Quilt Review 2010

 I've grouped my Journal Quilts for the year by theme rather than month. I did start off with a painted sample for my honesty quilt but  decided not to include it but  to have something that united all the pieces: indigo and/or a blue and black Japanese fabric which I also used as binding.
Only one JQ (February snow in Llangollen) uses acrylics:with exception of  'Rich as Honesty'  this year has featured a return to improvisational piecing and wonderful fabrics

But what an exception! 'Rich as Honesty' was unfinished business, making the quilt that I wanted 'Lunaria '  to be. I think it's my best yet and was recognized as such by receiving 'Highly Commended' award at Festival of Quilts.
Making 'Tunisian Door' for 'Under African Skies' exhibition at the Quilt Museum was the trigger to reconnecting with African and indigo  fabrics  and exploring their use in new ways.

Of all  my quilts this year this JQ from March 'Indigo seas' is my favourite - it's simplicity , showcasing some wonderful fabrics in a painterly way expresses the most the direction I want to take.
I'm currently setting up a website for my artwork - another new direction for the new year.

Thanks for all your comments, I wish  you all a wonderful 2011. 

Honesty Samples and Quotes

A productive day:making bread and soup, changing the sheets, ironing a heap of shirts - and finishing my honesty quilt started here. It's been through almost as many transformations as my numerous samples, toiles and trials. I like to take photographs as I go along, partly to document process and make decisions, partly to identify the point I go astray! Of the 4 different stages this sample went through I quite like the final product above but version 3 had more going for it. Should know by now not to fiddle!



Time to think about the next project - Tunisian Doors in African fabrics. The turquoise palette is now expanded further than when I took this photo thanks to Magie's latest trip to Ghana!
While looking for a title for my quilt, I found an interesting selection of quotes about honesty:
" The elegance of honesty needs no adornment"
"The true measure of life is not length but honesty"
"Where is there dignity unless there is honesty"
The wierdest: "Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence"

Winter Landscapes-Purple Haze

In this weeks drawing class we were continuing our explorations in line and colour, this time applied to a picture of our own choice. I'd enjoyed copying the field patterns of Victor Pasmore last week so I chose a photo taken on our walks in Llangollen. W e were using A3 sized pieces of canvas - I struggle a bit with this small size but have to be realistic in a 2 hour lesson! I found the best brush for the stubble was one the knackered school ones ( something to add the the shopping list?)
Taking the photo of the painting this morning I noticed the colour palette was almost identical to the study piece I did for my current 'Honesty' project ( I'm writing this waiting impatiently for the delivery of an A1 drawing board so I can crack on with painting the quilt)
One of the best tips about painting from my class was to put a dilute wash of one colour over the whole canvas to both hide the white and also to unite all the elements. Surprise , surprise I used a wash of violet but then I see purple in everything!

Some more photos from our walk along the canal , cold and snowy but bright.



We turned back as the sun was going - you can just see the Pontcysyllte Aquaduct in the distance top left. Two days later we walked along the roads , approaching the aquaduct from the river

Honesty Revisited

With the arrival of a wonderful book on the paintings of Ian McKeever, time to limber up with a few watercolour sketches of honesty seedheads, thinking of the next quilt.
I've already got one layer of it, printed on 16 sheets of silk organza, which I'd decided not to use for my last honesty quilt.
What I'm aiming for this time is on the lines of this journal quilt where the stitched shapes of seedheads below add texture to the surface painting.
So 2 experiments of printed organza ( with different scale images ) stitched to gessoed old Durham quilt, background organza removed and then floating seedheads painted with acrylics.
This is a piece of more heavily quilted sateen Durham quilt
I wasn't sure whether to leave the white or paint the background so as it's experimental , decided to go for it. Well at least I now know what NOT to do!
This is on the very old tatty durham quilt I used to have as a door curtain

Much better results although in my rush to attach the organza I didn't rinse it and the excess ink was released on painting. Lesson learnt. Again, I'm not sure about leaving the white, I think it might distract from the large ovals which I want to be the focal point. Although I don't think the pale grey I tried in one area is quite right either. Suggestions?

