As Promised

 My Veldhoven quilts.  This is Blanc.  When I went to Paris with Michael Oakshott, our booth at the Aguille En Fete Pro show was lined with nice white cotton fabric.  And at the end the pieces were being discarded, so I gather this one and took it home.. Quilt has about 4 metres of fabric, all exactly one sort, made into traditional and modern blocks, chenille, raw-edge and turned applique, and 3d pieces..
And it looks wonderful with the light through it..

 This is Burning Bright.  I made this originally for the Loch Lomond Quilt Show 2011,  fantastically fast because my venue had been changed six weeks before the event and all my part-made work had to be laid aside and replaced.. And it has gone to live in Strasbourg, which is very pleasing..

 Green Copse.  This is number four of an Improvised Tree series from which I have derived a most successful new class

 This and the quilt below had the most encouraging and possibly the most unexpected reaction of all my show quilts.  These (Sunset Hedges 2, above and 3, below) are whole-cloth.  Cotton fabric treated with a mordant to accept dyes is used as a table-cover as I work with colour, print and dyes, and also as I teach.  After each session the cloth is dried and folded, and eventually becomes a slightly accidental masterpiece.. I use each big piece for a year or so, then drop the remains of the dyes from the day onto the piece and wash it out.. The resulting cloth has almost no end of uses.. These have been printed and over-printed with my Hedges stencil as screen-prints, and stitched/quilted by machine and hand..
Almost everyone who saw the exhibit was drawn to these and they got very nice comments and lots of questions

More tomorrow..

Sunset

Last night, the light as so red, in my west-facing room, that I thought there was a fire.. These are the best of my photogrphs, but do not really show the vividness of the colour..

Well, while I was out..

I left some dyebaths on the table, and pulled the drop cloth up over the trays to keep the public out and the wet in..Here are the trays

I have made rainbows on a variety of fabrics, then laid treated (with soda ash) fabrics on top to absorb another part of the dyes. Then I put these under the edge of the drop cloth

And went off to teach Trees all day in Suffolk.  Nice class, nice Trees, lovely hall.. Nice lunch.. What more can one ask for..
I am really going to enjoy washing these out tomorrow..
More images when done

The drop cloths are 100% cotton sheets, treated with soda ash and dried, then laid on the big table whenever I do anything the least bit messy.  When the white sheet is (almost) no longer visible, I wash out the cloth and use the fabric.  So far I have made one every two years and they are fantastic.  Here's a quilt I made with one piece, screen-printed and stitched on top of the accidental marks

It's about 3 feet wide and is very simply quilted, mostly irregular lines from top to bottom, with a hand-embroidered sun

Time for bed..

Hedge 4

Wednesday 11th January

Gloriously sunny.. Now all I need is Motivation...

Beech Hedge

A Week Of Trees

Monday 7th March 2011. Hello world.
This week I am mostly (only) making Trees and Tree-related stuff
Today was very productive. First image is a piece that has been on the wall for a week or two awaiting the impetus to finish the quilting - now blocked out and on the table - should be bound tomorrow and finished in the evening..
Those are my toes (for scale)
Next image is a Pieced Tree that I made a couple of weeks ago, that has also been on the wall. No progress on this one today except to look at it...






This one has been in the box for ages. It's layered but I haven't started the quilting. decided this was not quite right but saleable, so I will finish it too...

















Pink piece is on heavy hand-dyed cotton drill - a Screen-print from a recent batch which I was very pleased with.. This will be a bag, I think, quick and easy
Next one is a start on a new piece. Not quite sure about this yet. The little tree goes with it quite well

Then I made some Tiger blocks for a background for another piece for later in the week














Started this one and got it to the half-quilted stage - I am using imagery on top of the print which is unconnected - a theme I think needs much more work













Finally, did a bit of work on this red piece which has also been sitting around for a while. I like it, but for some reason it's seemed hard to stitch...












Found this last one in the box too. It needs additions, and is all fused on a screen-printed ground from almost 25 years ago. Work In Slow Progress... I am planning to teach Fusing this year so this will make a reasonable sample

More tomorrow