Next journal quilt

Past Present I by Gillian Cooper

After trying to play with design for my last set of four journal quilts and not enjoyed the experience, I decided for this four, I would use them to continue to explore the themes in my main body of work.

I'm not sure if that made it easier or whether I just found shades of yellow as the designated theme easier to work with than shades of red.  I did bend the yellow a little to include some yellowy brown. 
Of the four, I think this is the least successful.  I'll show you the others over the next few days.

Past Present I (detail) by Gillian Cooper

I collaged some newspaper onto fabric and then painted over the top.  I think the contrast between the black print and the yellow paint did not leave much room to allow the stitching to come to the forefront, no matter what colour I used.  However, it was a useful exercise to try and I will use the technique again, but with a darker paint!

Festival of Quilts update from The Quilters' Guild

After posting this morning that I would send a copy of the blog post about the Best in Show to the Guild, Liz Whitehouse, the Chief Executive of the Guild left a comment on the original post and left a link to an update on the Guild's website.  You can read it by clicking here.

I think it is great that the Guild has responded so quickly and it is useful to find out a bit more about how these things work.  It can seem a bit cloak and dagger when you are not involved, even if that is not the intention.

I'm still not convinced it was the best choice for the future of British quilting; I feel it was a missed opportunity. But perhaps it is now time to move the discussion away from this year's Best in Show and have a debate about how we want to showcase the best, cutting edge quilting at the premier quilt show in Europe.

Festival of Quilts Competition Update

I have been really surprised by the number of comments that were made on the post about the Best in Show at the Festival of Quilts.  It seems that I have really hit a nerve and I'm pleased that others have been willing to comment and come out into the open about it, as I was rather unsure whether I should make such comments publicly myself.

Although my initial comments were on the Best in Show, it seems there is a lot of disgruntled makers about the judging comments they have received too.  I know that the judging is subjective, but the judges were meant to have been through a judging course and some of the comments I have read, imply the judges really didn't seem to understand the category or that the criteria they were being asked to mark against were wrong.

Rather than just leave all this mouldering on the blog, I'm going to send a copy of the blog post and comments, along with the related comments on facebook to both the organisers and the Guild.  I'll let you know if I get any response.

Sun dyeing experiments

Using typical British understatement, weather-wise this summer has not been one of the best. However a few weeks ago, we had three or four days sunshine in a row. It was lovely. I got out in the garden to pick fruit and do some tidying up, whilst trying to avoid being water bombed by the children. It was only on the final day of sun that I remembered I had wanted to try out some sun dyeing of fabric.

I quickly covered some trays with cling film and got out the fabric paints. I had been musing ways of getting my figure shapes onto the fabric and in the end covered the paper figures with parcel tape to stop them soaking up the paint. As well as the figures, I added some stones.

The taped figures worked well and left a strong impression, particularly on the blue paint. I think the mottled effect on the blue is because I used freezer paper for it. I discovered I had to be careful where I placed the weighting stones so that they didn't cast shadows. The fabric now needs to be ironed to heat set the paint and then washed to remove the sand. The sand from our sand pit has got everywhere this summer and the fabric currently has a really grainy feel. 
Now I've just got decide how I use it. Any ideas?

Festival of Quilts - Part II. The competition

 

 

The Quilters' Games by The "No Name" Quilters

I've thought long and hard before writing this, as I don't like to be negative and criticise people, especially hard working volunteers who try to do the impossible job of making quilting appeal to as many makers as possible. However... I was so disappointed by the judges decision at the Festival of Quilt. According to them, the 'Best in Show' was a humorous group quilt about the quilting olympics. It was full of quilting in-jokes and emphasised stereotypes about quilters being fat middle aged women (For the record, I am neither and it would be nice not to be made to feel the exception by works like this). What this work says to non quilters is beyond me and it just doesn't give positive forward thinking vibes about the craft.  I can understand this being the viewers choice, selected by visitors, who appreciate the in-jokes and often work which stays with you long term has less instant appeal as it takes time to mull over the design and thought processes.  But Best in Show?

The best in show is picked from the winners of each category and I find it hard to comprehend how it could be considered better than the pictorial or art quilt winners, on a level of design or technical skill.

Silencis by Olga Gonzalez Angulo.  Winner of the Art Quilt Category

Graceful Dance by Janneke de Vries-Bodzinga.  Winner of the Pictorial Category
 

Obviously these are the categories that interest me the most, but just look at the the traditional winner and the miniature was technically amazing too.

Euphoria by Deborah Kemball.  Winner of the Traditional category

How can this one be the best in show? When it was announced I could have wept, especially after a similar quilt made by the same group won last year. I didn't say anything last year, but two years in a row makes me seriously consider whether I wish to be part of a Guild which considers this to be the pinnacle of quilting in Great Britain today. All the more ironic when a lot of the Guild time seems to be taken up with obsessing why they are not attracting more younger members. I don't think I need say any more!

Back to more positive posts next time.

