Christmas "gods"

For the past several Christmases I have done a small bit of seasonal appropriate hand stitching.

This is the latest to join the throng 

which includes: a slightly plaintive looking Santa

and a jolly Christmas tree

A bit kitsch I know. They are all part of a printed sheet of fabric ready to cut out and stitch together; Memories of Christmas Past, produced by Cranston Print Works. These were acquired from a Canadian quilting shop in 1986 when I was pregnant with my lovely girl. They have a right to be kitsch, they've waited a long time to come into being!!

They are joined by this little fabric angel; rather modest, slightly dumpy but with a spark of mischief in that curl of hair above her forehead. She comes from Aunt Cecil, and epitomises that dear little soul, boldly carrying her star into life.

You'll gather we don't "restyle" Christmas every year, just add to its history. They are folk hovering close by, linked by little pieces of the past which bring that soul to life in a special way at this time of year. 

I was listening to the Carols From Kings on Christmas eve and ruminating on how, in my youth and teenagehood, I sat on the floor while Mum and Ganna sat in our two sitting room chairs. Together we enjoyed those same words and gloriously resonant voices soaring in that same historic space. They have been singing in my heart for all those years. 

Seasonal music and textiles, linking loved souls in time and memory. All part of the theme of the dying and resurrection of the year each Solstice, the human need for hope expressed long before the advent of Christmas.

Quilt Planning

I am having a bit if fun planning the next quilt for my husband's next great grandson. His sister has given him a name, we're not sure it has parental approval! I won't publish it here.

I'd assembled some fabrics, including at least two from his sisters quilt, and two from their cousin's; I like to feel they have that link, even if the various parents never notice, it pleases me. 

So, blocks chosen, a design on graph paper, just the outlines, scanned into the computer

Copy and paste fills in the gaps for a printable graphic

which can then be coloured in, to plan where each fabric will be used

It's a story about a mouse on an island in a lake surrounded by woods where bears are camping. Tractors are working on the autumn harvest, and there are autumn woodlands to explore

This mockup was done by scanning in my fabrics and using the image of each to fill the shapes of each block. It gives me a better idea of how the colours will work together. Of course the real thing will be much more lively as the various fabrics respond to each other.

And here is the mouse, friend of fox, owl, rabbit and hedgehog on the other two quilts. Perhaps they will all play with each other again one day.

Absent but busy

 It really has been rather a long time since I posted, but I am still here, just been rather busy.

A dear aunt of mine, the last of my paternal aunts, died in April and, as one of two executors, but the one closest to her both geographically and emotionally, I have been dealing with her estate, which is taking some considerable time. I have still been stitching, just not had the energy to post here about what I was doing. I did have a break from this in June when I went with Stitchtopia to Indonesia for two weeks; a fascinating tour, rather spoilt by going down with Covid as soon as I got back. I am still contemplating what I thought of the trip, but will try and post in the other place once my ruminations are done.

My priorities have been twofold; first getting the stitching finished for my part in the lovely book we made to celebrate the life of Christine Chester. This was entered into the Quilt Creations Gallery at FOQ this year, where it garnered much enthusiasm and comment, including from the delightful John J Cole-Morgan of IQuilt Studio who featured it in his live feed on Facebook, calling it “one of the most stunning pieces at Festival”. Liz did us proud in talking about it, having been caught completely on the hop! You'll see a couple of brief glimpses of my finished piece, Moonflowers, as they flick through the book, but also so many of the other lovely artworks which our Studio11+ group created in Christine's memory. I also had the honour of stewarding at Christine’s retrospective gallery. It was such a pleasure to talk to folk about her work, and see how many visitors were deeply touched by the message behind her pieces. One of my favourites is this beautiful sheer image of her Dad using English Paper Piecing and fabrics she created herself using voile and paper lamination (here demonstrated by Claire Benn from whom I suspect Christine learnt the technique she made her own). Don't you just love those echoing shadows on the wall?

My second priority has been making a small floor quilt to welcome the latest great grandchild in my husband’s family. He was born on June 1st and I have just completed the finishing touches. Summer suns and little creatures to greet a summer baby, a couple drawn from his cousin's quilt to create a family link, along with a rabbit and fox to talk to, some mad cats dancing with the birds, and lions and tigers contemplating the fluttering butterflies. It will be given to his parents in late September when we are all meeting up during our annual pilgrimage to the Lakes. 

