Good things come to those who wait.

And for once I'm not talking about the snow here! We haven't had any snow today which is rather remarkable as the rest of the U.K. has turned into a country in lock-down due to prolific snowfalls. No planes, massively delayed trains and cars going nowhere! And it's not even Christmas. Instead of severe weather warnings we have graduated to extreme weather warnings and are told that you should only travel if it is essential! So far, no-one has specified what exactly is meant by this? Does needing mincepies qualify?? Don't answer that!

The day here was dark and very, very cold. Even the sun peeping through the clouds couldn't warm things up but it made for a good blip as you can see above.

But back to the title of this blog. It does refer to the fact that my mixed media collage: Life is not always black & white, has been published in the recent issue (Winter 2011) of the Somerset Studio Gallery magazine. You can find the link to order this issue by clicking on the image below:

My contribution can be found on page 111 and Lenna's art is also featured on page 95. Amazingly my piece was made back in 2008 so I was rather taken by surprise to suddenly find it published in 2010! All good fun ! It was one of the first pieces of art I made using an image of the Edwardian music hall artist Marie Studholme to which all my Journal Quilts in 2009 were also dedicated.

Here is the piece as it appears in Somerset Studio Gallery and they have published my instructions in full too! By some miracle my issue was in the mail which John collected from our postie in the village. Mail from within the UK seems to take forever due to the weather conditions but mail from abroad makes it through regardless. I don't know how to explain it but I'm grateful for any post making it to us at the moment.

Journal Quilts 2009

For my upcoming exhibition I decided to put both the 2008 and 2009 Journal Quilts that I made for the project organized by the Contemporary Group of the British Quilters Guild, together into one large quilt.

And isn't it amazing how these little plans of mine always end up taking a lot longer than I had anticipated!! The first step consisted in sewing all the 12 quilts (each sized 6 x 12") together. Fortunately the idea of putting them together was kept in the back of my mind while making them and I had made 4 vertical ones and 8 horizontals, so they slotted together nicely. Unfortunately I had binded each one with a transparent ribbon and when sewing them together with a whip stitch by hand I kept catching just the ribbon rather than the whole piece. Not good!! Also buttons and other embellishments kept getting in my way! Should have considered that as well while making them!!

Then when I had them all together a decision needed to be made about the border. I wanted this to be in keeping with the Journal Quilts themselves that were all dedicated to the Edwardian musical actress Marie Studholme so in my opinion a vintage fabric was needed. Could not find one in my stash large enough and finally discovered a tweed like fabric among my collection of furnishing fabrics. This then had to be layered with wadding (batting), and folded over so that it too could be whip stitched to the pieces. Talk about time consuming!

I finally had a piece of luck as I found a lovely backing fabric which for a change was actually large enough. Sigh of relief!! As the quilt was so heavy I knew I had to attach the backing to the front quite well, so decided for once to use Bondaweb (Wonderunder) and no, I did not have enough of that. Okay, cut what I had into strips and ironed it on to the backing fabric following the manufacturers' instructions, honestly!!! Then needed to remove the paper from it in order to iron it to the back of the quilt. Did it come off, no it did not!!! Old stock apparently. It needed to be scrapped off by hand and took an entire evening accompanied by very bad language and many curses on however had sold it to me!

Finally I also added buttons to help hold the layers together a bit more and a vintage looking binding was also sewn on. The sleeve was the last time consuming addition.

Pheew, it is done and yes, this is not a very good picture and I will take a much better one once it hangs in the exhibition next year! You can have a look again at each individual JQ by clicking on the label Journal Quilts in the right hand side of this blog!

That was 2009, and I can hardly wait (that's a lie if ever you read one!) to see what the 2008 JQs can offer me in the way of obstacles. Yikes, sometimes this quilting lark is a lot like very HARD WORK!

Pastel Pink and Dove Grey

Still no internet connection at home so I made my way to the library as the internet fault could take another 48 hours to sort out and there is so much art to share I did not want to deprive you or myself! I so enjoy posting and reading the comments as well as browsing other blogs that it's worth the 16 miles round trip through thick fog as was the case today.

