Wish Journal Quilt

As I told you in a previous post the theme for the Sketchbook Challenge this month was Holiday Colours and I made the Stars Journal show in that post. For that quilt I used the negative space after the tree had been cut out from the gelli plate printed black fabric. That left me with a black tree and it seemed a shame to waste it. So I decided to make another 10" square quilt this time making it a bit more christmassy. For this one I appliqued (using Bondaweb) the black tree onto a background of fabric also painted using the gelli plate. The tree was then hand stitched like the background on the Stars quilt but the background on this one was free machine stitched. 

To give a nostalgic feeling of wonder I added a fabric image as seen above (from Artchix Studio) by appliquéing it using the sewing machine.

The tree itself was decorated with silver ornaments in the shape of sequins. They only look different colours here as the flare of the camera flash picked up the holographic nature of the sequins. A blue star was put on top and then the word Wish (also from Artchix Studio) was stitched on in the top right hand corner. I know it's hard to see on the pictures but the round circular shape in the background right behind the tree is the moon and I have stuffed (trapunto like) it with extra wadding so it stands out slightly from the background. Of course beads were added along the perimeter of the binding. That has become more or less my signature for all my journal quilts.

Here is a view of both journal quilts so that you can appreciate the connection between them.

I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the Sketchbook Challenge will continue into 2014 and I have already decided to continue making 10" square journal quilts on their monthly themes too. Not sure yet what I will do about the journal quilt challenge on the Contemporary Quilt Group. I really disliked the size they set for this year (12 x 8" in a horizontal orientation) so I won't make that decision till I know all the specifics. 

In total I made 13 Journal Quilts for the Sketchbook Challenge, 12 for the Contemporary Quilt Group (themed on Klimt), 2 A4 sized ones for the Little Landscapes challenge set by Grosvenor Exhibitions (you won't see them till the show opens in February) and 1 for Thistle Quilters that has been shown here.That makes a total of 28. It is just more than half the 52 I made last year and I think that next year there will be less as they do take an awful lot of time away from my larger work. On the other hand I love making them so I will simply wait and see what 2014 brings. 

Thanks so much for coming on the journal quilt journey with me!

Grey and Powder Blue ATCs

Another month has flown past (where does all that time go?) and the next round of the Colour Groupies ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) have landed with Lenna, Debby, Caryl and Tristan. The colour combination for this month was Grey and Powder Blue and highly unusually for me I haven't used any fabric in making them, although I did manage to squeeze in some stitching.

All the ATCs started life as a large sheet of watercolour paper which I painted using credit cards, scraping, splashing, stencilling and stamping and probably other methods which I no longer remember. Using grey and powder blue acrylic colours and also throwing in the neutral white and blacks. When I was finished the background looked like the sea to me so I stayed with that theme and after cutting the sheet into ATC sized pieces (2.5 x 3.5") I added transparency fishes (from Artchix Studio)which, shock horror, I glued into position!

I added some more stamping as well as doodling to the cards and finished them off by layering them with another piece of cardstock and then connecting these cards with washi tape in matching colours. That would probably have held them together very well but my inborn distrust of glue led me to also stitch around the perimeter of all the cards, just to be on the safe side.

I've kept the one at the very top for myself and still have one spare which will probably go out into the wide world as a RAK (Random Act of Kindness). All I need to do is decide on the recipient!

Artistic Wings Journal Quilt

I'm quite late this month with my Journal Quilt. For new readers of this blog (welcome!!) I will just explain that I'm following the Sketchbook Challenge blog where every month a new theme is set for work in your sketchbook. Sometimes I do actually work in a sketchbook but sometimes, as this month, I just think a lot and then dive straight into fabric. I also use the pieces I produce for the challenge as my Journal Quilt for another challenge, this time one issued by the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild here in the U.K. For their Journal Quilts (one a month) the size has to be 10 x 10" and additionally our next 4 JQs must feature buttons somewhere.