Festival of Quilts 2012 part 1

Monsteriosity by Jan Frazer

Last weekend I spent a fantastic four days at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC, Birmingham. Each time I go there, I meet up with old friends and meet some lovely new people, which is fantastic. I was meant to be teaching, but unfortunately it had been cancelled by the organisers as not enough people had signed up. If you had signed up, I'm really sorry and I would have happily run the class with the smaller numbers of students. This meant I had four days just to wander and enjoy the show and of course chat to lots of people. As always the work on show is mixed, some galleries and art work are very exciting, others leave me wondering why I quilt!

Please, Take a Chair by Vivien Little

This year the highlight for me was the European Art Quilt gallery. Some pieces were beautiful, others had strong composition, all very thoughtful and brilliantly executed. No photography was allowed and although I bought the catalogue with a disc of images in it, I don't think I am allowed to reproduce them here. I can't wait to write about these works for Popular Patchwork.

Drawn to Fields by Marian Hall

I was allowed to take photos of the competition quilts so here are some that I liked.

Rule the Waves? by Mags Ramsay

Beach by Stephanie Redfern

Scottish Suitcase Collection by Region 16 of the Quilters' Guild



Golden Delicious by Elma Richmond

Since last posting, I’ve been curled up in a small heap trying to get over colds and dealing with all the end of term shenanigans.On a more positive note, we have also been away on our family holiday, camping in France. It took a week of the holiday for me to unwind; I find it very hard to stop and do nothing, or at least stop and do nothing and not feel guilty about it!The school holidays are now halfway and we are getting excited about our other week away to the Olympics and Legoland and a silly tour of seeing lots of friends down south.

 



Inside Maeshowe by Christine Mathewson

As R is at home today, I’ve got some time to finally write my article about the Loch Lomond Quilt Show for Popular Patchwork. Looking through my images, I found this group from the new Scottish Suitcase Collection made by Region 16 (Scotland) of the Quilters’ Guild. The brief was for all members to make an A3 sized quilt on the theme ‘Not all Tartan and Shortbread’. There were some wonderful entries and the variety of interpretations of the theme and number of different techniques used were amazing. I helped hang this part of the Loch Lomond Show and we got very distracted examining all the little quilts.

Momento Mori by Frieda Oxenham
Frieda is creating a weekly journal quilt during 2012, mainly inspired by Scottish graveyards.

 The collection is available to groups to hire. It is well worth a look.

Safe Haven by Lesley Hurrell

What Lies Beneath, Below and Under by Irene Watson-Craik
Each of the four big bugs can be lifted up to reveal other bugs underneath

A Host of Golden Daffodils by Bonnie McKerracher

ArtWorks Exhibition

 

After a fantastic year of Saturday morning kids' art classes, the term came to a close yesterday with our annual exhibition.  It is really satisfying as the tutor (as well as one of the parents!) to see all the work on display and realise just how much the children have achieved over the past year and how some of them have really blossomed artistically.

 

One of our aims is to offer the kids opportunities to try out things they may not be offered at school and so we have used lots of different materials, including clay, charcoal, collage, painting, drawing, sculpture, inks, printing, weaving, felting and stitching (can you see my textile influences coming through?)

 

The exhibition was a great success. The kids loved showing off their work to their parents and their parents were suitably impressed.  And Dawn and I as tutors were happy and ready to face doing it all again next year, which wasn't necessarily the situation at half past midnight the evening before when we were still trying to hang all the work!

 

In addition (as you know how good I am at keeping things simple for myself...), we also had some free art activities for people to try, making spinners, adding to a paper mosaic or making a kinetic foam sculpture as well as running an Art + Craft Fair.  The Art + Craft Fair was a positive addition to the day and it was fantastic to meet so many local artists and makers who had come to display their art.

 

When it was all over, I collapsed for the remainder of yesterday, but it was all worthwhile.  The local school summer holidays start on Friday and so we have no more art classes until 1 September and I have to admit, I'm looking forward to a break and not having to get up so early on a Saturday for a few weeks!  I also need to start thinking up ideas of things for us to do next year...

Saturday 16th June



Felt made by Ellen Kao

I'm currently working hard pulling together the work for our annual kids art exhibition. The children have created some brilliant work and now it is up to Dawn and I as the tutors to mould it into a great show.

This year we are also having an Art + Craft Fair at the same time. Lots of local artists and makers will be there selling their work, including me. So if you are in the Balfron area next Saturday, please do come by: it's at the McLintock Hall from 10-1. There are also some free activities to try.
Unfortunately as I will be at the exhibition, it means I can't go to the World Textile Day at Bridge of Allan, run by Magie and Bob Relph. It also looks fun. However, it does mean I'll save money as I won't be tempted by their amazing African fabrics or antique embroideries sold by John Gillow!

Creative Handbags Special

Over the last few months, I have been subbing the magazine, Creative Handbags, which goes on sale at WHSmiths on 8th June.  Having taxed my brain in working through the projects to check that they work and are understandable, I fancied having a go at making some.  Here are the three bags I made from one pattern, which really appealed to me.

The fabric for these bags is all from Ikea.  It is cheap and bright and I bought it specially for trying out bags so it doesn't matter if I mess up.  But happily, as I was following the pattern, the bags worked beautifully.  I'm quite tempted to work my way through the Creative Handbag magazine as there are so many lovely bags to choose from and I may not be into high fashion, I do love my bags!