By then I will hopefully have a third quilt almost finished for his next cousin, who is due in October. What fun "senior cousin" will have with two boys to boss about; she will be just three when her brother is born. This will be the fourth in the series which started back in 2019 with a little girl who is now about to start school! How time flies.

I hope your summer has been productive too

Designing a series from scraps

After adding some more stitch to my Honouring Christine piece, I am still working with scraps of the same fabric from that original course. This next piece was a trial to see how Mistyfuse might work to hold the various scraps of fabric together on an underlying base of "harem cloth" a fine muslin cloth which Jude uses regularly. I found that layer of glue, although ultra fine, still had a tendency to catch the tread a little on its way though and make the fabric stiff, though that got less annoying the more I handled it. For some reason I think of this piece as Sea Flowers, not sure why.

I did the designing for this on a graphics programme on my iPad: in this case the free version of Sketchbook, though I'm sure other equally valid apps are about. As long as you have layers, a simple selection of brushes and the ability to pick colour you have all you need. In the screenshot below there are five different layers, the top four holding an element of the next section of stitching I was trying out - the flower to the right and the fly stitch and running stitch in the centre and top. An earlier incarnation with a more fleur-de-lys shaped flower was quickly rejected without any reverse stitching required. Then I could tack some boundaries onto the cloth and stitch away knowing that I understood where it was going.

The second bit of stitching began on harem cloth (the trilithon in the centre) I extended the design by incorporating some surroundings, using "glue stitch" to combine all the layers rather than Mistyfuse. Below I have pinned down a printed version of  my stitch design from the iPad so that I can tack the next circle (cut away from the paper) to be stitched once the paper is taken away.

And here is where this is going - Moonhenge. I am unconvinced by the stitching in the reflected moon at the base, it seems to disrupt too much so I may take that out and just add some circular running stitch. 

Both still to be bound somehow.

Such a long time ago, using Connie and Harry's sheets for fabric as I was so unsure of whether the results would be usable. There may be another piece before I finish. An accidental series.

If you are interested in the memorial book for Christine, it should be on display at the Festival of Quilts this year if it is accepted into the "Quilt Creations" category. Twenty four of us have banded together to stitch or weave a piece which exemplifies the creativity which Christine fostered in each of us at Studio 11. We had a meeting this week to review all the pages of the book prior to assembly and were thrilled at the variety and quality of each artwork. Do pay it a visit if you go to FOQ this year, and treat yourself to the Christine Chester retrospective gallery which will also be part of the show. You might catch me stewarding while you're there.

Edgelands from Prism

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to Prism’s latest exhibition “Edgelands” at the Art Pavilion, Mile End, London. My primary motivation was to see the richly embroidered, landscape inspired textiles by Kim McCormack and I was very fortunate in that she was welcoming folk to the exhibition at the desk when I arrived. She was such an interesting person to talk to and kindly indulgent of my effusive praise. I saved her works until the very end as I wanted time to focus on them. There were plenty of other artworks that caught my attention as well, as did the exhibition space. It is a wonderful, glass fronted, long curving gallery with a lake to one side which throws rippling shafts of light onto the ceiling, providing an extra sense of magic to enhance the works exhibited there.

What did I enjoy?

Sue Reddish’s masterful use of repurposed clothing to create her pieces about the liminal spaces around and beneath the two miles of the elevated Mancunian Way, which has cut across the city since the 1960s. Her tiny seed stitch in a rich orange in this piece creates a haze of colour as though the background, which I read as sky, was flowing forwards across the land.

In Judith Isaac-Lewis’s wonderful collection of "Nature Pages" botanical prints, made with plants collected from the former railway embankments at St Alban's Way, were enhanced with the most evocative embroideries. I loved each one for the way she used a small selection of stitches which spoke to the natural imagery.

Jane Riley’s tapestry, "The Fortress Cliffs" was inspired by the cliffs at Ravenscar North Yorkshire. I thought her use of differing textures of thread and eccentric weave created a real sense of standing at the edge, looking out, and expressed her hope for the continuing recovery of this space from its industrial past.

