Back again

I have not blogged for nearly a year, and  I have found that I was not as productive, partly because I was not blogging, but also because the Tangled Textiles Group finished.  I tried lots of challenges and workshops, but found that it was impossible for me to stick to anything, especially if it was an every day commitment because there are periods where I am not at home. for the next few weeks, I will try and go through some of the things I am doing.

My last posts here were about journal quilts and I have attempted to keep doing these with the help of Kate Bridger, who is hosting a Made on Monday five inch square challenge on her site.  I have been absent for a month or so, but am hoping to join in again.  Participants also post their work on the textile arts facebook  page.

Here are my first seventeen contributions

They are all on my favourite theme of leaves and use a variety of techniques including free motion embroidery, hand embroidery and thread painting and a wide variety of fabrics including hand printed fabric.

Hope you enjoy these and I will be back with more as I do them

A catch up

A week has gone by since I posted and the last thing I posted was the sketchbooks I put together and these two pages are ones I finished during the week.

The one on the left was a ghost print from some monoprinting which I have added to and made more interesting.  The one on the right was a sunflower print (background) and on top, I  used a silhouette stencil I cut from a fashion magazine.  Then I added a bit of shading and detail with black ink.  This was for Natalie Kalbach's lesson from creative Jumpstart which I am enjoying a lot.

This page used a gorgeous stencil.  An old Amy Butler one and a quote which I altered a little, adding "She"  instead of "He".  This one is the story of my life!

Under my magnifying daylight lamp here, is a piece of printed chiffon, which I did some free motion of, but didn't like.  The reason for the magnifying glass is that I am unpicking it!

This is my Feather collection.  It is very varied,although many are white cockatoo or black and white magpie feathers, but I also have some blue and black rosella feathers and in the centre is a speckled feather which I think may belong to an owl or night jar.  I pick these up when I am walking each evening, and it is always a great walk when I find one.

These are a couple of quick warm-up collages, a task that I have been neglecting this month!

This is my first page for DLP (Documented Life Project) which is  a site my friend Lisa put me on to.

And lastly this is a page from my doodling journal.  It has lots of prints and painted pages in it and all I do is doodle and use pens and markers in it.

Doesn't seem much for a week, does it?  Well, there are lots of other things, that are in process and a couple of things that are for swaps and such, which I can't show until the appropriate time.  So we will see those the next time or the time after that, or....

Happy Creating!

Being Productive

The last few days have been quite productive.I have been working on my crazy quilt, which got a little behind in the winter when I was ill.

I have been working on this block (left) this week

And as you can see, it is nearly finished!

I also coloured some pieces of lace for crazy quilting.  White gets a bit boring after a while.

I finished my 12" block for the ravelry  2015crochet-along.  I have also done a 6" one.
On the journaling front, as well as my daily journal, I did these pages.

I drew all over the pages with inktense blocks and the little book, was drawn on every page.

I sprayed the pages with water, saturating them and ran a brush over them.  At present, they are spending a few pages drying.  I saw this recently on design matters TV with Laura Kemshall.  I have not done it the same as Laura did, but the video reminded me of this method I saw on you tube a few years ago using ink.

This is a little thread sketch I did this afternoon.  It is obvious I am a little out of practice as my wren is a little fat!  A bit more practice will get me back into the routine.

This is a small thread painted/mixed media collage I put together with a few scraps of fabric, some papers and a card die cut.  I like this one and as I was stitching, the name 'Into the darkness" came to me.

I had been thinking about a textile project for this year and had been thinking of doing the thread sketches (like the bird), but In April, I will be doing a class with Ro Bruhn at AQC.  She makes beautiful fabric books.  I also saw Leslie Tucker Jennison on Quilting Arts TV 1503 making similar collages and  Liz Kettle also talked about thread sketching practice in qatv 1505.  So this is a cross between all of the above, with a little bit of Cas Holmes thrown in so  I think this will be my project for this year. A mixed media collage with fabric, paper and stitch, including thread sketches.

Often with these yearly projects I have planned to do it every day...and I always failed, simply because life happens, so this year my intent is to do at least 1 each week,with the intention of doing at least three.
One might think that, since I have failed at these yearly projects in the past, that I might give up, but although I have never been perfect (ie each and every day), I have learnt a great deal from these projects.  I have a vast library of journal quilts, atcs and stitched squares

Whilst I was looking for all the links above, I found The Slow Stitching movement  which has podcasts and a blog  This looks like great reading and listening.  Go have a look!


Happy Creating!

Not really doing nothing!

As I said, I have actually been really quite busy,  A trip  to Queensland that made me ill again! (although I quite enjoyed the wedding, I suffered from extreme nausea most of the time I was away and for a while when I came home!)  Then I visited my Mother at the seaside for a few days.  Our Quilt Group had a market day, for which I made a few things and forgot to photograph, sorry.
But now Christmas is over and I have settled back into work.
I am having an exhibition locally in June and have started getting my work all mounted and framed.
Here are a few I finished mounting this week.

Some of these are from a while ago, and some are quite recent.  Obviously, this is my main objective for the next few months, as well as actually finding somewhere to store them!

I have been doing quite a lot of crochet over the last few weeks.

This is the beginning of "Eolande Shawlette" from the Summer 2014 edition of Interweave Crochet. I think this one will take quite a while to finish.

This is a large part of the Rivulene Shawl from The new tunisian by Dora Ohrenstein.  I am really looking forward to finishing this one and am enjoying doing it!

This is the multi motif scarf, which is a red heart pattern I heard about in a video - Crochet Me Workshop: Crochet Corner, Basics and Beyond with Kristin Omdahl.  This is one of those just for fun type patterns that is just nice to do.

I have also been doing some hand work.

These are two sides of a scissor fob I made using a pattern by Mary Corbet on the Craftsy Blog.  I am really finding embroidery very enjoyable at the moment. especially circles.  You might remember these shisha circles I started before christmas.

I have also been working on a free motion embroidered layered piece.

I am really liking how this looks. I have not added a picture for T for Tuesday , but as you might have guessed everything is my cup of tea today!  Go over and visit over at Elizabeth's page, where she is having a 2014 retrospective.

Sad days

The last few days I have not been very good about blogging or any of my online courses, but I suppose there is a good reason.  Our family dog, Rubin, died on saturday and we have felt a bit lost.  Rubin was nearly     17, quite old for a large dog.  He was spoilt rotten and loved lots of hugs and we will miss him terribly.  Ruby the puppy keeps wanting to go outside and look for him, which is hard.

I have been doing a bit of textile work, in the last few days.

I finished the quilting on this piece and now I want to add some hand work and beads, but I happened to lay my ipad on top of it on the table and realised that it was a perfect size for an ipad case!
I didn't use theone above because I had plans for it, but chose a pair of other grass prints

These have been quilted and I will put them together to make an ipad case!

I started a small free motion embroidery piece based on the sea dragon sketch from here.

Here is where I am with that.  You can click to make it zoom.
I have a sketch in process, but it can wait for a post  'till it is finished.  I have also begun making a few things for christmas presents and I will show you those soon.

Happy Creating!