All the Colour Groupies (Debby, Caryl and Lenna)have received their cards so I'm showing these first! The colour scheme for March was pastel pink and dove grey and as good luck (and my enormous fabric stash) would have it I had just the fabric for this one. It was ironed onto Fast2Fuse and machine quilted. The image (from Alpha Stamps Easter Bonnets sheet) was stitched on as well as the bird image (from Alpha Stamps Collage Birds). The finishing touches were formed by the flower charm (no idea where I got these, they have been in my collection for a fair few years!) and the transparent text. As per usual the edges were finished with satin stitching.

This one above was the one I decided to keep as it features my very favourite Edwardian music hall star Marie Studholme (by chance also on the Alpha Stamps Easter Bonnets sheet) to whom all my 2009 Journal Quilts were also dedicated.

Journal Quilt 2009 December

Despite all my good resolutions I only finished my last Journal Quilt for this year today. And I do think myself that the JQs this year have not received the full attention they deserved from me. There is just so much to do, so little time to do it in, and my lists are getting ever longer so I have made the decision not to sign up again for the Contemporary Group JQs next year. I might still make them but I don't want to feel pressured about them. They are after all meant to be a pleasure, not a burden. Now all I have to do is try and control that clicking finger of mine!!

I've been making them solidly since 2004, and in some years I have even made more than one set for different purposes. In fact you can see one of my Venice JQs (the one featured in this blog's banner) in the most recent edition of the Fabrications magazine (issue 63) where it is advertising the upcoming travelling exhibit of Journal Quilts on the theme Travelling Tales, with Grosvenor Exhibitions. I love making them and have learned an awful lot from them and there is no doubt in my mind that you will see more on this blog, just not in an organized fashion.

The JQs this year were all dedicated to the Edwardian music hall actress Marie Studholme who features on a great many of my vintage postcards and the image you can see on this one is no exception. She was printed on organza inkjet fabric sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper) and for once I used Bondaweb to adhere her to the background (with additional stitching of course!). This was made of a brown furnishing fabric, quilted with a decorative machine stitch in variegated thread. I added lots of flower beads as well as flower decorations, vintage trim with pearls couched on top, brown lace, vintage buttons adhered with sequins and a size 11 seed bead.

I'm going to put all the JQs for this year together into one quilt and I wanted to have her name somewhere on the quilt so I have added it on this JQ and it will find its place in due course. Around the name size 11 gold seed beads were stitched on.

This quilt has a lot of dimension which meant I had to photograph rather than scan it. Hence you might not be able to see all the details that well. Apologies for that!!

Journal Quilt 2009 November

Despite planning to tackle the JQ this month as early as possible it has taken me till now to finally make it, although the idea had been finalized in my mind at the beginning of the month.

I have just started another large quilt and was rather carried away by my piecing. A sort of frenzy seems to overtake me once I start and I do have to tell myself to go a bit slower at times as otherwise I would be at it day and night.So it was hard to put that aside for the time being to start work on my Journal Quilt but all the advance thinking paid off in that I only had to search for the necessary materials to make it into a reality.

As I'm sure you all know by now the Journal Quilts this year are sized 6 x 12" (either horizontally or vertically), are made for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles, and mine are all dedicated to the Edwardian music hall artist Marie Studholme.

Ebay is still tempting me with more vintage cards featuring her, that are not in my possession yet and I've used a recent acquisition for this JQ. It shows Marie with another of her marvelous hats in a circular shape and I digitally altered her from black/white into purple. This was to tone her in with the fabric paper background I had made for her (and also used for the Napkin ATC swap shown in an earlier post recently). I printed her out on an organza fabric sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper) so that you can see the background vaguely through the image. She was added using Bondaweb (Wonderunder in U.S.) and also zig-zag stitched on and beaded around the edges. This collage was then stitched onto the previously machine quilted background (using a furnishing fabric) and added beaded around the edges. The finishing touches were one large vintage button, 8 smaller purple buttons and the text : "be my intended" at the top, with beading around the edges.