The delicate glimmering of Jill Walker's honesty seeds, suspended and swaying with every passing movement of air was beautiful to behold, and touched me deeply, reminding me of how I fell in love with these “paper pennies” as a child.

The snapshot views in Amanda’s Hislop’s five wall hangings and concertina book perfectly evoked her experience of snatched views and changing seasons while walking in farmland near her home.

Marian Jazmik’s incredibly delicate monochrome pieces using a wide variety of reclaimed materials astonished me. The amount of work it must have taken to produce them was one source of amazement, quickly followed by admiration for her inventive use of mundane objects such as zips to evoke elements of the natural world and of decay which were inspired by her own photographs.

Niki Chandler’s symphony of shining colour was a wonder to behold. Built from multiple layers of fine netting, used for dance costumes, she created a patchwork of square shapes, blending colours carefully by folding and layering her net to construct a dance of changing colour across the dark background.

Anita Bruce's linked woven hangings were inspired by the patchwork patterns of familiar farmlands as they appear on satellite images. Initially she was considering the luxuriant verges she drove past, and their contrast with the unvaried canvas of the fields. When heavy rain flooded the area those fields disappeared; a visual reversal where patches of farmland become small islands in a vast, sky reflecting, lake.

Helen MacRitchie’s pieces are meditations on the way that nature reclaims urban spaces and margins as they become more neglected. Two wall hung artworks contrasted strong green twining strands with underlying patterns evoking urban space. 

A freestanding work, suspended from the ceiling, took the contrast of these geometric and organic elements and liberated them into space where one could walk round them and consider from all angles the way nature was inserting herself into the built environment. Glimpses of the outside environment, mixed urban and natural, brought those contrasts to life.

And finally, having saved them until last, I gave myself up to enjoying Kim McCormack’s wonderful eco print embroideries, The Wet Desert, A Trail to Glenurquhart and The Rewilding. She combines so many elements and textures: silky surfaces with tactile velvets; fragments of map with the leafy shapes of eco printing; dense areas of bullion and French knots contrasted with delicate lines of stitch which connect everything together. It was such a pleasure to see them up close, to look carefully at the layering and overlaying of different elements: couched down tubes of soft wool; leafy shapes and patterns creating a counterpoint with more geometrical areas; hand stitch and machine stitch. I marveled at the many hours of planning and stitching that must have gone into making each piece. I loved the way some of the botanical prints disappeared behind the next layer, giving a sense that all was grounded in the natural world. All in all a very inspiring day out

If you would like to know more about what was exhibited there you can download the exhibition catalogue from the Prism website here. It's well worth a browse and the site also has links to all of their members

Honouring Christine

 I'm sorry for my recent silence. it has been a busy several months and I always find that winter saps my creative energy. In the intervening time I have been involved with a group of Studio 11 folk, all of whom are missing Christine, the Studio and that sense of fellowship which came with it. She truly achieved what she set out to do all those years ago.

We felt we would like to do something to honour her in some way and, after several ideas were mooted, we have fixed on creating a book in memory of her. Each of us are stitching patchworking or weaving something which embodies the creative freedom and teaching she gave us. Each piece, no larger than 8 inches each way, will be attached to a page of khadi paper: those pages will be assembled into a book in honour of her. We are entering it into the "Quilt Creations" section in Festival of Quilts this year, where it will be displayed. There should also be a link with either the retrospective gallery of her work (do come and see it if you are going to FOQ), or the Creative Textiles Studio where Christine was a regular tutor. 

Following that we have agreed that the book will be given to Christine's family as a lasting memorial to her and as an expression of our gratitude for all that she gave us.

I thought and thought about what I wanted to do. In the end I felt the most fitting tribute would be to use some of the fabrics I dyed in the very first course I did with her; "Tie Dye Mini Quilt", way back in 2012 when she first opened the studio. I had no idea what a wonderful journey she was going to encourage me in, and I have valued every minute I spent in the studio since.

I am calling this "Moonflowers" and have kept it very simple. Minimal stitching enhances what is already there, and I have so enjoyed creating this; Christine's voice in my ear encouraging me and memories of her wisdom and bright heart pulling us all forward in our creative journeys.

I hope it will be a fitting addition to this book which will enclose our creativity and be a memorial to Christine's inspiring teaching.