The theme this month was Unfurling. A very fashionable word in art circles these days (there is even a book by this title written by Misty Mawn). I thought long and hard about what this meant to me and finally came to the conclusion that in the last few years I have really started to spread (i.e. unfurl) my artistic wings and fly in all kinds of directions. From just making textile art, I've ventured into mixed media, collage, beading, painting on both paper and fabric etc. etc. You name it, I've probably given it a go some time or other.

I used those painted fabrics both for the background as well as for the binding of the JQ. I used a portrait of myself at a much earlier stage of my life (I think I was 16 at the time) and dressed myself up as shown above, with an Indian fabric skirt (to which I added lots of hand embroidery), silk bodice, boots (from Alphastamps) and wings which were a gift from someone (thank you, whoever you are). These became part of my drawer of precious possessions,to be used for special occasions only. This was it! I spray painted them in colours to match the rest of my outfit. I used charms to hang from my chatelaine. They are all from Artchix Studio and read from left to right: wish, dream, imagine, inspire, create, laugh. The text (which I'm using on all my JQs this year as a challenge I set myself) was printed out on silk fabric which I then hand painted to match. The letters were beaded using size 11 seed beads.

Finally I beaded along the edges of the binding too, this time with orange seed beads. This method has become a bit of a signature for most of my Journal Quilts as well as some of my larger work.

Sail Away Spread

I finished another spread in my portrait orientated journal. I already knew that would become my favourite and so far the landscape journal has had some pages painted etc. but no actual journalling done in it. I aim to rectify that before too long.

This page just suddenly wanted to be made after I listened to a radio programme about people emigrating from the U.K. They seemed to think that all their problems would miraculously be over if only they moved to Australia, New Zealand, you name it. As someone who has moved countries (not just once but several times) I know that you always take your biggest problem with you, which is yourself. Just because you move doesn't mean you will be a different person. No, you will always be you, and much as I don't mind that mostly, I do fervently wish that I had an ON/OFF switch, so that just occasionally I could turn my thoughts off for a while!

The spread also refers to the fact that when John and I were first married we literally sailed away, on an oil tanker to be precise. If only it could have been a romantic sailing vessel as seen on the spread! The transparency fish is from Artchix Studio.

The old rowing boat is one of my own photographs, made into a blipcard by Blipfoto. I suddenly realized they were the ideal size to use in my journals, so you will be seeing more of them. I also forgot to mention in previous blog posts about my journalling that I always start somewhere in the middle of the journal. Perhaps to hide away my mistakes just in case the spreads turn into a disaster, and then in the end I'm faced with the first page, which should be extra special in my view, and then I'm stumped!!. But I don't seem to be able to shake off that habit. I do date all my pages though so that I can see in which order I did them with hindsight.

Jeune et Noir ATCs

In amidst all the excitement about the exhibition it's sometimes easy to forget that normal life also continues. And every month there is an Artist Trading Card exchange between the members of the Colour Groupies based on a colour combination. For April it was Jeune et Noir which sounds a lot more romantic in French than yellow and black does in English.

I used an African fabric for the background which had large graphic images and a lot of dots too, which immediately grabbed my attention as the perfect place to add some beads, and then some more!

The images are all divas featured on an Artchix Studio collage sheet and as they were all in black/white fitted in well with our colour scheme. The cards have now all landed safely with Caryl, Debby, Lenna and Tristan so can be revealed here too together with the very top card which is the one I made for myself to keep.

Birds and Bees ATC

We were greeted this morning by 4 inches of snow and it kept on snowing during the day with more on the way overnight and tomorrow apparently, which will no doubt play havoc with the plans I had. I felt a bit hard done by this is going to happen on the only Saturday for ages when I really needed to go somewhere.

However such concerns seem totally irrelevant on a day when nature once again demonstrates what she is capable of.

