Frieda Oxenham's fantastic exhibition

Last month I was really lucky to have the opportunity to go and see my friend Frieda's solo exhibition of quilts in Peebles.  It was great.  It was a horrible day outside, but the lovely room was filled with bright, vibrant, uplifting colours.  She spends a lot of time repeating designs, playing a form of a 'what if' game, seeing what happens if you alter the colour scheme or shape of a piece.

This results in a coherent group of work, all linked by a love of colour ... and beading!  Frieda must have spent years of her life just sewing beads on to quilts as they enhance her layouts and designs.  Wow - the patience!  Frieda also has a great sense of humour and this appears in her work too.  You can see more of it at her blog.  

These photos here are some close ups of some of her works.  I've written an article about the show for Popular Patchwork, which will be appearing later this year.

Dyeing fabric

Although I have been quiet on the blog front, I have been very busy working.  My new studio is up and running and is a godsend.  Just as well for the amount of time I have been spending in it.  I have been dyeing fabric to make my principal pieces for my Festival of Quilts gallery.  I had five buckets set up in my studio and used four different colours of procion mixed together.  I know that many people want to dye precisely, but I love the random effect, so the buckets had too much fabric in and gave a great patchy effect.  I didn't have any soda ash, but our fabulous local ironmongers, McFarlanes, which has everything, had washing soda.  I had help from two of my monsters with stirring the fabric in the buckets.

I started rinsing it out my hand, but eventually just bunged it straight in the washing machine to rinse out any excess dye.  I brought a drying rack into the studio as it was raining (it rained every single day in May - we're feeling rather soggy) and got it all dried.

Of course, the downside of doing all this dyeing is all the ironing it creates.  This was the bucket of some of the fabric waiting to be pressed.

The fabric is all pressed now and I'm cutting it up to make my figures.  Having used scraps for so long, it feels rather strange to be cutting into large pieces of fabric, but I don't have enough scraps to make a 2m high person.

Favourites from the Loch Lomond Quilt Show

Leaving the Accra Quilt Show by Helen Conway

Last week was a rather busy week for me.  I visited Frieda Oxenham's fabulous exhibition in Peebles (more of this later) and also two visits to the Loch Lomond Quilt Show.  The Loch Lomond Show was a good one this year, with a huge variety of types of quilt on show.  I am currently writing about it for Popular Patchwork, but thought I would give you a flavour of some of the great quilts on show.

Schizophrenia III One in a Hundred by Jacqueline Atkinson

Gardens by Cora Ham, with small pieces inspired by it by other members of the Filanderers

Trasparenze by Alda Tosi

Digital Orchids by Ann Clayton

RICHOrchid and Dragonflies by Mairi Wheeler (left) and Singapore Botanical by Marjorie McKinven

 

A Canadian World War II Red Cross Quilt

Yo-Yo Bracelets

This is just a piece of fun.  I wanted a break from 'real' work and make something quick and easy and undemanding.  So here are two little Yo-Yo or Suffolk Puffs to use the English as opposed to American name bracelets that I made.  As you can see, my model was really cooperative!  Instructions will be appearing in Popular Patchwork sometime soon.

New York Flag Quilt

I've become a little obsessive into researching articles on old quilts at the moment. I have written a feature on feedsacks and their use in American quilting for Popular Patchwork and spent ages trying to find out more and more. I also saw a block that attracted my attention at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, which was part of the Cindy Rennel's collection. It was called New York Flag. I've been trying to find out more. I have traced it to a book published in 1976, (this was after I had drafted my own version) based on a series of quilt blocks published in an American magazine 100 years ago. I really want to find out more, but it was require a trip to the British Library in London. I'd love to do it, but honestly, I think it would be rather extravagant to travel 400 miles when I have little time or money to spare just to see if this magazine actually gives me more information, when it probably won't. How long do you think I can hold out? In the meantime, this is a little four block quilt I made using the pattern. Every now and then I like to just make something traditional, to see if I still can and so I don't lose the skills. Besides it was fun! I bought some red, white and blue fabrics in Houston, not my normal style as the white one could even be termed 'novelty', something I usually avoid like the plague, but some how they found their way into my hands and now I've used them. This must be something of a record, me using fabric within six months of buying it! I hope the instructions for this block will be appearing in Popular Patchwork once I have figured out some more of its back story.

When in doubt, ask a builder

Our building work is almost finished now and I'm really excited about moving into my new studio. I am slightly concerned by some of the logistical problems. We decided that I would move in slowly so to keep the mess under control. However, the most important thing I need is a table and I can't get either of my tables out of my current room at the moment due to boxes, piles and knitting machines...

Earlier in the week, I decided I wanted to make my own pattern block for rubbings. I found some old mountboard and was looking for some string, which, of course, is buried in the container with the contents of our old garage. However, our lovely builders came to the rescue with this wonderful thick blue string, which made a great block. I'm really pleased with the effect.

When I bought the Shiva paintstiks in Houston six months ago, I thought they were a huge extravagance for something that was fun, but that I would be unlikely to use regularly. How wrong I was! These paintstiks have been fabulous for adding the figures to my fabric and they are so easy to use.

So, whilst the rest of the country/world is celebrating the royal wedding, I am having a pleasurable day using my string block and paintstiks to add figures to some of my pieces for the Festival of Quilts. I'm certainly happy with this arrangement!

