Giving a talk, being part of an exhibition and finishing things

Giving a talk - table full of items to show

A few days after my last post here, I was at Pinfold giving a talk. Since around half of the group had heard me talk about my quilts already, I decided to bring along a wide range of the other bits and pieces I mess around with. You can see a selection of quilts hiding in the quilted bags sitting on the floor. The table holds books and embroideries I have made over the years, a few three dimensional items too - my fish and a couple of teddies. I think it went well. The variety and quantity seemed to surprise people.

Making print blocks

Since the talk, I have been steadily working towards getting items completed for the Pinfold exhibition which took place on Saturday. You can see a few photos of the exhibition here. I have been a member of this group for some months now, but this is the first time I have been able to exhibit with them. The first piece of work being my journal quilts. I had the final four to complete.

The first thing I needed to do was to make some print blocks.

Completed print blocks

Then, after preparing four pieces with a blue gelliplate print, I got the printing done. Different shades of green. The added squares needed to be orange.

Overprinting a gelliplate print

After leaving these pieces to dry, it was time to get on with the free machine embroidery. I really enjoy doing this, using my bright lamps to augment the light from the machine itself.

Free machine work

You can just see the orange squares which have been bondawebbed in place towards the back of this photo.

Completed journal quilts on show

I managed to get the final four JQs finished in time for the exhibition. Here they are, hanging in place. They are in date order with the top line being January, February, March and April. The middle layer are May, June, July and August. The bottom layer has September, October, November and December. These are held together with safety pins, so I really need to sort out whether to permanently link these together.

Display of Whispers challenge books.

This lovely table shows the collection of Pinfold Chinese Whisper Challenge books. My book is right at the very back with my journal detailing the challenge being the orange book beside it.

African quilt peeking around the corner - beautiful challenge quilts by Pinfold members

Pinfold is a group of very talented textile artists. I feel myself very lucky to be part of their group and am learning a lot by taking part in their challenges and being able to chat to the members about the techniques they like to use.

Giving a talk, being part of an exhibition and finishing things

Giving a talk - table full of items to show

A few days after my last post here, I was at Pinfold giving a talk. Since around half of the group had heard me talk about my quilts already, I decided to bring along a wide range of the other bits and pieces I mess around with. You can see a selection of quilts hiding in the quilted bags sitting on the floor. The table holds books and embroideries I have made over the years, a few three dimensional items too - my fish and a couple of teddies. I think it went well. The variety and quantity seemed to surprise people.

Making print blocks

Since the talk, I have been steadily working towards getting items completed for the Pinfold exhibition which took place on Saturday. You can see a few photos of the exhibition here. I have been a member of this group for some months now, but this is the first time I have been able to exhibit with them. The first piece of work being my journal quilts. I had the final four to complete.

The first thing I needed to do was to make some print blocks.

Completed print blocks

Then, after preparing four pieces with a blue gelliplate print, I got the printing done. Different shades of green. The added squares needed to be orange.

Overprinting a gelliplate print

After leaving these pieces to dry, it was time to get on with the free machine embroidery. I really enjoy doing this, using my bright lamps to augment the light from the machine itself.

Free machine work

You can just see the orange squares which have been bondawebbed in place towards the back of this photo.

Completed journal quilts on show

I managed to get the final four JQs finished in time for the exhibition. Here they are, hanging in place. They are in date order with the top line being January, February, March and April. The middle layer are May, June, July and August. The bottom layer has September, October, November and December. These are held together with safety pins, so I really need to sort out whether to permanently link these together.

Display of Whispers challenge books.

This lovely table shows the collection of Pinfold Chinese Whisper Challenge books. My book is right at the very back with my journal detailing the challenge being the orange book beside it.

African quilt peeking around the corner - beautiful challenge quilts by Pinfold members

Pinfold is a group of very talented textile artists. I feel myself very lucky to be part of their group and am learning a lot by taking part in their challenges and being able to chat to the members about the techniques they like to use.

A rather busy few days

Last week was really enjoyable and extremely busy - attending a workshop (woven cushion cover); giving a talk; giving a workshop (mixed media - focussing on texture). Oh, and I returned the quilt stands I had borrowed for the talk too. They will be needed by a group giving an exhibition very soon.

The talk seemed to go down well. I'd taken a lot of my quilts along for the audience to see and handle. They were very complimentary, which was nice.

The workshop on Friday, using the samples I showed last time worked well. We played with Lutrador and Tyvek as well as the Texture Magic samples I have already shared. I brought my heat gun along for the Lutrador samples and one of my irons used for the texture magic samples. Brenda lent me one of her irons for the Tyvek (protected by baking parchment). While my soldering iron was used for making holes in acrylic felt and some sheer fabrics I had brought along. A good time seemed to be had by all. With a lot of interest in exactly how the different materials reacted when heated. I know I learnt a lot from watching everyone else, as well as trying out a couple of ideas myself. 

The workshop on the Wednesday at Pinfold was great fun and I got quite a lot of sewing done.