All the JQs this year are finished with transparent ribbon around the edges, this month it was purple, and I will put them all together into one large quilt when they're all done!

Journal Quilt 2009 October

This Journal Quilt is a lot later than normally but at least it has been finished before the end of the month. I've promised myself to get on with the last 2 this year more promptly and will probably work them in tandem to get them out of the way before the end of November.

The reason I'm so late is that I'm frantically trying to finish a quilt and that normally leads to feverish activity on the quilt but not much else being done on anything else. I really had to give myself a pep talk in order to temporarily let go of the quilt and producing the JQ instead. I also have to finish some Quotation ATCs tomorrow for a swap I'm hosting on the ATCsforAll Site but after that I will immediately be back in action on the quilt as it's so nearly finished and I want to see what it will look like once I hang it up!!

Anyway as most of you already know the JQs this year are sized 6 x 12" (either horizontally or vertically) and dedicated in my case to the Edwardian actress Marie Studholme for no other reason than that I think she really is lovely and I have a large collection of vintage postcards that feature her.

I used one of them for the JQ by scanning it in and printing it out onto a cotton lawn fabric sheet and cutting her out. The background is a piece of furnishing fabric that I machine quilted with one of the decorative stitches on my machine. I added an whole vintage glove to the background as the theme of the JQ was the text I also added. From a song (There is a girl I simply dote on) in the Lady Madcap musical, it reads: Not your frock, your hat, your glove. Marie was raw edge appliqued on and I then added some hand stitching in fine white sewing thread to hold her down on the surface. In the picture she was wearing some lovely jewellery so I made her a very long strand of pearls with a vintage button at the top. Pearls were also added to the glove and some large coffee coloured beads were sewn on as well at the top of the fingers. Finally I added a vintage lace at the right hand side of the piece.

The edges were finished with transparent ribbon as are all the Journal Quilts this year.

Journal Quilt 2009 September

Time again for another Journal Quilt, sized 6 x 12", for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild and yet again featuring the beautiful Edwardian actress Marie Studholme. I still can't get enough of her, and as I have an entire album full of postcards on which she poses in various, gorgeous and occasionally hilarious outfits, that's just as well.

I also used a new product from Crafty Computer Paper called Pabric Adhesive Sticker, which is a polyester fabric which when printed can be removed from the backing and is then self-adhesive. The polyester fabric prints wonderfully clearly, with very defined colours and I really love it, but of course as it's polyester can't be used for everything. On this JQ however it looks fab! And by the way you can also adhere the printed image onto surfaces like wood, glass, plastic etc. (and no, they don't pay me to say so!! If only!)

Anyway as you can see I printed this image very large so that it covers a large part of the background, which is purple velvet which I machine quilted with one of the decorative stitches on my machine. I then found the purple a bit too much in your face so dulled it down by applying gold acrylic paint with a roller.

Vintage lace was added at the top (dyed in coffee) and then the fun really started with the embellishments in the shape of pearl beads, seed beads and one long red bead. I also sewed on red velvet vintage flowers (from Lost Art Creations).

The text comes from the back of one of the vintage postcards, is printed on cotton, and reads: "Don't you think this is a good one of Marie Studholme". More than 100 years later, I certainly think so! The text was sewn on by hand and the edges are finished with transparent ribbon.

Journal Quilt 2009 August

I'm feeling quite virtuous as I've finished my JQ for this month already and in fact am working on September too. This is mainly because I'm trying to gear myself up to start beading a large quilt and making these small pieces is a sort of replacement activity. I know I should be doing something else but I'm not yet in the right frame of mind and in order not to feel like I'm skivving, I do something else that needs doing. When this gets really bad, I even start to do some housework, in which case I know I'm in trouble, artistically speaking!! Still occasionally it does serve a purpose.

But back to the JQ which as most of you know by now is sized 6 x 12" (and can be either horizontal or vertical), dedicated to the Edwardian actress Marie Studholme and made for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild.