At such times I escape to my art which for me is a healing activity that soothes the soul. I mainly worked on beading a large quilt but found time to make an ATC (Artist Trading Card) for the new challenge theme in the ATCquarterly magazine, which was Birds and Bees. Sadly the magazine will stop publication with the Winter 2012 issue but for the moment I'm looking forward to the numbers still to appear! I'll definitely miss the challenges!

The background of this ATC is a part of one of my fabric-pepr collages and the rest is self explanatory. The bird image is from an Artchix Studio collage sheet and the bee from a vintage encyclopaedia.

Sweetheart ATC Swap

It's a day late but never mind! For me it's always time for love and romance. For one reason or another (mainly because I'm so busy with my upcoming exhibition) I hadn't made a fabric-paper collage for a very long time so that was already on my must do soon list, when I discovered Artchix Studio were running a Sweetheart ATC Swap. So no excuses, I made my collage yesterday and today got on with cutting it into ATC sized pieces and addingromantic images and transparencies to it from Artchix Studio collage sheets (the transparencies are all from the Hold Me sheet). I had pre-stamped the calico I used for the collage background with heart related sayings and hearts itself, all in red, which you can just about see on some of the cards.

Vintage images and paper napkins also went into the mix and when I was finished with the ATCs they were mounted on gorgeous watercolour ATC blanks (also available from Artchixstudio), the edges of which were coloured with a pink inkpad. All very pink and oh so lovey dovey, but what else do you expect of a Sweetheart themed swap?

Also very uplifting on a day which began with a covering of snow and deteriorated into wet - and darkness.

More skinny pages!

The temperature outside was minus 10 this morning and my mood was set at about the same low level. One of the less entertaining aspects of being a quilt artist is that quilts need to wing their way to exhibitions and back, but sadly they don't actually have wings so that it is necessary to employ courier companies, sometimes not of my own choosing. Take my advice and don't use UPS!! To say they drove me mad is a severe understatement. In fact if you're looking for a recommendation, when transporting quilts within the U.K. I select to use the Special Delivery service from Royal Mail. It means that your own postie will deliver it and he knows the way! Also non-delivery on the due date and time means you get your money refunded and that's an added incentive for the Royal Mail to deliver on schedule. The quilt finally made it to my door today but I had been chasing UPS online and by phone since yesterday morning, taking up my phone line for most of the day in one way or another as well as keeping me chained to the house for the duration.

I decided to make a virtue out of this by making the last set of skinny pages for the exchange. Again theSE are not due till next month, but finishing any project early produces such a good and satisfied feeling and I so needed that. Lisa left the choice of subject to every individual artist but I know she loves angel, Madonna and cemetary imagery (check out her marvelous collage sheets on these subject at Collage Stuff) so I went with that as I also like these. As December is also just over that got thrown into the mix as well. The first page (seen above) features a fabric - paper collage mounted onto fabric, and beaded around the edges.

The other page featured another detail of the same fabric - paper collage but this time scanned into the computer and printed out onto watercolour paper. The transparencies are from Artchix Studio.

After the quilt was delivered life felt a lot brighter again. I admit I'm rather frantic about quilt deliveries since Blue Waves was stolen in 2006. If it can happen once, it can happen again!

But the day ended a lot better when I managed to capture the photo (also my blip today) seen as the top. Brush, the cat, had sneaked onto the beanbag normally occupied by Troi, the greyhound. She was sitting in his chair so that was only fair. When Troi returned to "her" beanbag she knew better than to disturb him, so instead she draped herself around him, gave him a few licks for good measure and they both settled down for a long snooze. Perhaps I should follow suit!

All Hallows' Eve

The name of this post was the original one for the day we now know as Halloween. Originally it was the day before All Hallows' or All Saints! Day.

But this particular day goes back much further in time as in pagan times it was called Samhainn here in Scotland which roughly translates as "summer's end". It was a day to protect yourself before the onslaught of winter, against evil spirits such as witches, hobgoblins and the like. For that purpose there were bonfires on this day, people hang sprigs of rowan over doorways and sprinkled salt on thresholds. And these pagan rituals were carried forward into the christian equivalent.

