Accidental Faces 2

Milling machine..  This one is Animal not Human, I think..

Accidental Faces 1

Hope this will be part one of an occasional series.. I see faces everywhere, it's part of the way the visual cortex works in humans from the very beginning of life

Roadkill 3, Tattered Strap

I have long been fascinated by the accidental detritus of the road.  As a cyclist, I look down more than as a motorist, to preserve my tyres and my position (preferably upright, thanks).  For a long time I had a massively flattened, bent, and samurai-swordish bicycle pump hanging on my wall.  Other treats have included a whole white sliced loaf (almost a whole street's-worth), a frozen chicken, and many an odd shoe... The local dustbin men drop big sinister red rubber gloves all the time, but I have resisted collecting them..
This little piece of strap had fallen from a supermarket-trolley.  I don't know what the security guys by the door made of my photographing it, but I got some seriously old-fashioned looks..

Roadkill 2

Sad small hat

Roadkill..

..cardboard cannot fight back

Sunday in the Snow

My Circle Garden in the snow..
I walked home last night at dusk, in a breathless and sacred silence broken only by the drumming take-off of a partridge.  I saw two tawny owls fly from the oak trees.  Utter perfection.

End of the Week of Colours, Conclusion, and Stars

Only one image today - this experiment with interlocking stars.  I didn't invent this, and I did it very slowly while thinking about my Week Of Colours.  And my conclusions?  The week was pretty hard compared with last year's Week Of Trees (see label/link at the bottom of this post to find the entries for that) - it was hard to put stuff down because it wasn't today's colour, and although I have got lots done, I have not finished enough to make a display, which I would have liked to do.  There is a big pile by my chair waiting for hand-finishing on the bindings, and a further huge pile layered and ready to quilt.  And a huge mess in the workshop.  I spent a while today sorting out the Blue Box which had exploded on Saturday and would not go back on the shelf.  So I sorted out all the stuff I no longer want from it and I'm cutting it up to make charm packs and the like.  I think I should do more of this, as the stash has got silly.  I was amazed just how many unlikeable fabrice were in the box, and how glad I was to be able to get the lid back on.
So, tomorrow I have to teach and rehang the shop, sort out the rent, and wash up..
And think about the next "Week Of..."

Thanks for reading

Oh, and the stars come from Here

Sunday is Indigo and Aching Legs

So, Indigo.  I have a box of Japanese fabrics with quite a lot of indigo-dyed stuff, and this delicious lacquerish red which goes with it so well.  The bottom panel is a wierd fabric which I suspect is either silk or horsehair, and has a most beautiful delicate print. The dragonflies seemed to go with it, and the green panel will have some hand-stitch.  Pins, as it is layered but not quilted yet.
I layered a lot of half-made pieces from earlier parts of the week.

 

Then I made this one, with more indigo and rust. After I had sewn down the right-hand tree, I found this little bird perched perfectly in the branches

 

Then this one.  This is the first piece I have made all week that I really don't like.  Might get scrapped, but I'll wait awhile in case inspiration, or a rotary cutter, strikes.  The central fabric is Names of Fishes in Japanese.  It actually looks better on screen than in life..

And this one, which is Not Indigo, but was hanging around making me feel faintly guilty.  Screen-prints on a piece of fabric which I had used to clean out a paint-jar.  I'm not sure the inner border is defined enough, but it may be OK when quilted.  The outer border I really like.

I'm really tired and I hurt a lot.. Slow evening, maybe a quiet week

Saturday, Day six: Blue and Boats

This is more like it!  I have been trying for ages to make a version of this boat image that would be teachable.  My original ideas, part of a series that I made for the Sea and Sky exhibition a couple of years ago, was too complex to teach, and too long-winded.  I was pleased with some aspects of the original, not least the time I spent choosing the quilting colours and matching each segment, so that the details were never obscured by the stitching, just added to in texture without any overlay. The quilt (below) is big, about 3 by 4 feet, and I do not expect it to sell quickly.  The smaller pieces I made for the same exhibition are long gone.

The technique I used to make this I call MAP piecing (Modified American Piecing), and starts by taking a piece of paper as big as the finished item and drawing all the segments on it.  I then cut this up and used it to mark out all the pieces, sewed them together on the marked lines and re-assembled the whole.  Laborious, accurate, and very satisfying.  But not for a Class.  Even a very small piece is more than a day's work and you need extreme accuracy (sadly lacking in most sewists, and not part of my Teaching Practice)
Anyway, I made four boats today, in two pairs.  I had all manner of thoughts about variations, and I have three nice pieces, two quilted and blocked, and one ready to layer.

Detail of the quilting

This one is called Two Boats, and here's a detail

Tomorrow is Indigo...

Oh, sorry, no lunch image.. No blue food and I didn't want to fake it...or perhaps I can...
Bless Photoshop!

Week Of Colours, Frustration

I've been struggling with muscle weakness.  Losing the "pinch grip" in your thumb and forefinger makes making hard, and not being able to ride my bike is driving me crazy.. So I went to see the rheumatologist, and he referred me to the physiotherapist, and I went to see the latter yesterday morning.. Now, you can't park at the surgery, because they are digging up the car park, so I walked, up, back to the library, down to the Post Office, back to the supermarket.  On the way I saw this glorious pink-against-blue, but I must have covered about 3 miles in total.  So the rest of the day was blasted by exhaustion. And I couldn't blog last night as I was too tired to go and find the camera..
Now I have some exercises for my neck, and a possible 13-week wait to be seen again.  Then I went looking for my blood-test results, only to be told that the 146 tests taken last time did not include the relevant one.. So, more needles on Monday. 

Meanwhile, the coffee at Baileys is as good as ever, and the flowers on the table are charming.

So, I did make a couple of small pieces, and I finished quilting yesterday's gree and red tree, did all the machine quilting on the big hedge piece and took it home to hand-stitch, and made a really good attempt at classifying a huge box of odd sewing-machine needles for my Old Sewing Machine Parts website