The background is a tweedy looking fabric which brought the Edwardian period to mind for me and which also toned in lovely with the image I wanted to use. The centre piece started its life as another piece of my art, called Life is not always black and white, and which is still in the hands of Somerset Studio magazine (for over a year now). I decided to recycle it in this JQ as I had used an image of Marie Studholme in her character as Lady Madcap. The original art had a fabric/paper collage background and fortunately I had scanned the whole thing in so I could use it again in this piece. I printed it on a new product from Crafty Computer Paper i.e. pabric, which is a 100% polyester fabricsheet for inkjet printers. It really printed beautifully with lovely bright colours, and very sharp too. Remember though that it is polyester so don't put your hot iron on top!!

I stitched it onto the quilted background, went over the scanned stitches with real brown stitches, added blue size 11 seed beads where I had put a sparkly chiffon in the original and also added a vintage turquoise button. I added more vintage buttons, this time brown, to the sides of the piece and finished the edges with brown transparent ribbon.

I do believe I like this version even better than the original but do hope that one will return home too, one of these days!!

Journal Quilt 2009 July

I thought I would get my skates on and get my Journal Quilt for this month done early for a change. As you probably know by now my JQs this year are for the Contemporary Group of the British Quilters' Guild, are sized 6 x 12" (either horizontal or vertical or a mix of both), and are dedicated to the Edwardian music hall star Marie Studholme.

I decided to continue further with the song"I love you in Velvet", which I also used in a previous JQ this year. This time I printed out some of the text on voile and if you are interested in the full words of this song, you can read them again here.

This song is from the musical Lady Madcap and the postcard I used for this Journal Quilt shows Marie in her role in this musical too. I love the cap she is wearing on this card with a lovely pearl hanging on her forehead. I decided to add different colours to this originally black/white card and these were stitched on to a machine quilted golden background. The pictures were printed onto iron-on fabric sheets (from Crafty Computer Paper) and were also zigzag stitched on using gold thread. The musical text was printed onto voile (also Crafty Computer Paper) and stitched on in the same way. I added a lovely trim (bought from Australia!) which picks up the colour from all the images. Vintage buttons, also picking up the colours from the rest of the JQ, were stitched on by hand and I beaded with pearl beads around each Marie image. Finally I added a pearl in matching colours to each image as shown.

The edges were finished with transparent ribbon.

The scan is not great as there are so many 3D items on this JQ but it gives you an impression of what it looks like!

Journal Quilt 2009 June

Time for another Journal Quilt dedicated to Marie Studholme and sized 6 x 12" for the Contemporary Group of the British Quilting Guild. For this month I choose to use one of my most treasured Marie postcards (also one of the most expensive cards!)

This one seems to me to be in a very Art Nouveau style and Marie herself looks lovely, all frothy and lacy which led to my decision to use laces, both modern and vintage, for the background. They were randomly applied to a background which was already layered with wadding (batting) and a backing fabric, so I quilted the piece at the same time as doing the applique. I also added couched white knitting yarns (you will recognize this background from various previously shown ATCs!)

I found a lovely vintage round piece of lace in my stash and used that as a sun image at the right hand side, and to which I added hand-stitched rays. The original postcard was scanned into my computer and printed onto iron on fabric sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper). I then added stitching and beading as shown.

I am as interested in the back of my vintage postcard collection as I am in the front. They give a fascinating inside into the world at the time (early 20th Century) and it is clear that these postcards of well known music hall stars were already collectables in their own time and judgements are frequently found on the back of the cards about the prettiness of the actresses concerned. Marie was considered to be a very pretty one indeed, as you can read on the bit of text I've transferred to fabric and added to my Journal Quilt.

Vintage buttons were sewn on and the borders finished with transparent ribbon as I've done for all my JQs this year.

Journal Quilt 2009 May

I mentioned on a previous post that I had finished my May Journal Quilt and here it is, with the addition of more beads. As it was laying on my desk it kept telling me to add more beads before posting, so like a good girl I did!