In the words of Sir Walter Scott:

On Hallowmas Eve, e'er ye boune to rest,

Ever beware that your couch be blest;

Sign it with cross and sian

it with bead.

Sing the Ave and the Creed

I have to admit I find the old Gaelic name for this day a lot more attractive and today, as well as according to the weather forecast tomorrow, are living up to their summer's end name as the sun was shining brightly in the sky, but with a cold wind.

By one of those wonderful examples of serendipity I am meant to make skinny pages for Betsy in November. She had chosen as her theme Halloweenand what could be better than make these pages in time for the actual day! She wanted her Halloween pages to be fun so not the really dark side, that would have been my own preference. As you can see I used one of my paper - fabric collages on top of green fabric for both pages. This collage uses Alpha Stamps Halloween stamps in the background. I added images from an Artchix Studio Halloween collage sheet to the mix, a Boo ribbon as well as a fierce orange pumpkin embellishment.

Have a scary but fun Halloween!

Ivory and Mango ATCs

All my Ivory and Mango cards have been received by Lenna, Debby and Caryl, otherwise known as the Colour Groupies some days ago so time to post them on the blog too.

A bit of a strange colour combination this month which at first had me a bit stumped about what to do. Finally a ribbon already in my collection formed the starting point and I mounted it onto an ivory machine quilted background. Then for some reason my mind started to wander (all my school reports mention that I dream too much, as if this is a bad thing!) and came up with sailors carving ivory whilst at sea (and eating mango to counteract scurvy) and that in turn meant I wanted to use men on these cards. I found some charming vintage ones on an Artchix Studio collage sheet and while searching for them I also found the gothic arches transparencies on another Artchix sheet.

The whole lot was mixed together, a few butterflies added for good measure and the cards then were finished with a strong orange thread and satin stitching. I know mango is definitely not this bright but the men demanded something forceful to keep them in check! Just above you can see the man I hung on to for myself.

Artchix Mary ATC

Sometimes I seem to have creative wings (don let this deceive you as at other times I'm a creative turtle) and so much comes out of my hands that I find it difficult to keep up on the blog. Therefore today there will be multiple blogposts in order to catch up with myself, or even overtake myself and keep ahead!

This post features the ATC I made for the Artchix Lottery Yahoo Group. A group formed when Artchix Studio itself moved from a Yahoo group to a Facebook page. Needless to say the requirement is to use an Artchix image and in all honesty I almost forgot to do so this time. Every fortnight or so a winner is drawn from all the entries, we all send our ATCs to that winner and she (no men in the group to the best of my knowledge) chooses the new theme. At the moment the theme is Mary and surprisingly (as I'm an atheist) a religious Mary inhabits my card. This remnant of a very old fabric-paper collage was fuzzy cut at the time I made it as I really loved the way the image was integrated into the background and I put it aside for some special occasion. That moment has now arrived and I added the Blessings word which does indeed come from an Artchix Studio collage sheet, as well as a self-adhesive butterfly. The card did not need anymore, apart from finishing with yellow zigzag stitching.

A Mystery

Today was such a gorgeous, sunny day that I left all thoughts of working on quilts etc. far behind me and simply settled down to reading books in the sunshine, pottering around the garden and trying to decide on a colour to paint our new shed. John was horrified by my suggestion of sunshine colour stripes as you see on beach huts so I'll probably have to settle for something a bit more sedate and calm to keep my oh so English husband happy. I can't understand what he has against such pretty colours and he can't understand why I want them!

Which brings me neatly to the theme for the ATC I did manage to produce. It's for the Artchix Studio themed lottery on Flickr and our latest winner has settled on the new theme of Mystery.

So connecting these two events today was oh so easy because the text was almost staring me in the face. What else could it be but: "He will always be a mystery to me". Artchix Studio provided both the images and I donated a pieced fabric background from an old, and abandoned quilt. The final touch was that delightful sparkly transparency of which I just can't get enough. It's very transparent but at the same time it sparkles like mad, specially on such a sunny day. I obtained it from Create and Craft! Definitely a must-have buy!

