Wind Me In The Sea : SOLD

Amongst all the gloom, something wonderful.  I've  sold my  textile artwork  ' Wind me in the Sea'   to  a collector  of Japanese textiles. 

I was contacted  out of the blue, they'd seen it  when exhibited  with 7th European Quilt Triennial ,  was it for sale ? After an exchange of  lovely emails (  we found we  had  many  shared interests  )  I was very happy to sell it knowing it  would be going to   a good home where it could be displayed.   

Its a very personal  piece of  indigo scraps  stitched to  lengths of Japanese kasuri  from a kimono purchased  in Tokyo  when I travelled there with Susan Briscoe in 2006:  

" A  year of stitching in the form of a winding cloth: double-sided, semi-translucent in a continuous loop. Mainly sewn on train journeys, my stitching, like my travels, continues and repeats looping back to familiar and treasured places " 

 

  

I was thrilled when it was  juried  into the 7th  European Quilt   Triennial,  it was exhibited  at:  

Textilsammlung Max Berk Heidelberg (D)  19.09.2018 – 06.01.2019

Kreismuseum Zons Dormagen (D)    18.01.2019 – 24.03.2019

Textiles Centrum Haslach (A)            11.05.2019 – 30.10.2019

Textile Museum St. Gallen (CH)           14.02.2020 – 19.04.2020

 It was supposed  to have come to the UK as part of the Festival of Quilts  2020  where I was looking forward to  not only helping to set up the exhibition and steward but also to see all the wonderful other quilts in the exhibition.   Alas  COVID  intervened so it was  returned to me  and was still carefully packed up in its bag .  

 I  unfolded  it for one last look  reminding myself of the  journeys made  stitching it   before carefully packing  it up and posting it .  It has now arrived with its  new owner who has let me  know how much they appreciate it.  I hope one day to visit . 

  Now I'm  inspired to start  again on it's companion  piece  "Wrap  Me In The Shore"  which has been   put aside since NW retreat  in February . Though  I won't be stitching  on the train  anytime  soon I look forward to  playing with  scraps  and remembering past travels. 

 

Festival of Quilts 2018 Warm -Up Challenge

I've been a bad , bad blogger , so involved with the process of drawing, doing a lot of thinking , using Facebook and Instagram   to post photos. But I do enjoy the reflective nature of writing and I 'mine' my own blog with search function tool to remind myself what I've done  over the years. So to ease myself back into  a more regular practice I'm returning to the many 'drafts' I'd started . This one was almost  straight compilation of Instagram posts last year. 

#foqwarmupchallenge

 In July 2018   the Quilters Guild of the British Isles   had a  warm up challenge for the Festival of Quilts on Instagram  with a prompt each day. It was great fun to join in and compare our love of  fabric and stitch   

#myfirstquilt

This is 'Parsons Prism' made in 1982  when I was at home unemployed after leaving university. With access to my mum's stash  of jumble sale finds and samples and offcuts from the Tootals shirt factory, I constructed this log cabin hanging inspired by  stained  glass. No rotary cutters in those days - the strips were  laboriously marked and measured then cut with scissors. Sewn on an ancient turned Singer and hand  quilted.

#fabricstash

One side of the  studio - there's more  out of sight, not to mention all the art supplies.  Some boxes of yardage  ( lots of indigo and African  fabrics )  but mainly  old quilts and recycled textiles  to repurpose and lots of scraps in trolley and African baskets 

#WIP

"Train stitching  2 " - scraps of  indigo and kola sewn to Japanese semi translucent kasuri kimono. 'Train Stitching 1 ( 'Wind Me in the Sea')   was accepted for 7th European Quilt Triennial exhibited first in Heidelberg  and  soon in Haslech, Austria .  Note the  travel kit - thread reels  are on elastic  to wear as bracelets,  I use a  Clover thread cutter and my thimble is also on elastic as got fed up of chasing it down the train carriage when I dropped it.   

#quiltcrush 

 This piece is 'bowl by Dorothy Caldwell which was just one of her wonderful works shown at FoQ 2008. The subtle diversity of fabric , wax-resist marks and stitch, masterly composition and sense of place I found mesmersising and I revisted the gallery several times . I was lucky enough to go on a workshop with her in Puglia in 2013 and she was an inspirational and generous teacher.  I  was thrilled to meet up with her again   at Open Studios  of Pauline Burbidge and Charlie Poulsen and buy a small piece of her work! 

#proudestproject 

I suppose the obvious #proudestproject  would be winning Fine Art Quilt Masters in 2017!! But the quilt that means most to me and wouldn't part with is  'Medieval Tiles' which took 7 years to make. Made from my own batik  based on  tiles in the British Museum and recycled fabrics from my mum's stash ( she was an early Quilters Guild Member) , I started it in 1987, the year she died. Hand quilted with around 50 different tile patterns. Also the largest quilt I've ever made!

Festival of Quilts 2018: Favourite Galleries

    

Christine Chester "Just Got To Finish The mending"

So many interesting galleries this year at Festival of Quilts,  these were some ( but by no means all) of my highlights

. 

unfold: The Button Box  ( above) , took its inspiration from the book of the same name by Lynn Knight ( which I'm currently reading),  exploring  ideas about domesticity and women’s position in society in  a variety of thought-provoking  ways.  I liked how individual artists  had  interpreted   it in very different ideas , and the  interaction with the public recording  memories. 

My mum had a button bag  rather than a tin or box  and I delighted  in tipping out the contents, making groupings of similar button  by colour , shape or  material (  showing in interest in classification at a very early age which stood me  in good stead for my scientific career!) 