I'm glad I tried 2 different pieces of Durham Quilt - I thought I would prefer the 'newer' one but it's too densely quilted and a more open weave for this project. Time to gesso a large piece of quilt and get stuck in!

Lunaria (Pearlessence)

Now I've collected my quilt from the Festival of Quilts, I'll describe part of the process of making it. The theme was Pearl Essence and I based it on honesty seed pods collected from the garden. I'd already explored possibilities of using pearlescent paint for this subject in journal quilts last year and for this piece I used Photoshop to try out different scenarios of layers and level of opacity. My rather ambitious idea was to have very large floating seed cases as a top layer with 2 layers beneath to give detailed texture -it didn't quite work out like that and in the end this quilt is a compromise but I enjoyed the huge amount of problem solving along the way and reasonably pleased with the results.

'Lunaria' Finished quilt

Stage 1

The basal layer of the quilt is composed of a large pieced section of greys I made several years ago while demonstrating 'chop and swap' block construction.The section above this is an image of honesty printed on on 4 sheets of treated cotton in 2x 2 'poster' printing mode, then sown together. The wonderfully appropriate batiks are commercial ones . The main vase is a Japanese textured fabric applied then the fabric behind cut out. The quilt was then layered with wadding and backing and quilted with Madeira FS metallic thread ('tigerseye') including extending the branches and stems into the vase area. Then using liquitex iridescent medium and cream acrylic paint I painted all the individual honesty seed heads. I decided 2 more vases were needed -these were painted with Golden micaceous iron oxide to give the effect of pewter. Lots of hand seeding with 'mystique' cotton perle thread (from Out of Africa) was added.

People always want to know 'how long did it take'. Well I got to this stage in May having started in January. Then I was stuck. I could have entered it as it was but it was too safe and conventional - I wanted to push it further but how?

Layer 2 Trial

I'd printed out an image of honesty on 16 sheets of treated organza using 4 x 4 poster printing mode. At this scale the image is a bit pixelly but as ink bleeds on organza anyway this did not worry me too much. I tried it out by pinning some of the sheets and also using various Photoshop manipulations and came to the conclusion that I could use either this second organza layer or a third paint layer but not both. As the theme was pearlessence (and I'd already sent it the quilt description!) I went for the 3rd layer .
The idea of launching directly into a painted top layer with no chance of alteration was too scary even for me so compromised on cutting out seed pod shapes in organza and moving them around. I tried a variety of sizes and Photoshop image manipulations but they looked too blobby!

Back to the drawing board

In the end I went back to the old fashioned method with tracing paper- printing out a photo
of stage 1 and with the vase of honesty in front of me drawing the shapes mainly using the existing stems on the quilts to connect them. There's nothing like direct observation especially as it had been several months since I'd first sketched them. Using this as the basis I cut out seed head shapes in organza and stitched these on by machine( 3 rows then cutting back the excess)
I then painted most of these with pearlescent and Golden interference (fine) paints. And with deadlines looming, squared it up and put the facing binding on.
By the time I was packing it up to post (and making a bag to put it in ) I was feeling pretty ropey - the start of Swine Flu

Proud Creator

It's always an interesting process scaling up. It ended up being more pictorial and less abstract than I'd originally intended , the biggest compromise being the size of those top seed cases - I would really have preferred them much larger but without a mid layer there would have been no connection to what was beneath. I intend to use that abandoned mid layer (it was a lot of work! ) as the basis of another piece - and paint those large ovals on top.

Despite neglecting to put a flap over the label it was judged. Mostly a mixture of good and satisfactory with excellent for surface design and originality from 2 out of 3 of the judges.
and mainly positive comments. What hacked me off a bit was that it was marked as only satisfactory in fulfilling the theme.What did they want - obvious pearls?? Given the winner that is exactly what they were looking for ..... For a variety of reasons I'm not sure I'll be entering the Quilters Guild Challenge again.