Festival of Quilts

I went to the Festival of Quilts this year and barely managed not to touch the quilts: The textures were so exciting, though!

Here are some images from the competition they ran. I'll also upload a blog about my chevron quilt. Only the bias binding to go and I got some great wadding tips from the festival too. Thank goodness for Doughty's!

Look closely at this image of a bicycle. It's a lovely example of strip quilting and what you can do with quilts when a group of people comes together!

Tudor painting

It's been a little while since my last post so I thought I'd check in. I've been experimenting a bit recently and knitting fingerless gloves but here's what I've been up to paint-wise... 

Practical Tudor painting

My seasonal part-time job involves Tudor living so I've been playing with Tudor paint-styles and skills at the moment. I have found some information about how to make Tudor paint but it's still a work in progress.I will upload some photos/videos of how I'm getting on as I go along. 

Paint pigments 

Charcoal (vine black/lamp black ) = black (add to oil)

Goldenrod/Ochre = yellow (add to chalk+water)

Woad = blue

Rhubarb leaves/madder = red/orange

Silver/Gold leaf for decoration

I've already mixed woad/vine black and oil to make a good ink but I need to play with it a bit more before I use it on my good linen fabric. The next step is then finding rabbit glue to use as a binding.

Interesting links

Tudor Monastery Farm have uploaded a video: How to make Tudor paint.
I also found some great info on YouTube of: how to make a paintbrush out of a feather . 

If anyone knows a good link to info about the practicalities of Tudor painting, please feel free to comment on this post and I'll get back to you!

St. Clement's quilt - That niggling project

My unfinished object. I also have a waistcoat which is unfinished but I'm going swimming with the Scouts tonight so it'll have to wait 'til Sunday! Please enjoy these pictures of my progress. They're laughing at me. It's so close! 

Southbank public art

Capturing some brilliant public artwork whilst visiting London's South Bank.

Blog posted on Wordpress - 17.12.2014

Richard Long Pre-preview at New Art Gallery Walsall

Richard Long (copyright Tate)

I felt very special going to the Richard Long Pre-Preview at The New Art Gallery Walsall. The Exhibition Spaces and The Fourth Floor now have Richard Long installations and images which are really cool.

His big installation is very playful - The walls are painted black and white diagonal steps. The artist has basically taken mud (from his home) and brought it to the gallery and smeared it all over the black wall. The spatter from the mud skips down the white part of the wall. He mentioned how the painting is an autobiography of himself, his gestures and that was evident in the way the marks were very similar because the way he moves is the way he moves - his physical signature.

There is another mud painting which was, 'made for a contemporary art exhibition and auction sale in aid of African famine victims. The project was called ‘New Art New World.’ This piece makes me imagine Richard Long physically getting his feet all muddy and making the shape of Africa on a piece of paper. The action of that is very playful.

Africa Footprints 1986 by Richard Long born 1945 (Copyright Tate)

I went to see an Tim Johnson exhibition at the IKON a few months back and a painting called 'Walk On' (see Image) includes the footprints of Tim Johnson's children like they've just walked all over the canvas. I really want to do that - I may have to do that soon!

The main ideas behind Richard Long's work are about wayfaring and being in the moment. He also said that, when his works are photographed the isolation of the place and the fact that it might be 20 years ago or thousands of miles away is interesting. His work is made in isolation and then, if it's good enough, he shares it. And even after a thousand years have past, the rocks he uses in his Artwork might still be there, even if they are no longer considered to be Art.

In relation to his Textworks, Long mentioned that he goes on walks and there is some work he does which involves looking at things - for e.g. he notes down the first time he sees a fox or an owl. He has then returned to that place and seen how the walk is different than before. I will try and find the link for a journal I read called 'Lines' which discussed Wayfaring which I think might relate to this. He also mentions how he had always wanted to be an Artist. Even when he wanted to be an Ornithologist (when he was young) the way he communicated that was through pictures of birds.

One last thought is that I thought it was funny that he said that Tribesmen would come up to him and look at what he was doing but not be very interested because they might not realise he was "making Art." I thought it was interesting, for lack of a better word, to think about what they would consider Art to be and why it would be attractive to them, from a different cultural perspective.

Blog posted on Wordpress - 17.12. 2014

PART TWO: Chevron style St. Clement's quilt

It has taken a little while to get this blog up, although I had the pictures up! My diary has been full of exciting projects and ideas that I'm developing this year. 

TRIANGLE ARRANGEMENT

N.B.TAKE A PHOTO OF YOUR TRIANGLE ARRANGEMENT AS A REFERENCE POINT!

Here's a photo of my triangles all arranged - Is what I would say if I had taken such a picture! (see note)

Note: MAKE SURE YOU TAKE A PHOTO OF THE OVERALL QUILT YOU WILL BE MAKING ONCE YOU HAVE ARRANGED THE TRIANGLES!