Christine Chester  ( from interview  on  textileartist)    on 'Nevertheless she persisted'                     "This latest work records a timed one hour of stitching with all the interruptions, breakages, bobbin changes recorded as absences of stitch.There will be 48 separate panels, all reflecting an hour of mind-numbing work that a female fustian worker, a general term for fabrics such as velveteen and corduroy, in the 1930’s would complete in a working week whilst walking something like 91 miles up and down a long table cutting the fabric pile" 

Elizabeth Brimelow

WILD ( Art textiles:Made in Britain)  contained work  by several of my favourite  textile artists. I revisited several times  ( particularly to see the pieces by Elizabeth Brimelow). The outer part  of the gallery with its paper shards was inspired!  

Elizabeth Brimelow

Louise Baldwin 

Louise Baldwin

Cas Holmes 

Edwina McKinnon 

Christine Restall

Sandra Meech

I initially missed the  Contemporary Quilters West gallery ' Unfolding Stories 3'  as it was in an area  of a hall separate  from where many others were sited.  I'm glad I found it though, such interesting work from artists that I knew and  several that were new to me. A bonus was the excellent catalogue:  well designed and very good value .

Liz Hewitt

Colin Brandi

Kara Chambers

Jane Brooks

Pam Bealing

Judy Stephens 

Maria Harryman 

Janice Gunner 

Finally in the ' New Horizons: Connections '  exhibition  I was moved to see the latest  work by Janice Gunner , very different to her usual work  and much more personal, based on her thoughts and experiences when she was critically ill . 

Festival of Quilts 2018: Competition Quilts

Karen Callaghan (Winner FAQM) 

It was very interesting  looking at the  competition  quilts  this year , especially Fine Art Quilt Masters , as I didn't have  anything in myself and so could be rather more objective! 

 Each member  of  the local contemporary quilt group I belong to( ' Edgy Stitchers')   posted on our Facebook page  what we thought might win FAQM  this year  based on the photos submitted.  I  said that I liked Caroline Ramsey's best  but  thought it would be Linzi Upton's  piece as it was innovative  involving  a projection . When seeing the quilts 'in the flesh'  several were much better than the photos , others disappointing.   I had a long discussion with the winner Karen Callaghan   who  had a display  of samples and pieces produced for  her course   in the City and Guild Graduate showcase. A very worthy winner, I'm delighted for her ( and her tutor Barbara Weeks who encouraged her to enter)    

Caroline Ramsey 

 Although   I  loved some of the details  on Caroline's  entry, a lot of the  area  was not stitched ( one of the problems with scaling up ), the work on her website however is spectacular.

Linzi Upton 

 The projection  on Linzi's   piece was not working ( one of the hazards  of  doing something more innovative ) and I was a bit shocked to  read in her blog  that her entry was meant to be ironic!  

Ruth Singer 

I liked Ruth's  work much more in  reality than  in the photos ( mainly because I've got a bit of  a thing at the moment about  the seams remaining in old disintegrating quilts  ) The shadows it cast were intriguing too.  I went to a talk of her work on criminal quilts at FoQ   last year so it was great to see her gallery of thought provoking work  on show.  

Olga Gonzalez-Angula

 The work that had gone into  Olga's piece was mind boggling - all those different sized dots placed individually, no wonder it was worked in 'tiles'.  It had already  won major prizes.

Ann Barbara Smith 

  From the photos, Ann' s  entry  looked like a  relatively simple piece of art cloth but on closer inspection there  was a lot of hand stitch and  layering of marks. Much more interesting  than I'd imagined.

Susan Hotchkis

The work of Sue Hotchkis  always pays closer inspection- the  details, the textures, the  folds !  Photos never do them justice, it was a lovely piece.

Louise Jessup

 This depiction of Venice by fellow Oast Quilter , Louise Jessup,  was another quilt which looked so much better in the flesh than in the photos. It helped that it was  displayed on the  well -lit outer wall of the gallery  which showed off the exquisite  patterns  quilted in gold thread. It was one of those rare quilts which  draw you in from a distance then reward  you with intricate details.  Much as Ian  appreciates my artwork,  this  was his favourite, he'd have liked  to take it home and we both agree that we really must visit Venice! 

Laima Whitty (Winner 'Contemporary) 

Jean Mclean (Winner 'Art') 

It seems  that among the competition quilts, the formula for a  winning  quilt is that it be intricately machine  quilted to death with tiny stitches  and/or be photo realistic .   These  show stoppers of perfection personally leave me cold, I like rawness , meaning and  big stitches! 

 My ' Best in Show' would have been  powerful piece ' Global Harming' by Susan Sami which won  the Novice section with  layers of print and stitch representing ' an unwanted sea of faces  behind fences'   

Susan Sami ( winner 'Novice') 

  These are some of my favourites  from the Competition quilts ( apologies for  some of the photos -  first time I was using my phone rather than camera and the lighting was very poor) 

Gail Parker 

Yvonne Kervinen 

Suzette Smart 

Ana Buzzalino 

Marion Hall

Lesley Brankin

Jane Nairn

Nicola  Perren 

Antonia Stanford

After hearing Linda Sewards excellent talk on Contemporary  and Modern Art quilters ( including what makes a 'modern'  quilt) , Ian and I had a fun half hour going round  the modern quilt section deciding  which showed these characteristics and which should have been in the Contemporary ( or even  Traditional )sections. These below are my ' Modern' favourites 

Sarah Hibbert

Hanna Farquharson (3rd Modern)

G094 (not in the catalogue )