Summer School Retreat

I set  off for  retreat at Alston Hall with several projects - rather ambitious since it was only for the weekend! I've been on  3 CQ Summer Schools there, it's a lovely location overlooking the Ribble Valley, with comfortable accommodation and excellent food.  I brought  back  the piece above started   in a Jae Maries workshop in 2009 and was pleased to see that the rusting, lichen covered gate post that inspired it was still untouched  

Likewise the peeling paint of the glasshouse door ( that featured in my Sketchbook Project Limited Edition 'Distressed Doors')

Not doing a workshop and being responsible  for my own timetable, I was able to spend a peaceful couple of hours painting around the grounds, accompanied only by lots of  birdsong.

Like one of other Margaret's I took advantage of the scraps and trimmings brought by Sally-Ann to compose a small fabric sketch - it felt satisfying  to do something responding to the local  environment .

Mainly though I made good progress on stitching my 'Red Flotsam' piece started at Summer School last year with Jo Budd, encouraged by the positive comments from my companions and a few glasses of red wine. A productive, stimulating weekend.

Fusing and Reusing

 A most enjoyable meeting of Thames Valley Contemporary Textile Group in Bracknell on Saturday.
I haven't been since January so it was great to catch up with people. We had a  talk from Ali Mesley (CQ co-ordinator) in the morning and then spent the afternoon fusing papers with Sandy.  I'd had a good dig through stuff I had finished with for the popular 'Been there, done that' stall run by Delia but couldn't resist a bundle of her hand dyed fabric.
When I got home, I realised  the colours  were  the same as the buggy cultures I found in the broken cold store at work! Inspiration in all kinds of places. I couldn't resist taking a photo to put in my talks to MSc students to demonstrate the need for sterile technique!!

 Rather than fusing small pieces of paper together and applying to fabric, I  made tissue/handmade paper 'sandwiches' with new sketchbook project 'surfaces and stitch' in mind.

 Our BT Homehub has given up so we had an internet free weekend. Time to catch up with house hold chores, 'inkaid' some more colourcatchers, stitch into my indigo sea piece and contemplate chopping up this old red and white quilt I bought on ebay ( detail on right) . It's actually only 2 layers , the backing an interesting heavyweight homespun  twill but it's beautifully handstitched with chevrons.

 I bid for it thinking it would make a suitably distressed background for the 'stick' inspired fabrics  produced on Jo Budd workshop. I did like stitching into canvas for 'Violet Seas' but that's her technique  - rescuing and giving new life to old textiles makes it more mine.

Violet Seas

I've so enjoyed stitching this piece , I'm sorry to have finished it! 'Violet Seas' was composed from fabrics produced in CQ Summer School with Jo Budd and I wanted to have a go at stitching on canvas as she does. It's certainly easy to stitch and produced wonderful textures where the stitching alters the surface of the cloth. The downsides  include the terrible fraying of the canvas - had to tack the edge down. The main problem is  I don't know how to mount it for hanging. I wished I'd allowed more canvas so I had more to play with. I'd like to maintain the soft ragged edges of the top fabric. Any ideas? It's about 17x 17 inches.

The Grey Side of Life

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It started with turning 50 and the increasing numbers of silver hairs - as I only get my hair cut  short 3 times a year, the 'Mallen Streaks' ( remember that? ) are more becoming  prominent. Then 12 x 12 chose grey as their current colourplay theme. I've gone through grey quilt phases myself - for the series of honesty pieces but also 'winter trees' , an enlarged version of my first ever journal quilt in January 2003

In Elizabeth Barton's masterclass at FoQ and more recently Quilt University class'working in series' the importance of tonal studies was emphasised - something I'm really bad at sticking to as my love of colour means I  jump right in.

The final straw was  mixing greys from tiny dollops of primaries in Jo Budd's workshop at CQ summer school - a surprisingly absorbing occupation

 For those that asked about the pigment dyes used - they're selectasine screenprinting inks available from George Weil.  I thought at first that the acrylics I have already would do the job but  I doubt I could achieve such wonderful monoprinted marks as these without the acrylic drying too fast. (See how easily I get distracted by colour!)

So it was  with a sense of inevitability then that  I signed up for Sketchbook Project 2012  with theme ' The Grey Side of Life'.  A marked contrast to my 2010 Sketchbook ( which has just been digitised)  where I swapped the horrid Moleskine paper for colourful Khadi!!

Sometimes things come together in a surprising way and the elements from workshops and classes that stick are not necessarily the most obvious. I'm off to fish my greys out of my stash ,which is not small!

PS I can now hear properly again having had the remains of an earplug hoovered out at ENT outpatients. A bit sore and sensitive to noise, it's foam earplugs from now on!   

Packing for Summer School

Last day at work before Contemporary Quilt Summer School with Jo Budd on theme of 'Microcosm to Macrocosm. We were asked to bring an item with sufficient colour, texture and interest to work from . I instantly thought of the piece of wood I found on the Thames tow path on the way to work (and which my work colleagues were rather unimpressed with  when I came in brandishing my trophy). I've had to rethink my bag from the planned  small trundly suitcase  to large backpack  to accommodate it - see who I can demolish in the tube when turning round!

We'll be painting and dyeing so was  looking through my stash for white or plain  when I came across this wonderful piece of African damask batik which I shall sneek in my bag. I don't usually do much deying ( apart from Indigo ) although I like to use other peoples, especially when it  has the added benefit of supporting livelihoods.

Boat Friday

Inspired by my own  blogpost last week, on Friday I  left work early armed with sketching gear and walked very slowly home along the river, stopping every few metres to draw or take a photograph. I enjoyed it so much  I was determined to do more work on them over the weekend but gardening  intervened!!
At work I'm overwhelmed with urgent deadlines as we near the end of financial year and it's Friday again with nothing much creative done this week.
Boats are still on my mind having taken photographs of old watercolours from Pinmill, Mistley and Porlock Weir and especially as I'm going to Contemporary Quilt AGM  tomorrow with talk by Jo Budd - love her work and own a tiny piece. I'm also lucky enough to have a place on her workshop at CQ Summer school later in the year.

I have been working on some of the photos I took last Friday in Photoshop (exploring 'cutout' filter). Perhaps I'll leave work early and doing some playing in watercolour....