Cwilt Cymru Exhibitions in Swansea and Llanidloes

Nautical  Dawn         Red Flotsam 

 There's still time  to see  2 exhibitions  by Cwilt   Cymru  at Swansea  Museum  as part of Swansea Festival of Stitch  and    Minerva Arts Centre  in Llanidloes

 At Swansea  we're  showing work  from 2 collections : ' Connection'  and 'Traces/Olion' . The 2  red quilts I have  there  are actually the 2 pieces I made from same old quilt  as my  Connection pieces , it's great to  show them  together for the first time.

Hidden Fractures 

  From the ' Traces/Olion'  collection ,  the 2 indigo pieces incorporating  a sheer layer of indigo shibori   were selected to show. These don't photograph well  ( as I described here)  but  when they were  displayed  at  Stockport, they proved very popular  with viewers.

Indigo Ripples

  Indigo  also features  in one of my 'Cynefin' quilts   at Minerva  as  part of 'Welsh Connections'  ( short film here)

 Voice of the Waters

 Gifts to the Gods

 My other 'Cynfin' quilt ' Gifts to the Gods'  is  one of a series  based on losing my wedding rings on Catfield Fen! 

Quilts on Display this Weekend

 

  This weekend I will have  at least 10 of my quilts on show at  2 different venues within Europe!
International Threads  ' Challenges' will be  in Munich  from 11.11 to 3.12.  Besides the 7 that have already toured  to several shows  I sent 2  new ones to Uta last week  which have arrived safely and will be used to refresh the collection and retire some pieces.   

'Signs and Symbols'

 'Green'

 

Then at the West Country Quilt and Textile Show  in Bristol, Cwilt  Cymru's exhibition on the theme 'Cynefin'    will be shown for the first time . Ian and I are travelling there on Saturday to help steward. And if that wasn't enough, my quilt 'Eroding Margins'  ( below)   will also be there as part of CQ 'On The Edge'  exhibition.  I've not been before but it looks like  it should be an interesting show,  with contemporary quilts well represented.  

All 5 of the quilts shown above were made this year - pretty good going considering   our move and Ian's op .

Green Quilts: I think I've Done Now.

'Lost in the Reeds

 Yesterday I finished my quilt on the theme of 'Green'  for International Threads  exhibiting group.  I think this  is the final piece in a fabric journey starting in 2003  with a weeks class in France at 'La Maison du Patchwork' near  Limoge with Alison Schwabe

It was a challenging  time for me - I'd just started on anti- depressants   and was finding it   difficult to adjust but being fed and watered in lovely surrounding with expert tuition from Alison was just what I needed. She taught  us a variety of piecing and design techniques - I still use her method of curved piecing and inserting strips  slightly adapted to incorporate those used by Charlotte Yde on a later workshop. I'd brought masses of green fabrics with the idea of making a double sized quilt and made  loads of blocks which I'd started to join together with Alison's help. I completed the top on my return  and layered it with wadding ready to quilt - then left it untouched until 2015!

 Grass Clippings at FoQ 2004

I did however get very excited and inspired by all the scraps left over from cutting down the blocks  and made 2  small quilts ' Grass Clippings' and 'Grass Cuttings'  . The first was accepted for   CQ  exhibition at the fabulous Nature in Art museum near Gloucester  and subsequently in a white gallery space at festival of quilts 2004( above) .  In 2006 it went on its travels to Japan when I went with Susan Briscoe along with 'Serifos Storm' my first indigo piece.

Grass Clippings in Japan 2006

Grass Cuttings  at work

When I changed desks at work and had space to display a quilt, I chose 'grass cuttings' as being appropriate - it was much admired and prompted conversations about what I was doing with textiles as well as plants.
When a colleague had his first child I had great fun making a baby quilt using the 'lego' piecing technique.  His second child arrived after I'd left Kew  last year and with most of my things in storage/packed up  as we were about to move  I wanted to do something that wouldn't require too much work. So  deciding that after 12 years I was unlikely to quilt my double green quilt, I   removed the wadding and backing ,  partially picked apart and reassembled a section of the top and quilted it - a suitable quilt for a botanists child!

Samuel's Quilt

I still had two-thirds of the quilt left and  for  Cwilt Cymru's  next exhibition 'Cynefin ' ( roughly translated as a sense of place, of belonging) I wanted to commemorate losing my wedding and engagement rings on Catfield Fen! Lots of cutting apart and reassembling  and insertion of strips of Jo Lovelocks dyed fabric as well as some photos printed on fabric of the Fen Orchid and its habitat.

Catfield Fen: Gifts to The Gods

For the theme 'Green' for International Threads, it seemed appropriate to use up what was left and try some slightly different ideas out for 'Lost in the Reeds' (below)

Besides using scraps for the Grass Cuttings/Clippings  quilts, I've made several Journal quilts /samples over the years

JQ  June 2003

JQ  September 2015

Gifts to the Gods Sample

Postcards

I've recently been posting postcards on Facebook 'sketchbooks and experiments for textiles 'group, zig-zagging together offcuts  when cutting  quilts down to size. I love playing with scraps! I still have a few bit left of blocks and trimmings  but I think I'm done with green now!

