wrap some old fabric and a plastic bag round in case it leaks and "churn" for ten minutes and then intermittently for an hour before rinsing and washing). It also contains a whole lot of different greens (the whole thing was inspired by the colours of spring) which were blast-dyed in small pieces using different techniques and various combinations of blues, yellows and golds with some black. The blue-violet grid goes from light at the edges to dark at the centre. The triangles (green plus yellows blues and purples go from dark at the edges to light in the centre (I bleached some fabric to get it really pale). The colours partially merge in the middle where you have values meeting, which is an effect I really like. I think the original inspiration was Deirdre Amsden's colourwash quilts, the ones with blue triangles on top, but it has come some way from there. It reminds me of Wytham Woods, the bluebells and the dappled colour through trees (see postcard below).

Anyway off now to do some more sewing - no more resting on laurels!