The Journal Quilts this year for the Contemporary Group of the British Quilters' Guild are sized 6 x 12", and can be either horizontal or vertical or a mix of both. Mine are dedicated to the Edwardian actress Marie Studholme. One of the musical plays in which she played a leading role was Lady Madcap and on this JQ the title of one of the songs from this play is mentioned i.e. "I like you in velvet".

The full text of this lively ditty (a very Edwardian word!) is as follows:

There's a girl I simply dote on, she has no single flaw. A simple skirt and coat on, and sailor hat of straw. And yet she looks more splended, yhan all the world today; She'll soon be my intended, perhaps, that's why I say - It's you I love - Not your frock, your hat, your glove. I like you in velvet, I love you in plush, In satin you are just like your own lovely blush, You're charming in silk, or a plain woollen shawl; but you're simply delightful in anything at all!

For you I have a passion. I cannot sleep or eat; The latest Paris fashion cannot make you more sweet. What ever frock you're dressed in, beside your eyes will pall. I take no interest in your dressmaker at all. It's you I love - Not your frock, your hat, your glove. I like you in velvet, I love you in plush, In satin you are just like your own lovely blush. You're charming in silk, or a plain woollen shawl; but you're simply delightful in anything at all!

If you want to listen to the music (and even sing along if you fancy!) you can find it here.

Somehow I can't help thinking that if this song had been written today the last line would probably read: you're simply delightful in nothing at all! Times have changed out of all recognition since this song was written in 1904 and not necessarily for the better.

Before I start to sound like a female version of Victor Meldrew (UK joke!) back to the JQ.

The background is red velvet, layered with wadding (batting) and machine quilted. I added an image of the lovely Marie from one of my vintage postcards, printed onto iron-on fabric sheet (Crafty Computer Paper). This was sewn on as was the text printed on voile, and the roses (from a commercial fabric). I then added red size 11 seed beads, a decorative rose, 5 vintage pink buttons and one vintage cream button as shown.

The edges were finished with a pink transparent ribbon.

Journal Quilt 2009 April

For this month's Journal Quilt I decided to take a look at the back of all my postcards featuring Marie Studholme, who is the theme for my JQs this year. They proved to be a real inspiration and I discovered that even at the time they were produced (early 20th Century) these postcards were already collected avidly, specially by girls called Ada, Trixie, Gladys, May and such like. No longer in vogue sort of names and really old fashioned sounding but maybe they will be back one of these days.

The Marie Studholme cards were rated by them and some were definitely more admired than others. I feel a sort of link with these collectors as I too have a large (133) collection of Marie Studholme cards. I even discovered she played the leading role in the play Miss Hook of Holland in Bristol. Have to admit I never heard of this play before but I'm going to try and find out more about it. Some of you will know I was born and bred in The Netherlands so that's another link.

The background is a loosely woven yellow furnishing fabric which was layered with wadding (batting) and backing fabric and machine quilted. The postcards were scanned into my computer, printed out onto cotton fabric sheets, and laid down in random fashion and stitched down. The edges were then decorated with size 11 gold seed beads. The picture of Marie (see actual postcard above) was printed out onto voile sheets (available from Crafty Computer Paper) and stitched down on top of the cards. As this is a see-through material you can still spot the postcards underneath. It was stitched down by hand and by machine and red size 11 seed beads were added at the bottom edge. An actual stamp was stitched on at the right hand side of the JQ.

The edges were finished with transparent ribbon and I hope to put all the JQs for this year (sized 6 x 12" or 12 x 6") together in one large quilt at the end of the year, probably by hand.

11th Collage Exchange

And sometimes good things even come in fourths! Today was also the opening day of the 11th Collage Exchange, where work from 121 artists gets exchanged. We all made 13 collages of which 11 will be swapped. One is exhibited and will go to a permanent collection in due course and one is for sale. Artists came from all over the world although I seem to be the only one from the UK this year.

You can read about my collages by clicking on the Collages label (see the very bottom of this blog) but I'm showing you two here. All of mine were dedicated to the Edwardian actress Marie Studholme, as are my Journal Quilts this year.