It is really annoying if, say, you knock the pile of triangles over and can't remember the order - I can testify to this. Although, I did figure out what happened eventually it is an hour of my life I cannot get back!! So, pin a note to say which column it is and if it is top/bottom.

Having laid out all the triangles together to see how they will go together, I pinned them and made sure it was marked where I needed to sew, so that the right yellow/orange triangles were attached to the right part of the orange/yellow triangles. 

Image of most of my triangles nicely pinned in the correct order. 

MAKING SQUARES

Part 1: I pinned each set of 2 triangles together

Part 2: I sewed each set of 2 triangles together, with a double stitch at either end. This makes a square.

N.B. Yay! It's time to iron those brilliant seams!

You've made a square! - now to make rectangles... 

MAKING RECTANGLES

Having checked that the triangles are oriented as I want them I pinned the right-hand, vertical edge (which at the moment is the horizontal top edge). Turn your head left a bit - that's it! This secures my fabric for sewing. 

 

After you've sewn the 2 squares together they become a nice rectangle. 

Note: The thinner fabric (yellow, stripey polycotton) was a bit resistant to my sewing machine whereas the 100% was quite sturdy. I decided, therefore, not to doublestitch the yellow stripey+yellow stripey triangles at the ends because then I could stretch out the stitches where it bunched up a bit. In the end the horizontal sewing will reinforce it, when I sew all the rectangles together so it doesn't matter so much that I didn't double-stitch.

BEFORE YOU DO THE NEXT BIT 

Lay out all your rectangles and double-check the overall design. Are the yellows where they should be?, the orange triangles too?

Go on, iron all those seams as well. You know you want to! It'll all look so flat and perfect once you're done ironing!

SEWING DOWN THE COLUMNS 

You must now match up the vertical seam down the middle of the first top rectangle to the vertical seam of the rectangle below. 

- Pin the 2 top fabric squares together 

- When you do this, pin the 2 right sides (the side you want people to see), together.

- Check that when you flip the rectangles open (to see how great your sewing looks) you get the chevron as it looked in your arrangement - or at least as on the line as you can (check that beautiful picture of all the wonderfully arranged triangles from before!). 

n.b. You may want to tack the seam first to make sure depending on how confident you are.  

Close up of the seams all pinned up and good to go. Hello there seams!

Full view - I pinned all my squares ready to be sewn up. I also pinned
them together so that I didn't knock them all apart by accident! 

Then do the same for the next 5 seams.
If the chevron-matching is up to your standards, continue with the next 4 columns. 

If not, maybe have a little sit down, a cuppa and watch an episode of Supernatural, New Girl or Family Guy - whatever makes you feel happier or better off than the characters in it.
Then go back to your quilting when you are more chilled out and it's not 1 in the morning. (Yes, you guessed it! I sometimes melodramatise sewing)

IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF CHEVRON STYLE ST. CLEMENTS QUILT: 

Our heroine sews together the columns so that they match perfectly. She then cuts the fleece and polyester wadding to the size of the quiltwork, as well as sewing the edges! She may even quilt it depending on how much coffee she has had at that point! Wow!

Plus - I coded that text to be dark green myself ... baby steps! 

Passion quilt - Art for Art's sake

Art for Art's sake is definitely going on my Passion Quilt!

Feeling the practical meaning of 'Art for Art's sake' - "so why are you making this quilt?"... Umm, because it's fun? pic.twitter.com/AuSQBPY80z
— Alex Laight (@AlexandraLaight) January 12, 2015

Sometimes you forget that you don't need permission to do what you want to do. If it's fun but you don't earn anything from it except the satisfaction of doing it then that is absolutely fine. The intrinsic value of taking time to create or do something you love is important, otherwise what are we here for?

FINGERLOOPY - My Etsy shop

I've opening my own Etsy shop. It's called Fingerloopy and I've uploaded 3 items so far.  

This is my banner, although I think I will embroider something more specific to my shop, like its name, Fingerloopy, and I'll use a better camera. Branding has to be clear on Etsy, especially regarding what I'm going to be selling, so that customers aren't confused as to what the shop is about. (Of course Monster Eyes is so transparent!)

I've got 10 eyeballs and a few braids so I'll work on getting stock up. As it's all up and running on the site, I am now focusing on getting some fantastic pictures to promote my 'eccentric objects lovingly crafted in the Midlands'. 

TUTORIALS
Although I can't find this great Etsy video I saw online about taking the perfect Etsy photo, I have this link to the Etsy blog which I have found quite useful. I just need to craft the right cardboard box into a white/styled studio with lamps for lighting.

N.B.: I pay 20p per listing and Etsy takes a certain percentage (3% I think) of the final price. I haven't the heart to read through the small print about taxes but more research to follow on that score! I don't want to end up like Starbucks. Mmm...Starbucks.