Got my magic back..

....it's been gone for quite a while. Started a new Art class (Printmaking, Thursday mornings, with Avril again..), have cleaned up the workshop, made a few outstanding orders and am feeling like the world is the right way up again. I am preparing for my Autumn Exhibition, which is to be called Made/Remade, with Heather Hasthorpe and some other artists, and feeling stronger than for ages. And I bought some new shoes (waterproof!) a new cycling jacket (likewise!) and had a haircut... and I'm nearly thin enough...Bring on the world, I can beat it... Image is "Journal" by Heather, from a series to be shown at the Exhibition...

November 24th to December 2nd, 11 till 5 each day
at 4, The Raveningham Centre, Beccles Road, Raveningham, Norfolk NR14 6NU ....

Sun Dancing and All That

..no image for this post, as it has been a most interesting experience, but no photographs were allowed.

Went to Wreningham, in Norfolk, to be a Dog Soldier for the first Norfolk Sun and Moon Dance. Nick Hurn was Chief, and Sammy-Jo Harvey and Cindy Hurn were the Moon Mothers. 10 dancers took part, and about a dozen helpers helped, drummers drummed, and dogs chased sticks....

I feel revitalised, and am amazed to have had such a good time while working so hard. I have been on a sort of sabbatical from life for the last few weeks - no creativity and lots of scut work, and then I went to Hampshire to teach, to my Qigong Instructors' Course in Shropshire, then to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, then back to chaos and a very untidy workshop... I still have to catch up with myself, and have spent all this week playing with dyes and printing. And you should see the place now...



I will be teaching Japanese Bookbinding on Saturday October 6th at my workshop at Raveningham.


Email me on helen@raindropkites.co.uk
for details...

This is my Green Trees piece, which went to the Festival of Quilts last year as part of my attempt to swamp the show by entering (almost) every category... I have made a whole series of monochrome Tree Pieces in a variety of sizes - this one is about 30 inches tall... I sent it to the Horizons exhibition for Textile Art Group Suffolk last year, too, having noticed (after the fact) that it has a very nice horizon in it...
It's on here because I have been invited to teach this quilt as a one-day wokshop at Quilter's Haven in Wickham Market, Suffolk, on Saturday 10th November 2007.. and I've put it onto my Teaching list

Here's One I Made Earlier...

My piece for the Contemporary Quilt Suitcase Collection, on the theme "Figure It Out"... It's called Fat Man Washes His Hair...

The joys of Life Drawing in one's own bathroom...

Sorry...

...for the long delay.. Normal service will be restored as soon as possible. The whole diabetic thing seems to use energy like a city kid on speed, and as for the rest.. I have damaged a hamstring (too much kicking) and am limping and cursing (and not getting enough exercise - suggestions not involving swimming welcomed) - but I have been making the most of the last couple of Art Classes for the year.. I don't know what I'll do without - perhaps I'll have to do some structured Art Practice on my own..
Here are some images from today's frivolities - I took in a sewing machine and did some Life Drawing directly onto fabric.. Great fun, and I think these have potential..

Screen printing...

Well, this is one of a series, but I'm tired and haven't done the reduceandcrop thing with the rest. Later, later...

Pastel mono-screen-print. I love the results but cannot stand the chemicals, want to find a more user-friendly medium to pull through the screen... This was about number 3 of a series of six, all modified and redrawn between each pull, and steadily more complex as it goes..

Mutual project...

This is the piece I have just put together for Textile Art Group Suffolk's Summer Exhibition at Snape Maltings, near Aldeburgh, July 13th to 25th. The theme/title this year is Spectrum..

Each of us has made a piece of work 5 inches square, having been given a colour by Glenda Gerrard, and ~I have mounted the results on a canvas - it is to be displayed on the diagonal, with the red at the top, but I haven't worked out how to make the image do that yet...

Off to Art Class again, to make prints again... I plan to rework some of my earlier drawings onto fabric, in screen monoprint, and perhaps some more pastel monoprints, too...

A painting...

This isn't my usual style, but I worked out that it was done on the day or very near to the day when I tipped into the diabetes, so perhaps it means something. It's acrylic on board, about 13 by 15 inches, and was done very quickly. Perhaps it's an underpainting for something else. Or perhaps not...

Blood Sugar and such...

Well, officially I have joined the ranks of the insulin-challenged. I have to visit the doc tomorrow, and then I have to run the rest of my life. I have been heading for this for a long time, and in a way it's a relief for me to have gone over the hill and to be sliding down the far side...
More later. If you are reading this and have personal useful experience, I'd like to hear from you. If you have a story about your granny and her shortened life, please save it for another day. or another person, thanks.

helen@raindropkites.co.uk

To Keene Quilters, at Stock in Essex yesterday to teach Fabric postcards, in the afternoon.. A very big class, and all seemed to have a good time, and made some very nice cards (some of which are shown here)..

