Next Colour: Drum please... Is is a pool? Is it the sky? Is it the sea? Maybe....

Heads up

The next colour will be chosen by Helena.

Michele's first solo show!

On Saturday, Michele's first solo show, "Below the Surface", opened at the Rigaud Library. This relatively new building has a small gallery, and a terrace that overlooks a pretty river valley.

Work from several of Michele's recent series is on display, perhaps forty pieces in all. It is satisfying to see so many of her pieces in a gallery setting, nicely lit and thoughtfully organized. Many of the works were framed, and others were mounted on gallery canvas. Michele had some large, colourful banners printed out, using one of her images for the background, and hung prominently to alert visitors. She also had some small books custom-printed, filled with her images, and this gave a really professional look to the display.

The opening was very well attended, and at least one of the larger pieces was sold. Helena, Colleen and I stopped by to represent both text'art and 12 by the dozen.

Congratulations, Michele, and fingers crossed for lots more sales! The show continues until September 26.

Greetings from France!

   Hello, and thank you for asking me to join you. I only hope I can produce work as good as that I have seen on the site, though don't expect too much of me on the first challenge, though I'll try my best! I'm originally from the north-west of England, but have been living in France now for 20 years.I live in a small town in the southern Paris suburbs, just 25 minutes by train from Notre-Dame. Hilary asked me to say how long I'd been quilting, but I'm not quite sure how to answer that. Do I  count the 'quilt' I made when I was 17? Probably not  as it was made of paper pieced squares which did not fit together because I had no idea that  accuracy was important. I'm not sure that using a broderie anglaise fabric that I found in my scrapbag was a good idea either. Twenty years later it was an american friend here in France who introduced me to the american method of patchwork, and I was hooked, learning  to do the quilting at ' Le Rouvray', patchwork shop in Paris. I made a few traditional quilts, but I have always been interested in textiles, having tried my hand at knitting, crochet, bobbin lacemaking and embroidery, and even though I like traditional quilts I quickly became interested in more contemporary work. I'm looking forward to the challenges and hoping to make more progress.

A new chapter opens

It is sad that Venetta's health and other pressures on her time have made it impossible for her to keep up with the challenges.  She is building a new house (very stressful) and has a first grandchild (absolutely fantastic) and is still getting over all her health issues.  Venetta, we have so enjoyed your time with us and value all your contributions.  They have enriched our group and your warmth and generosity to us when some of us visited Houston is legendary!  We genuinely will miss you and your creativity.  Please stay in touch and let us know how you are getting on - it will be appreciated.

So, we have a new member - Jinnie Robison who lives in Paris.  I will leave her to introduce herself but she is a great sport because when I cheekily suggested she might like to try to join in the grey challenge - she has risen to the challenge!!!  What a sport.  No pressure Jinnie.

Welcome to the group.  Hope you feel part of us in no time at all.

Hilary

Festival of Quilts 2014

A quick post (I leave for a few days away in Norfolk in a couple of hours time) to say that the FOQ at Birmingham this year was very enjoyable, hopefully for all.  Hilary, Phil myself and Linda B managed to meet up on Friday after the show for a nice long chat, though sadly we failed to take any pictures of us all together.  Our Canadian friends were greatly missed!

Hilary was busy as always, and I never knew which stand I would find her working on next, whilst Linda B was a stalwart of the main Guild standard, welcoming people and getting them to join the guild.  I treated myself to a three day course with Leslie Morgan (of Committed to Cloth, or C2C) on screen printing and dyeing - no results to show yet, I won't have time to wash them until after my trip to Norfolk.

I had two quilts in the show, neither of which won anything, but both had nice judges comments!

Here's "Balancing Act", started in a workshop with Philippa Naylor last September.  I shall post a picture of "Mistress Mary" when I get back (and have downloaded all my photos of the show).

For no special reason...

... I am sharing this recent post from Mirka Knaster's blog. I follow her and find her writing insightful. This latest post is about Perfectionism as it relates to art and artists. Perhaps because of my recent experience in a beginners' watercolour class, it really resonated with me. I hope you enjoy it.

http://exploringtheheartofit.weebly.com/

Getting excited. And a teaser

In just a couple of days I'll be setting off for our major quilting event in the UK - the Festival of Quilts. There'll be plenty of quilts to see, galleries to view and shopping opportunities but what I look forward to the most is meeting old friends and making new ones. I'm delighted to hear that Phil is coming over again so there will be four of meeting up at some point over the Festival.