British Museum Drawing from the Collections

 I spent a most stimulating Sunday afternoon at the British Museum ' Drawing from the collections'

 We were drawing the Nereids of the  Nereid Monument in Room 17, the tutor Anna Saunders explaining a bit about their history and significance. I've actually been to the site in Turkey where they came from ( allegedly the Turkish Government asked they be returned  as they needed the Mediterranean behind them so the BM painted the walls blue...)   She then took  us through various exercises on capturing form and fluidity. We started with mark -making and then a couple of continuous line drawings ( which always to me are often livelier than finished work)

   We then looked at  trying to outline the underlying body structure  in the form of basic 'sausages'

 Then we started clothing her  with the folds of fabric

 Finally adding tone to emphasis the solidity

Anna was an excellent tutor,  with lots of samples at different stages , giving  encouragement and advice on an individual basis (eg identifying areas that weren't quite right and how to correct them) Looking forward to  Power and Presence in Papua New Guinea next Sunday!

 Although the museum was very busy, the  Members  Room was quieter than I've seen it and managed to get a seat for lunch overlooking the Great Court. Returned there with Janet Beck  ( from 'Drawing  Tuesdays') for coffee and cake afterwards, how civilised!

Meanwhile, following yet another configuration of my studio, I'm making good progress quilting my second Cwilt Cymru  'Cynefin' quilt, rewarding myself with lunch at Macknades  and an exhilarating bike ride in the sun. 



Seeing Double - Studio update

 On  Monday, took delivery of my second Sewezi table so that I can use both my Pfaff Grandquilter and Bernina activa 125 at the same time ( the Pfaff is particularly heavy to move around) I also had them both serviced, they're positively purring now.

 Apart from the 5 sets of plastic shelves for  fabrics, paints and equipment, on Sunday we put together a bookcase for my folders and sketchbooks ( just need to find them now among all the sealed book boxes...)

Now I need to find a source of the interlocking polystyrene insulation boards I like for design walls - I had to chuck my existing ones when we moved ( they already were so worn they had no corners!) Large flattened cardboard boxes aren't so effective once they've been used.
 My first Cwilt Cymru 'cynefin' quilt is finished bar the label, just 2 weeks to complete the second.

Reconnecting with Plants: inspiration for Cynefin

It's taken me a few days to recover from my  field course in Shropshire on 'Using A Flora' - enjoyable though it was, it was very intensive and  the bunk bed was not conducive to a good nights sleep. 

 I travelled up a day  early , staying overnight at the Premier Inn to avoid having to travel across London during the tube strike  so  I had a free day in Shrewsbury to  wander around and take a very leisurely boat cruise  on the River Severn( even the joggers went faster!)

 As I'd been in a bit of a rush leaving, I'd  had no time to  pick up my current stitching project - perfect excuse to visit Watson and Thornton, an absolute gem of a fabric shop.  Besides some muslin for my  'eco dyeing' course at FoQ in a few weeks, I got some lovely cream boiled wool fabric perfect for hand stitching a journal quilt  inspired by CQ Summer School - they even cut  a piece to size  off  the metre I'd bought.   Although I didn't get a chance to do any sewing until the train journey home.

 The course  was a mixture of classroom  tuition and exercises , putting it all into practice in 3 trips out to various   nature reserves in the area. Some of it was revision but a lot of it was new to me   ( like the differences in structures  between daisies, dandelions and thistles, below) and I feel far more confident using  the 'Stace' I  received as a leaving present, thanks to tutor Mark.

 The first site  at Colemere, I was very hot and bothered despite retreating to the woods  but it was pleasanter at Snailbeach  ( below) before  it started to drizzle and we headed back for cake.

This photo I have in mind  as the basis for my first Cwilt Cymru  ' Cynefin' piece  on being back in my habitat among grasslands - it was awash with the white of  ox-eye daisies and the purple of knapweed ( the photo at the top of  this post  with burnet moth was taken there)

But  my favourite by far was the final site on Sunday at Llanymynech. Half in Shropshire, half in Montgomeryshire, Wales, apart from the spectacular cliff faces, the variety of limestone plants  was just magic.

 I wonder about incorporating the shapes of these metal figures of miners  into my Cynefin piece?

There were large stands of Pyramidal, Common spotted and Fragrant orchids as well as the odd bee orchid in the longer grass and then spent a couple of  hours on the bench overlooking the panoramic view , keying out milkwort (a favourite from my survey days and one I spotted on Portland) ) and rockrose. 

 However  when it  came to the 2 hour test , part of the assessment  to gain credits for  University Certificate, I had a panic attack, not allowing enough time to  complete it properly. I also realised when I got home that I would be very hard pushed to  complete the 2nd assignment  in time ( collecting and identifying 10 plants and constructing dichotomous  key).
The combination of selling  our house, coming to terms with redundancy from Kew and  flare-up of arthritis  is taking its toll  in terms of stress levels  and being unable to give the time  and commitment  needed to complete assignments, I made the difficult decision to withdraw from the UCert  course.  Everyone concerned was very understanding.
Next year  once we've moved  I still intend to do some more field courses to add to my botanical knowledge/experience but without the  stress of exams and assignments.