Dreaming Spirals

Here is another magnolia which grows up by the side of the Civic Centre.  It is a lovely deep pink colour, I think.

Nothing like the colour magnolia which paint companies sell in tins.

This flower was a little blurred but I thought I’d post it anyway.

There is also a lovely pink flowering cherry tree which is out at the moment too.

Yes, that is the right way up!  Taken from underneath…

And a lovely pink camellia too…

It has gone really warm the last couple of days and I sat out in the garden for a few minutes yesterday.  I couldn’t help noticing that the flies were sitting still too, sunning themselves…

I won’t show you the photos of the spiders…

[Read more →]

You may remember that while the ceiling in my studio was busy leaking during every rainstorm, I put some fabric into a rusty baking tray put there to catch the drips.

It had dried out but the fabric was still there, so I poured some salt solution over it (left over from a dyeing marathon) to encourage it to rust some more.  I also rescued a couple of rusty tin cans from the side of the house.  (Ask my teenage son what they are doing there…. suffice to say that he likes eating tinned sweetcorn straight from the tin, and it is a long way down from his attic bedroom which has a window at the side of the house….).

Rusty tin cans have some nice interesting horizontal ridges on them, so I wrapped some fabric round them.  I also found a rusty old dishwasher cutlery tray so I put that in too, in the hope that the grid design would be picked up in the fabric. 

Here they all are, nestling in the tray:

I then covered it with plastic to stop it drying out.  Now I have to contain my impatience for a week or two….

I also added some acrylic paint to this painted lutradur (bottom picture)

[Read more →]

Everywhere I go nowadays there are signs of spring.  Hurray!  I’m fed up with this damp, dark winter.  The clocks go forward on Sunday so it will be even lighter in the evenings. 

I love it when the magnolias bloom.  This tree is a gorgeous one:

Here is another one which I pass on the way to Zachary’s school:

The blossoms are beautiful.

I love the way they seem to raise their heads to the sun. They look as though they are butterflies or birds spreading their wings, about to take off into the sky.

[Read more →]

Cynthia St Charles has written a great blog entry on using plumber’s gasket material and carpet tape to make printing blocks.  She says that plumber’s gasket is a lot easier to cut than lino.  It’s worth reading just to see the great designs she has made with it!

[Read more →]

I bought some cashmere sock yarn at Hipknits at the Knitting and Stitching Show last year.  I’ve knitted one sock so far with it - here is a photo just before I finished.

I love the swirly pattern it makes. 

It is only just big enough so I hope it doesn’t shrink in the wash!

I was in the Newport art gallery foyer a couple of weeks ago and noticed that now they have demolished the old 60s concrete car park, you get a good view of the new pedestrian bridge across the river.  I decided to take a photo before they build the new car park and obscure the view again!

[Read more →]

I am excited!  I have just booked to go to a 3 day Masterclass at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August!  It is with Erika Carter and it is called Personal Imagery in Art Quilts.  I hadn’t come across Erika before but I googled her name and love her work!  It looks as though she is exhibiting at the FOQ as well as teaching.    Here is a page with lots of pictures of her work.

The kids will be at camp that week so instead of sitting at home moping I will be able to have an interesting time too… it looks as though it could be just what I need.  I feel as though I’ve got so many ideas but can’t pick on one of them to develop fully. 

It is on from the Tuesday to Thursday so I am going to make a week of it and book a hotel from the Monday night and spend Friday looking at the show.

Anyone else planning to be there?!

[Read more →]

I’ve just spent a nice quiet afternoon knitting socks with some cashmere sock yarn I bought from Hipknits (photo to follow) and listening to podcasts.

A new one which I discovered through ArtBizBlog is Craftcast. Alison Lee, who runs it, was interviewing Alyson Stanfield of ArtBizBlog, which I read regularly, and Alyson reported it on her blog.

It is interesting because Alison covers a variety of crafts. I’ve only listened to two episodes so far, but I’m looking forward to working my way through the archives. In the most recent one, she interviews a Brazilian jewellery maker who lives in France.

[Read more →]

is how I think of this quilt-in-the-making. 

You may remember I pieced the strips and put it together in a different format.  When I got my design board I played around with it a bit more and put it like this and decided that I liked it better this way so I sewed the strips together.  Taking the photo has made me realise that the bottom row colours are quite different from the rest, although it is not so obvious in reality.  I obviously need to do something to tie them in a bit more.  Some stamping on the green strips perhaps.

I also made a larger version of the landscape postcards.

This is about 12 inches by 10 inches or thereabouts.  That light green bit on the third row from the top is green handmade paper.  I think I need to do something with that large dark row in the middle.  I’m also going to do some stitching on it: trees and suchlike.   This postcard was the smaller version of it.  It’s funny how it is difficult to scale something up without making adjustments.

I spent a large part of the afternoon printing trees out on to Lasertran and that t-shirt transfer paper.  And on to brown lokta paper which I bought from Fibrecrafts.  It is A4 size and meant to go through printers.  I’m going to have a play with them.  I feel like making a journal or something about trees.  I’ve been looking at Lynne Perrella’s book, Artists’ Journals and Sketchbooks for inspiration.  I think I’ve been going through a fallow period the last few months and haven’t really felt like quilting so I’m going to try and get my enthusiasm back by ‘playing’ in different ways.

[Read more →]