Reverse of woven cushion cover

The base layer is a water soluble fabric. I drew a grid of lines over this ready for the sewing of strips. Three sets of strips have been added to the base in the photo above.

Adding the last strips

 At the time of writing this, the strips have all been sewn in place and the edging added. I have already washed the water soluble fabric out of the cushion cover and it is now drying in my airing cupboard ready for finishing. I'm hoping to get the cushion made up later this week. Tomorrow?
There are other projects partially made, like the butterfly block intended to be added over the paper collage fabric I showed last week. I haven't had time to work on these just yet, but plan to get some serious sewing done in the next few days.

Butterick 5662

At the weekend I spotted a couple of vintage sewing patterns in a charity shop and bought them. I can see myself making most of these items, including the pair of shorts. Making the trousers first might be a better plan since some trousers were rather loose fitting in the early nineties when the second photo was printed. The first pattern doesn't have a date on it, but it could easily come from the late seventies, early eighties. That waistcoat pattern could become a useful base for the patchwork waistcoat I keep thinking about making. I was challenged some years back to sew myself a patchwork waistcoat but never found the time to start one. Perhaps now is the time?

Butterick 4928

More knitting

Being away for Christmas and then going on holiday for a fortnight has meant no posts here, sadly. However, I am now back. Plans for this week include ensuring everything is ready for a talk I am giving on the 10th February and also preparing for a workshop on the 12th. I must have been mad to have agreed to it all. Still, I have always worked better when under pressure.
I did manage to complete one stitched piece yesterday. Unfortunately, I can't share it until after the 12th February. Yes, the piece is part of a challenge which finishes on that date. The group is one for whom I shall be giving the workshop. It should be fun.
After finishing the waistcoat I showed in my last post here, I started a completely different project. The knitting pattern is one found by my sister. It dates from the 1920s, and was taken from a magazine called "Woman's Outlook". The date on the cover is 14th January1928.

The sleeveless top

The photo isn't very clear about exactly what it looks like. I have now almost completed it, just needing to complete the sailor style collar which isn't clearly shown above.

The pattern's headline

The pattern uses 3ply, but I have used 4ply since I could achieve the correct tension. The yarn used is Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply in the aqua colourway. Not a cheap wool, this is pure merino, chosen since it should drape well.

Just knitting the collar

The collar, hemline and armholes are all in double moss stitch. I shall take more photos when the light is better.

It was a delightful project to take away on holiday.

Quilting, more quilting and a little knitting.

Newly completed round necked jumper

It is quite a shock to realise that, even though the last couple of weeks have been too busy for me even to attempt a post here, there is little textile-related to show for it.

I have finished the jumper I showed last time and it is every bit as cosy as I could have hoped. Just what I needed in my wardrobe. Unusually for me I haven't immediately started anything else.

Pauline's quilt before binding

Instead, I have been working on this. You may have seen the photo in the last post. As you can see there has been a lot of free machine quilting done since the last photo was taken. I marked the centre block out in a grid before starting the design - a mix of five flowers surrounded by leaves. Each of the triangles of the flying geese border contains a small flower and two leaves. I hasten to add that the marking out was done in soap rather than chalk. I find it washes out rather better than chalk especially on dark fabrics like this.

Completed quilt.

I was rather pleased with the way the binding turned out. For the first time I used a bias binding strip. Unusually, I have quite a lot of black fabric in my stash due to a rash fabric purchase in Ikea some time back. As a result the binding lay beautifully and I got the mitred corners just as I hoped. How rare is that? I also machined the binding in place rather than hand stitching the back. This was mainly due to the fact that this will be owned by a young child. It all work so well. I must try this type of binding again, ensuring I have enough fabric to get it done properly.

Next week, next Tuesday in fact, I am giving a talk at a local textile group. Their blog can been seen here. I'm getting a little nervous.

Going to a talk, Journal Quilts and knitting.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be able to go along to a talk given by Audrey Walker of the 62 Group. It was held in the Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales. It was a lovely journey to get there through some delightful countryside as you can see from these photos.

The talk was fascinating. June Hill, the curator and textile historian, was interviewing Audrey Walker. The talk ranged over the 50 years of the 62 Group's existence, and many examples of work by the various members was shown as a slide show. I am now looking forward to being to go and visit some of the exhibitions being held this year by the 62 Group.

From the wonderful work of a very talented group of textile artists to my own, much more modest pieces...........

Well, my first three journal quilts are completed and posted to the Yahoo site. The theme this year is "Shades of....", the first four being shades of red. I decided when I first read the instructions that I would use the year to make myself a series working through the colour wheel. So the first one, above is made up of shades of reddish purple.

The second is red and contains shades of mid red.

The third one is shades of paler red.

As you can see I added beads and buttons. I have added the complimentary colours of green and analogous colours of orange and purple. The calligraphy just gives a repeated pattern of all the colour names I could think of.

My shawl is almost completed. I just need to finish the picot bind off.