Artchix Butterfly ATC Swap

All the rain we did not have in the spring seems to be coming down from the skies by the bucket load during yesterday and today. Definitely not a day to be in the garden but instead to ensconce myself cosily in my studio and work away on some fun projects. I started making a fabric-paper collage for the Artchix Studio Butterfly ATC swap yesterday, stamping the background calico (muslin in US speak) with a variety of butterfly stamps and adding paper napkins also with butterflies.

The requirement for this swap was to use images for the Hot or Cold Butterfly sheet from Artchix Studio. I downloaded both at home (both took over an hour to download, yak!!!) but at least it was done and I could get started on the cards today. I used only the butterflies from the Cold sheet in the end. I added female portraits as well as transparencies, all from Artchix Studio collage sheets and finished off with more butterflies from the Cold Butterflies sheet as well as vintage quotations.

I love the depth and texture that can be obtained by using transparencies in my work and adding imagery both underneath and on top of them. The cards ended up looking quite mysterious, just what I was looking for.

The cards were finished off with green zig-zag stitching.

Avocado Green and Tomato Red

It sounds like a tasty idea for a salad but it was this month's colour combination for the Colour Groupies. Of course it is also a complimentary scheme and one that can make you think of Christmas if you're not careful. I hope I have avoided that because who could want Christmas in July? I'm not that keen on it even in December!

I made my cards in a novel way, by locating two fabrics in the required colours from my stash, and cutting them up into little snippets. There were then put on top of Fast2Fuse and ironed on. Free machine quilting was added to hold them in their place. I added images from an Artchix Studio collage sheet dedicated to old match boxes as well as one actually featuring a tomato and stitched them on. Torn strips of a metallic green fabric were stitched over the images and the cards were finished by ironing a green fabric to the other side of the Fast2Fuse and green zig-zag stitching around the edges. I kept the one with the dancing red figure. All the cards have now arrived with Caryl, Debby and Lenna, my fellow Colour Groupies, which is why I can now show them here.

D is for Door

The Flickr Artchix ATC lottery has a new theme and it is the letter D. I prompty spend most of my dog walks thinking of words starting with D and there are so many! But as we also need to use an Artchix image on our ATC the choice was a bit restricted as there weren't that many images for the D words floating around in my brain. I settled on D is for Door as there are various collage sheets by Artchix Studio featuring doors. I also found a vintage D letter in my collection so added that on top of the door image.

As background I used a piece of gold lame already machine quilted for another project. I then added the lovely blue lady with roses (also Artchix Studio) and the butterfly. The vintage text reads:

And ev'ry door is shut but one,
And that is mercy's door.

Campari and Orange ATCs

The colour combination for the Colour Groupies this month is also a wonderful drink which I got to know one sunny day in Sorrento, Italy many, many moons ago and which has been been a favourite ever since, both the drink and as I discovered making these ATCs the colours too.

Lenna, Debby and Caryl, my fellow Groupies, have now received their cards so I can show them here. I made them on the 7th May i.e. not recently but only mailed them off at the beginning of this month. The images and transparencies I used are all from Artchix Studio collage sheets and the backgrounds are strips of batik fabrics in the appropriate colours. Beading, decorative machine stitching and vintage texts were added to the mix. The cards are all quite different this month and as always I made one for me to keep. A romantic one, what else is new??

Artchix Circle Card

My motivational daily tear-off calendar (from Louise Hay) this morning read: "Life is meant to be simple and easy". The moment I read this I knew it was going to be anything but today, which says a lot about me! Anyway as expected the day wasn't either simple or easy in any shape or form and I even used the word Kafka-esque to describe the situation I found myself in on the phone (speaking to a building society!!). I could hear the person on the other end taking a breath, considering whether it would be worthwhile asking and then deciding against it. Probably just as well!

