Warm and sunny crafting days.

Its been quite a busy weekend so far. My younger daughter arrived on Thursday and we went into Manchester to the Private View of the 62@50 exhibition by the 62 Group in the Holden Gallery.
The exhibition was wonderful and I would recommend anyone in the area to go and see it. I shall be going again before it closes on the 17th of August. I'm pleased to say Rosie enjoyed it as much as I did. Favourite pieces? Sue Stone's delightful pictures of 1930's figures with modern day graffiti in the background. Really interesting. Then there was Alice Kettle's interpretation of "Guernica" - this is one of her huge pieces and is one we were drawn back to time and again. A disturbing theme. There was also the really amusing story of the 100 metre dash by Marilyn Rathbone.
Now why the letters? I treated myself to these when I was in Fred Aldous, one of my favourite shops. The letters are each barely half an inch tall. I intend these for use in my printing experiments.

The jacket is one I've just completed. It has taken me ages to finish this. All my own fault. I lent my little portable bright lamp to a friend to complete a project. Then, of course I needed it for all the hand sewing on this jacket, especially finishing off the lining. I've had to get on with this project in the last couple of days while the light has been good in the daytime. It is a black twill jacket which will see a lot of wear travelling to and from Choir and Recorder group concerts. I have to wear black for the performances with a brightly coloured top, so a smart black lined jacket will do very nicely. This is lined with a cotton-like fabric rather than the more usual rayon. It really feels nice to wear. Hopefully it will be fairly warm for autumn concerts.

The last three items have been ones I have been working on for a while, especially the hand embroidered felt bits. These are all intended for my last four Journal Quilts.

Each of my Journal Quilts this year have had handpainted fabric which I have written all over using the names   of the colours I have used for that quilt. These are all destined for my blue quilts (September to December). So you can see elements for blue-green, blue, light blue and blue-purple. It is rather unusual for me to be so far ahead of myself. I keep wondering what might go wrong with my plans for these.

Calligraphy on fabric

After the fabric had dried, I decided to write over the top of the printing. Here you can see that I have used masking tape to stick the fabric down onto my cutting board. The words used are all linked to the theme for this piece, which is "Books".



I am using a fabric marker from "Fabrico" an the colour is #118, ultramarine. As a dual marker, it makes this style of pen very versatile. For this piece of calligraphy, I am using the fine line side. The second side gives an effect almost like using a paintbrush.



As you can see, adding words makes a lot of difference to the finished texture. It is a very easy effect to achieve. All it needs is a steady hand, and a list of words to copy from.

Do give it a go. It is fun.

Knitting, sewing, and some more pages.

Things have been rather busy here, hence the lack of posts recently. This knitting yarn was one I fell for when I went to the Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate in September. So I bought it. It is beautifully cosy and I am knitting a pair of long cuffed gloves with it. My first pair of gloves.



The pattern is a lovely one by Julia Mueller (Laris) which you can find on Ravelry. It is called "Knotty". I have nearly finished the right glove, but need to complete the thumb.

Apart from starting these gloves, I have been taking part in Mystery Socks 2010. This is run every year by Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops. It is good fun too. I started the gloves whilst waiting for clue number 4. Sorry, I can't show you the work in progress photos, but this is the yarn I am using.



I just love the colour. Its a gorgeous rich purple called "Grape".



Well, I went off to Quilt group on the 7th October, fully intending to get on with adding to this quilt top. I'd been busily making additional squares like the one in the centre, planning to add these to the corners with other simpler sections between. Well, disaster struck. I had completely forgotten to take the fabric I needed to make more of the squares. I had enough for some, but not enough for everything I wanted to do. (The completed block is six inches across, so isn't very big.)
So, rooting through the fabric I had brought with me, I found some I liked and started making some log cabin blocks.



This is one of the blocks I finished. Yes, that is a ruler measuring in inches - not, I hasten to add in centimetres.

These are the ones I have completed to date. It has been fun, but I really ought to be getting on with a quilt for my mum.

I have finally decided how to go about it. I shall make her a quilt made from very simple squares in differing sizes. This is to be quilted onto fleece. Then I shall make her a wall quilt using the ideas I have been collecting for some time. I had wanted to make her a really interesting quilt, but since this is to be used to cover a chair, it wouldn't really be practical. Not with the designs I had had in mind............

While mulling over how to make mum's quilt, I have been busy making two more Traveling Pages. I sent one off today, but can only show you a teaser...........

The theme is "All creatures great and small". This was my page for October. The photograph shows some FME onto some fabric which, in turn is hidden under some water-soluble fabric. This is why you can see a muddle of stitching and pen lines waiting to be stitched.

The photo above is also a bit of a teaser. I posted this a couple of weeks ago, but it hasn't arrived yet. The theme here was "Shabby Chic Vintage". This page was late and should have been sent in September.

Posted a week earlier, this page has arrived. You can see more about it here. This page was extremely late and should have been sent in August!

The theme was "Doors", so I started off by painting some fabric and having a lot of fun with dictionaries and a thesaurus to find different words meaning the same as "door". I chose my favourites and wrote them all over the painted fabric using a fabric dye pen.

This was lots of fun.

I then made a door in the front of the page and added this little lock I found in a bead shop.

This is the reverse of that little door.