Construction: fabric style

I've got a new toy and it is very exciting! The lovely people at Pfaff have lent me a Creative 4 machine, which is a top of the range quilt and embroidery machine. It has huge possibilities, including designing my own stitches for sewing with. It also has an embroidery unit which can embroider patterns and quilting designs. What fun. Even better, VSM, who own Pfaff in the UK were able to send out one of their people, Jamie Warren, to show me how to use it. This was fantastic and Jamie was able to show me lots of tricks which will make life easier for me.

Given all these possibilities, so far I've used.... straight stitch and zig-zag! I had hoped to spend time over the Easter weekend trying lots of different stitching strategies, but I had a hideous migraine, which lasted until Sunday evening, so when I finally got down to stitching on Monday, it had to be my pieces for the Festival of Quilts, not play time.

So here is one of the three pieces which got stitched on Monday, ready to be painted. It will look totally different once it is finished. I enjoy using scraps and it is great to see the memories in lots of these pieces: there is some shibori bleached fabric, I patterned myself; the leftover lining from a dress made for my daughter; some off-cuts from the surprise quilt I made for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary and so on. I pieced it this way up, but I'm not sure which way it will be in the end: some of them have looked better at a different angle once finished! What do you think?

My only problem with the new machine is that I am left handed. I've always known that machines are right handed and this can be a bit awkward. However as they get more computerised, it gets even harder! But I will get used to it and it will improve my dexterity on my right side! And even if anyone made a left handed sewing machine now, I suspect that I am so used to right handed ones, I couldn't use it.

Grandmother's Flower Garden

One 'flower' of the Grandmother's Flower Garden design

As part of my monthly series looking at the stories behind different quilt blocks for Popular Patchwork, I decided I had to delve into hexagons and Grandmother's Flower Garden.  I like piecing over papers and have made a number of small projects over the years: particularly leaving the papers in and looking at them from the reverse.  I've made book covers and 3-D objects like vases and bowls.  So far with the Building Block series, I've resisted the temptation to make the blocks.  I've played around with them lots in EQ7 and spent obsessive hours researching on the internet, but not actually touched fabric.  However, the call of hand piecing hexagons has been too strong.  I really don't have time to start a quilt just now, uniquely for my own pleasure:  I have got an entire gallery to fill at the Festival of Quilts in less than four months and not a single piece finished, although some are well underway and it will all be ready in time.  But the siren call of the hexagons has got me and this time the aim is large... bed quilt large ... I calculated the number of hexagons required and it is almost 2,000.  It should only take me 18 months to make, but don't hold your breath!

The back of the 'flower'

How to continue making art during the school holidays

Our children's Easter holidays finished today... a week before Easter! They had two weeks off school and we have had a great home-based holiday.  There is a fabulous Science Festival on in Edinburgh, which kept them entertained for hours, full of hands-on things to try, including old fashioned photographic development.  I was really impressed by their results and desperate to have a go myself.  Unfortunately, only children were allowed.
To keep myself sane and to keep things moving with my artwork, I had to sneak in a bit of drawing when they were not looking.  These drawings were done in various parks whilst they were off jumping on and off roundabouts.  Obviously I should have been paying more attention when they went mud sliding on the grass at the Burrell Collection, but the drawing was going really well at that point...  I ended up having to buy the oldest one new trousers as we were on our way to the ballet and I didn't think that muddy jogging bottoms were appropriate.  Actually, I didn't think clean ones were either, but I'm not going to win every battle!
The ballet was Alice, a new one by Scottish Ballet in Glasgow.  I really enjoyed it.  The costumes were interesting, the set very clever and made me think about perspective and how I need to add it in my work.  The music was also very pleasant.
This weekend, I have been allowed some child-free time and have been rapidly machining another sample piece with figures and cutting a huge stencil.  I also was writing an article for Popular Patchwork on the Cindy Rennels collection of American patriotic quilts which I saw in Houston.  As it was a lovely day I was able to sit outside typing on my laptop.  Aren't they a great invention!

My exciting new studio

The inside of my new studio

... is a work in progress!  After six years of dreaming and a year of planning, work is finally well underway.  Our old garage is being converted into a studio and a new garage is being built in the front garden.  The building work should be completed in the next two to three weeks and then I need to start work on making the new room into my studio.

The view from the outside

We also need to refill the new garage with the junk that came from the old one - we have no intention of using it for the car - but bikes and cardboard boxes and the store of art work by the kids at our Saturday morning classes at ArtWorks.

The worksite with the new garage on the right

My current studio bombsite


As you can see from my embarrassing current studio photo, I really need the new one!  I am determined to keep it tidier and more organised (honest!).  Whilst I'm not the tidiest creature on earth, my studio has been out of control basically from day one as I didn't have time to organise it when we moved in (I was very pregnant with our middle child and then no.3 arrived 18 months later).  So this is a great chance.  I am so looking forward to it.  I have dreams of this lovely tidy, bright and airy studio - and I am going to move my things in slowly so it can be sorted as I go.  I'm also looking forward to what surprises I will discover in my old space as I dig deeper into the cupboards and boxes and find bits and bobs that I had forgotten about!