In the meantime I offer you my inspiration for my grey piece. Gorgeous though the building is, it's the contents that inspired my work.

 

Arts Hudson

There is such a nice article in the Arts Hudson magazine that I thought you might all want to take a look at it.  It's a lovely write-up with pictures about Heather and her work.

zhttp://artshudson.org./1406/artistdubreuil1406.shtml

Improve It or Wreck It

Some of you may know that Dianne and I signed up to Jane Dunnewold's online Artist Strength Training course.  It has just finished.  One of the assignments was to take an existing piece of work and either improve it or wreck by moving it forward.

I chose a piece I had done years ago as an exercise in a course with June Barnes and Leslie Morgan. It is based on spiral staircases, balustrades, curves, etc.  The funny blurs of yellow and green are supposed to be propeller moving up and down (groan!).

I have long wanted to add paint to a quilt so I thought this is it.  My chance to have a go.

 First I painted black acrylic with a paint brush.

Then I created a mono print echoing the curved lines in the ochre paint.  I loved the way the original quilted lines stood out together with the mono printed lines.  So far so good but I felt this was only part way there. It had no focus.

Going back to the original curves and circles I thought to add some on top.  The white circle was too stark so I added some little green stamped circles - too insignificant.  So I painted some of them in - still too stark and while the large O has some relationship to the lines the little circles do not.

As a last resort I ironed black Misty fuse over the top - bad move!  This idea is going nowhere.

Finally I cut holes in the quilt and satin stitched the edges.  I then stitched out little vignettes repeating the circles and curved lines on sheer organza and have attached them behind the holes.  

Strangely this project has reflected quite accurately where I was all those years ago, quite traditional, and where I am today - far more contemporary and interested in incorporating embroidery and paint into my work.

I am delighted with the piece; I don't feel I have wrecked it.  It may not be a master piece but I had a LOT of fun doing it.

Hilary

PS  I am working on my grey challenge - promise!  It is a Challenge - with a capital C.

Dis-lo-ca-tion [Noun} - detail

There were two thermofax screens from different dictionaries.  The images overlap and blur I'm afraid - words too small?  I also didn't want them to fight for attention.  Yours truly is not very good at screen printing and using four colours and two screens meant I lost control of getting the screens evenly spread across the fabric.  Typical!
Straight parallel vertical lines of quilting - I felt that anything else would distract from the words.

Thanks for kind words,

Hilary

News update

I have just heard that my piece, Dis-lo-ca-tion [Noun], has been juried into the Contemporary Quilt exhibition at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK, this year.  This year's inspiration was the word Dislocation.  At first all I could think of were dislocated shoulders and refugees.  Then I remembered the research by Cambridge University into the fact that no matter what order the letters in a word were as long as the first and last were in the right place our brains can read the text.  This seemed to fill the definition of something 'being out of place'.  It was a long journey from the concept to the final quilt being photographed!

Dis-lo-ca-tion [Noun]

My first thought was to free machine the outlines of the letters and fill in the outline with paint. Then I realised the letters would be only 1" high and I am not steady enough to do it well.   I had considered using my embroidery unit but it is tricky lining up different hoopings and there would have been many in this piece.  I thought about stencils and stamps but couldn't find any the right size.  Then a friend offered to use her new Silhouette Cameo digital cutting machine to cut them out or me!  These machines take your original design data from a computer and convert it into cutting lines.  You can then feed in sheets of fabric which the blade will cut. This seemed like a gift from heaven.  I sent her a sample sheet of fabric with Heat 'n Bond Ultra fused on the back and it came back perfect!  Off went all the different coloured fabric sheets only to come back with lots of thread whiskers.  Poor Jan, it's a new machine and unfortunately I don't live close enough to be able to pop over and work through the problem.  I do believe these machines have potential.

So, in the end I bit the bullet and paid to have them laser cut.  I have to say it isn't cheap but you get a brilliant result.  The firm I dealt with up in Scotland are used to dealing with fashion and fabrics and they were excellent at every step of the way.

The background has been screen printed with dictionary definitions of the word Dislocation.

What I found surprising was how hard it was to spell words incorrectly and because of this I actually 'misspellt' three words by leaving letters out!

This isn't a major piece of work and it certainly doesn't have any 'wow' factor but I hope it will keep visitors amused (much as my Straplines did last year).  It measures 120cm x 50cm (48" x 20").

Hilary

PS  Because I made a pig's ear of the facing by getting the quilt front off-centre, I was reduced to having to satin stitch around the edge and chamfer the corners because I trimmed the seam allowances before checking.  Big Mistake!