I am always amazed, and amused to see how many different ideas can be produced from one basic and simple starter, and it is fun to see people's fabrics and trimmings..


On a less happy note, I await the results of my blood sugar test from Friday. Looks like I have tipped over into diabetes, and I got in to a message on the machine from the surgery "nothing to worry about, but ring us Now.." something utterly sinister about the cheerful tone...

Teapot Quilters today, my own little group, and I shall have to watch them eat cake...

Meanwhile, here's one I made earlier.

Tree of Pieces in multiple cream fabrics, with overlaid 3D leaves, each of which has a name (at the top) or a place quilted into the surface.
The detail shows the quilting and some of the leaves. Total size is 150 by 120 cm, 60 by 48 inches. This is a commission, and the customer was very pleased with it. It was a real pain to get it flat...The two black leaves commemorate soldiers who fell in the First World War...

Spent Tuesday supervising one of my Play Days, and this was the piece I made... The theme was Monochrome, Polychrome, and I asked people first to work with a colour that was unfamiliar or not liked, and to consider the matters of contrast, in pattern size, tone, and size of piece. We made A4 sized pieces, as Heather and I are making for the Journal Quilt project in Contemporary Quilt, and this size is both quick and unstressful...
I don't have pictures of the other pieces, but I will try to get them later.
I plan to do some hand work and beading on this piece...

Some Days...

Some days don't feel like they have many accomplishments, until you come to write them down...
Yesterday seemed like a waste of time, but I -
Bought and cleaned four nice green aluminium garden chairs (now we can eat at the right height for the table) (from the Dump!);
Put the lid on the gazebo, so we can sit outside under it all Summer;
Made some tiny books and finished, wrapped and priced them;
Fixed a sewing machine and looked at another;
Had lunch with Himself and talked with Cybele, who had brought me a monitor, a sewing machine, and 10 mugs from Freecycle;
Put up the pea nets and planted the peas;
Weeded the lettuce bed;
Cooked supper (salmon, new potatoes, broccoli from the garden);
Did my qigong training (Wudang Sword and Kunlun Twining Hands Bagua);
Read two short stories by China Mieville;
Went to the Car Boot and didn't buy anything...
Sorted the Bead Box;
And some other stuff I won't write down here...;
And so on... Perhaps not such a waste of time after all.

Image is of my workbook and diary, with this year's trees...

Day of Pots

Coil pots are interesting. I was trying to be more assymetrical, but it's hard... This was my second attempt. I find it hard to work in true 3D, and the form was elusive, but the day was fun. Then I went into town and bought 4 20 inch square canvases for £10-00 - bargain of the day...

I will burnish this one when it is harder...

Finding the workspace

.. not as easy as it looks, for all the space is 1000 square feet and all my own.. Set up the April Showcase wall this morning, went to the doctor's, cut and sorted some orders, made kite tails, tidied a bit, shopping at both ends of the day, bought 44 dolls, 3 tablecloths, grapes, mushrooms, took my library books back (and paid the fines) collected my prescriptions, sorted out the over-delivered parcel tapes, put the shop back together..

..talked on the phone a lot, sorted out the colours for a buddhist kite, took photos for the showcase, dropped things a lot (I'm right clumsy at the moment)...

..supper, and now to compute, webpages etc...

It never seems to end

Bookbinding Day

..at Westleton, with the Heritage Quilters. A fine light Village Hall with a dozen keen sewists and a seriously charming dog to scavenge for crumbs...

All made nice books, had a good time, drank lots of tea, and went home feeling they had accomplished much.. No image, as I forgot the camera.. More tomorrow

This piece was made for the Festival of Quilts last year, and entered for the Quilt 2006 juried competition. Didn't get selected, but I am still quite pleased with it. Layers of printed cotton muslin are trapped between a gridded mesh fabric and lutradur, and stitched and re-stitched. Designed to be hung against the light...This piece was perhaps the least new of the new works in my recent show.

I have made sveral pieces during the show.. More images later. Tomorrow I go abookbinding at Westleton..

All done for now...

Exhibition over, all taken down and put away, back to normal, hip hooray.

Image is of "City of Lights" - centrepiece of the show; and much admired and pawed about... 7 by 6 feet...Commercial batiks and my own hand-dyes...

..at the End of the Exhibition...

...I feel like I've had enough of people. The work has been going down well with the public, and there have been fewer "rude grannies" than usual, but I am weary of being tidy and long to have my big space back..
Images soon, when I find out how...

Does Not Equal Starts Here...

New computer, new day, I can blog..
Oh Frabjous day,
Calloo callay,

This should be my textile and day-to-day blog.
See my Art Journal here
My Textile Website here
and my Kites here

More soon...