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!

Reasons my own work has been neglected recently ... 1

I've just cut and stitched sleeves on 120 pieces of fabric for people to paint as flags on Tuesday at our village jubilee party.

Loch Lomond Quilt Show - more favourites

Liz Ferguson - Still Life with Souvenirs

Here are some of my favourites from the competition quilts at the 2012 Loch Lomond Show.  

Senga Bain - The Mermaid's Lament (Singing the Blues)

I'll be writing a review of the show for Popular Patchwork which will hopefully appear sometime over the summer.

Rosalie Furlong - White Horses

Mark Shields, Lewis Currie and Ryan Conlan - Mission Impossible - Agents

Glyn Molyneux - Good Luck Jim (this tape will destruct in 5 seconds)

Other non quilt highlights included as always the amazing home baking at West Kirk, where my children were treated to extra cakes, just because they remember them visiting as babies upwards.  Thank you ladies.  And a special thank you to Marjory McKinven and her sister Marion who were demonstrating themofax screen printing on the Saturday and let my second son have a go.   He was really proud of his efforts and it was something that his siblings haven't done, which made it even better!

Loch Lomond Quilt Show 2012 - my favourites

Irene Craik Watson (untitled)

The annual Loch Lomond Quilt Show was held last week before the sunshine arrived in Scotland. The weather was probably the worst ever for the Show (which is quite an achievement!), but it didn't matter as the quilts were beautiful as ever. These are a few of my favourites from the non-competition galleries. I'll post the competition ones in the next few days.

Irene at the top had a lovely selection of her quilts, including many featuring bugs, all beautifully embroidered on.  I know her as Irene the quilter, but apparently she has another life as a 'bug lady' (this is not a technical term!).

Cora Ham (untitled)

Cora is part of the Filanderers group.  I wrote about them recently in Popular Patchwork and work by the other four were featured, but not work by Cora.  Sorry Cora, it wasn't on purpose!

Helen Cowans - Swallows

Helen Cowans has a lovely selection of work about Goddesses, which given my current preoccupations was fascinating.  I also liked her heavily painted pieces, like this one.  Helen also has a blog, where you can follow her work.

Jane Appelbee - Turbulence

I loved the work by the former City and Guilds students, Off the Wall.  Unfortunately the lighting in their venue is awful for photography, so it doesn't show their work to the best advantage.

Ruth Higham - Greenfingers

The sun finally shone on Saturday and I nipped out to the outdoor exhibition.  Ruth is one of the organisers of the show and still she finds time to make these lovely sunny pieces.  Wow.

And now for something more successful

Waves of Time
Gillian Cooper, 2012
110 x 120cm

As well as making the journal quilts, over the past few months, I have also been making this new piece,Waves of Time.  It is quite a bit bigger than A4, just over a metre in each direction.  On the figure are lots of other little figures all embroidered on using my Pfaff Embroidery Unit.  I wanted them all to be similar, but there are deliberate subtle variations, just as we are all different.

Waves of Time (detail)
Gillian Cooper, 2012
110 x 120cm

I also kept away from regular shaped edges, as I didn't want a binding to frame the piece, I wanted it to go its own way.

I think it is more successful than the journal quilts - what do you think?

the unsuccessful journal quilt ...4

Actually, I think this is my favourite of them.  It somehow feels less sterile than the other three - perhaps due to the loopy machine quilting or that I stuck less rigidly to my prescribed shapes of rectangles, circles and triangles.

I'm glad they are finished. But I have learned lessons.  Much as I like playing with basic design, mixing that with journal quilts is not a happy combination for me! I hope the next colour is more exciting, I can't remember if it is to be blue or yellow, but either way, I can integrate it more into my main work, so hopefully it will be a more fruitful exercise!

the unsuccessful journal quilts ... 3

So having felt so-so about the first two journal quilts for the Contemporary Quilt Group Challenge, I think a sense of boredom was setting in by the time I made the third.  If I was getting bored by them, then I can't really expect anyone else to like them! 

I can't remember which colour the next group of four is meant to be, but I have definitely decided that I don't want to continue with the basic shapes - it doesn't really strike a chord for me and making a series of work away from my main work has been a distraction rather than a way of refreshing my work.  So being positive, I'm looking forward to making some new relevant work!

the unsuccessful journal quilts ... 2

I think the first one is my favourite and as I went on, they become less successful.  This is the second.

final

Originally, I designed it to be the other way up, but when I saw it lying on my table the other way up, I liked it better this way.  Which way do you think is better?

original way up



the unsuccessful journal quilt ... 1

The Contemporary Quilt Group of the Quilters' Guild has an annual journal quilt challenge.  I finally joined the group last year and decided that it would fun to take part.  After all, how much work could it be to create one small A4 sized quilt a month?  I also thought it would be fun to create something else than my main work.

The theme for this year is 'A Shade of ...' and the first four had to be 'A Shade of Red'.  As I had been thinking about composition, I decided I would just play with basic shapes and concentrate on the layout.  My scribbled drawings at one inch in size worked well but for some reason, I'm not convinced by them as A4 pieces.  I'll share the other three over the next few days.  Any ideas for improvement?

Unsung Muses to visit Bankfield in Halifax

I'm really excited to tell you that in 2013 I'm having a solo exhibition at Bankfield Museum in Halifax of my 'Unsung Muses' pieces that were at the Festival of Quilts last year. The series is being expanded and there are going to be several new wall pieces to add to the ones already made.

The other week I went to Bankfield and met with Karen Lewis, who manages the exhibitions. It was great to finally meet her after many phone and email conversations about a possible show. The space in the main temporary exhibition gallery looked perfect for my work and we also are considering some pieces in the main gallery to be seen as you walk up the grand staircase into the museum.

We also discussed the possibility of hanging complementary work from the Bankfield collection in the main gallery. It is lovely to be so involved in the overall feel of the show and I'm sure that the next 18 months until it is hanging will fly by, so I'd better get on with making these additional pieces!