Half Term

Well, as you will have seen from my previous Blog entry, it has been quite a creative week. Its been the Half Term holiday which has feed me to get on with all kinds of things - mostly textile-related.
I've been lucky in getting to two exhibitions this week. The first was in Manchester at the Whitworth Art Gallery. This is always worth a visit since it has Alice Kettle's "Three Caryatids" as a permanent exhibit. There is also a comprehensive textile gallery. But this time, I went to see "Indigo". This was quite interesting, especially the Shibori. Sadly, I took no photographs. I didn't like to since Indigo is notoriously fugitive in bright light.

http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/

The exhibition will be moving on to Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery from the 19th May until 1st September.

www.plymouthmuseum.gov.uk

Then it will mo0ve to Brighton Museum and Art Gallery from the 29th Spetember until 6th January 2008.

www.virtualmuseum.info

The Whitworth Gallery site is wonderful in that you can visit the site and search the collections! One of my favourite pieces can be seen under "Textiles - weaving". Its a small woven panel from Peru. Part of a garment.

The gallery is part of the University of Manchester and as such is a wonderful resource for the students there.

Manchester is one of my favourite cities, with some wonderful buildings. Here are just some of them.

This strange tree greeted me as I arrived on the tram in Piccadilly Gardens, right in the centre of the city.

It has names all round the base, but I couldn't see a notice to explain the significance of it all. The sculpture is very striking. Please let me know if you can shed any light on it for me.

This amazing building is Afflecks Palace. Its a collection of small shops inside, like a market. Its clientele seem mostly to be students. A fascinating place full of clothing both old and new.

This interesting frontage was seen as I walked down towards the University on my way to the Whitworth Art Gallery.


This is one of the main University buildings as seen from Oxford Road. I loved the towers and the roof shapes. The older buildings here are surrounded by some very modern architecture. A wonderful mix of textures.


Finally, my favourite. The red brick building in the centre used to be known as the Refuge Building. It had been built by the Refuge Assurance Company. Today it is a prestigious hotel known as the Palace. The detail on it is wonderful. I only wish my photos could do it justice.

Yesterday, I went to Voirrey for threads.

www.voirrey.com

I got to see an enchanting exhibition of Jenny Dunlop's work.
http://www.artinliverpool.com

Do add the following to see Jenny's wonderful work:

/blog/blogarch/2007/02/artwork_of_the_day_jenny_dunlo.php
Its gorgeous. So bright and gently humorous. Thanks Jenny. I really wish I could have met you.

Blue Shirt Quilt.

It has taken most of the week to complete, but the Shirt Quilt is now finished. It has also been claimed by its new owner.

You will remember that I recently posted about my WISPs (Works in Slow Progress). This quilt was the one nearest completion.

http://crazydaisytime.blogspot.com/2007/01/wisps.html

The first two photos show the completed top and a close-up of the quilting.

The next photo shows the reverse.

And now, the proud owner.

Yes, its Coco. She just would not leave the quilt alone. Whenever I left to do something else, she would sneak back and lie down for a nap.

Amaryllis

I have these two wonderful Amaryllis flowering in my kitchen. I thought you might like to see them. They are such a bright and cheerful sight.

The last two photos are of Felix. He is very loving whilst managing to panic whenever I drop anything. You may have seen photos of his sister Coco (they were from the same litter) in an earlier post.

http://crazydaisytime.blogspot.com/2007/01/those-promised-photos.html

Cobwebs

This morning I just had to rush out and take photos of the cobwebs in the garden. The frost was just beginning to melt away and the fog of the previous day was lifting. The shapes made by the webs were so beautiful, the frost really made them stand out.

As I write this, the sun is brighter and the cobwebs have all but disappeared. The frost has gone.

Leaves

I have finally rinsed the dissolvable fabric off the circular piece. At the moment I have given it the working name of "Leaves". Not quite sure what I shall do with it next, so it will sit on my board for a few days.
Anyway, this is what it now looks like.



The next photograph just shows a close-up of the stitching.

New Work.

The Textiles course has just started back after the Christmas break. We have started work on more delicate felt incorporating threads and adding machine embroidery. We will also be adding machine embroidered lace edging which really intrigues me, since I've never tried doing this before. The following photographs show a couple of new pieces that I have been working on as a result of this course. Both of these are basically merino wool tops, with machine embroidery. At present neither look terribly interesting since they still have their water soluble layers covering the wool tops. Once the water soluble is rinsed away I shall gently and lightly felt the wool beneath.

I do love playing with textiles.......... Thanks Ruth (shes the teacher letting me loose with everything.)

This first piece is approximately eight and a half inches in diameter. Hopefully the leaf edging will turn into a lace once the water soluble has dissolved away. The next photo shows a detail of the stitching. I shall post pictures once I have been brave and put this into water.

The last piece will become a scarf. The colours are basically leaf green, yellow ochre and sage green. It is currently around forty inches long and ten inches wide. I have barely started the stitching which will hold it all together, I hope. The stitching may take quite a time to complete - I have images of stylised flowers and leaves in my head.

Much fun and games.

WISPs

Well, I have quite a collection of WISPs (Works In Slow Progress). Some I have mentioned before - like "Face". (See the last entry to my Blog). Here are two more.

The first, was the Mystery Quilt run by the Quilters Guild of Great Britain, published a couple of years ago. A rather interesting, and quite challenging design, I found it hard to make the corners and points match. It certainly tested my skills:


The first photo shows the top- don't look too closely at the points..... This still awaits quilting. At present, it is held together with safety pins.


The second photo shows the back - pieced mostly from remnants left after the "top" was completed.

The next unfinished quilt - partly quilted at present - was the result of my dislike of ironing. Yes, I do not like ironing clothes, but give me a selection of freshly washed fabrics..........
The fabrics used here all came from a selection of my husband's old shirts. (I cannot bring myself to throw away fabric). Oh, how I enjoyed cutting them up! The floral print and the dark blue came from a couple of old blouses of mine. and were added to balanced the otherwise pale colours. The white was part of an old, much washed cotton sheet.
I did not have to plan the colours too much, since my dear husband prefers shirts in a narrow range of colours.
As an experiment, I pieced them using my overlocker. I needed to learn how to use it, so had a lot of fun doing this. The quilting was by machine.
I really can't remember why I gave up on this, since it really won't take much more work to finish it.
The first photograph shows the top.



The second photo shows detail of the stitching and also the construction of the blocks.

The last photo shows the back of the quilt. You can see how much quilting I have already done. I feel quite ashamed to think its been hanging around for a couple of years waiting to be completed!

The back has been pieced using bits left over from the top. I just wanted the effect to be random, since the quilting would be mostly swirls and irregular quadrilaterals.