As ever when I find life a grind I retreated to my art and decided to make an ATC for the Artchix Studio Lottery on Flickr. We're a group formed after the Artchix Yahoo group closed (they moved to Facebook) and we are still running the lottery with a different theme every fortnight. A winner for the last one (themed By the Seaside) was announced and the new theme is Circles. I had one background left from my Summer in Paris ATCs (previous post) so put that to good use and added the circles as shown (all from Artchix Studio collage sheets of course). I then could not resist grabbing the sparkling transparency and sticking it on. I added some free machining in turquoise around the circles, added a sparkling heart and finished the edges with turquoise zigzag stitching. Perhaps I was also sending out a message to someone, anyone: Spoil Me! as I was definitely feeling sorry for myself.

Seaside ATC

Since Artchix Studio moved their associated group to Facebook, a new group for the fortnightly lottery was also formed, this time on Flickr. The idea is to for all participants to make ATCs on a set theme, upload pictures of the ATCs made, to the group, and at the end of the fortnight a winner is drawn and everyone sends their respective cards to the winner. The winner also get to determine the new theme and to draw the winner.

Our most recent theme is By the Seaside and here is my contribution. The background is fabric although you can hardly see it. Both images as well as the netting and the eyelash trim are available from Artchix Studio. As I also used a bulky shell shaped embellishment this is a photo rather than a scan.

Sunshine Yellow

Sunshine because this is the first truely warm day here at Macbiehill since...., well since last summer!

Yellow because I'm continuing with my yellow theme from a previous post.

I was lucky enough to win the Garden & Flowers themed lottery on the new Flickr Artchix Group (hurrah, I can't wait to welcome all the beautiful ATCs. that will be coming my way!) and that also meant I could determine the next theme. So I went for my favourite colour yellow, inspired also by the radiant sun. My card was made using strips of yellow fabric, ironed onto Fast2Fuse. I added the paper flower image as well as the flourish and Journal word transparencies (all from Artchix Studio) and finished off with the orange circular dot in the centre of the flower. The back fabric (also yellow) was ironed to the other side of the Fast2Fuse and the edges finished with yellow zigzag stitches.

The sun has also contributed to the very delayed appearance of our tylips. They are therefore extra appreciated and don't these beauties look like luminuous yellow lights with the sun shining through their petals?

My yellow theme for the day was confirmed when the mail was delivered. It brought the wonderful shrine obtained from my friend and fellow quilter Tristan Robin Blakeman, via his Etsy shop. It was so amazing to see the wealth of detail he managed to fit into what started life as a tin of ham. This shrine will be a daily inspiration in my studio. Can you see the rays of sunshine and the gorgeous sparkle?

What a great piece of art to receive on a sunshine yellow day!

Card for the Artchix lottery

Sadly the Artchix Studio Yahoo Group is no more as it simply proved to be so much trouble and the entire group has been moved to Facebook. Which was one reason why you can now find me on Facebook as well (see sidebar).

However some people were not that keen on the Facebook move and have established themselves as a separate from Artchix but still using Artchix Studio art Flickr group. This is just to keep the lottery going. It works as follows. Someone sets the theme and you have a fortnight's time to make an ATC on that theme using Artchix Studio collage sheet images. When the due date comes up, a winner is selected randomly from all the ATCs made, and everyone sends that winner their card. The winner also gets to set the theme for the next challenge.

I found out about the Flickr Group from my wonderful artist friend Lenna Andrews and as I'm also an avid reader of her blog I discovered the gorgeous card she had made for the current theme which is Garden and Flowers. And as soon as I had seen that I simply felt compelled to go and join the Flickr group, make an ATC, all in order to be in with a chance to win her card!

Here is my ATC using text and a transparency from the Artchix Studio Garden Blossoms sheet! I've made the card as summery as I could because believe it or not but we really had some flutterings of snow today. If you read Georgina's comment on my previous blogpost you'll see that we were not the only ones either!! The nights are freezing and the days not much better. And I'm now really gasping for a bit more sun!!