First of all above is the one which is on show at the moment in the Puke Ariki gallery in New Zealand. The exhibition runs from the 28th March till the 2nd May, and can also be seen online in the Virtual Tart gallery, run by Dale Copeland who organizes the Collage Exchanges.

And here is the page with my collage which is actually for sale (only $70!). Picture above.

Have a look at the homepage too where you can navigate to both the sales pages as well as the exhibit pages where there are some beautiful collages to be seen. I've already bought one myself but I'm keeping that one under wraps for the moment as I haven't even paid for it yet!

Journal Quilt 2009 March

Another gorgeous day weatherwise and after putting the final touches to this JQ I gave up any further activity in my studio and started to cut back things in the garden. It's amazing how much difference even one afternoon can make in the appearance of one flower bed. Very satisfying and pictures will be coming hard and fast at this time of year! Just keep on reading future posts!

But my March JQ is now also done and here is a picture of it. I'm making these with the Contemporary Group of the British Quilters' Guild and the size this year is 6 x 12" and the JQs can be orientated either horizontally or vertically or a mix of both (which I'm doing).

My JQs this year are dedicated to Marie Studholme, a well known English actress in Edwardian times. I have a collection of 133 postcards of her and I've featured 3 of them on this JQ. They are identical cards and started their life as one black/white picture( see above) as did all the postcards from this period. Various different postcard companies then bought the picture and used it in different ways, the main difference being the colouring in of the card. They used a lot of artistic licence in this respect and it's interesting to see the varying results. On the TV programme The Victorians here in the UK, an old-fashioned photo studio from those days was shown recently (to my intense delight!), still in existence today with the artistic back-drops which were used while taking the pictures. So that beautiful landscape behind Marie only exists as a hanging! The chair is no doubt real, though and probably belonged to the photographer.

I used a blue velvet background (probably familiar from previous posts) onto which the Marie pictures were appliqued with zig zag stitching. Before that I layered a fabric with musical notes (as Marie appeared mainly in musicals), which I vintaged with coffee. Beads and buttons were sewn on by hand and the binding is a transparent ribbon, which I am using in all the JQs this year.

Marie is pictures in her title roll as Lady Madcap, in fact most of her postcards show her in this roll, which she played in the revival of the piece in 1906-7.

ATC no. 100

At last!! I have finally finished my final ATC in the 100 ATC project. It took a lot longer than I have envisaged but it has been done. The plan originally was to make an ATC every week which would have meant it would have taken just under 2 years to finish the 100 but although I made a good start back on the 25th of May 2006 (long before my blogging days!) I did get busier and busier, the ATCs started getting behind, and it's now almost 3 years later. Above you can see my very first ATC, finished on that day and called Be Square. Unusually for me it has a horizontal or landscape orientation. It is also out of the ordinary as it uses a male image.

Most of my ATCs were vertical although I have tried to vary it a bit. I'm simply more comfortable working vertically. Most of my large quilts have the same orientation.

And here is the final ATC. No 100 and called Marie Studholme as the ATC features a picture of this Edwardian actress, which I have manipulated digitally to make it emerald in colour. The background is blue velvet and was machine quilted using silver thread and one of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine. At the top left I added a transparent ribbon with beaded leaf embellishment and at the bottom left, next to Marie's image a blue vintage velvet flower (from LostArtCreations) that was further embellished with beads. The edges were finished with blue satin stitch, which is how most of the 100 cards were finished. The 100th ATC was finished on the 20th February 2009.

I made the same card for most of the Colour Groupies Blue/Green theme this month with one exception about which more in the near future!

Journal Quilt 2009 February

I can really notice what a very short month February is. There does not seem enough time to fit in all my monthly commitments but at least I have my Journal Quilt finished. I actually started it at the same time as my January one but sewing on all those buttons took longer than I had expected.

These JQs are for the Contemporary Group of the British Quilters' Guild and we're doing them sized 6 x 12" this year (they can be orientated horizontally, vertically or a mix of both) and mine are dedicated to the Edwardian actress Marie Studholme

Quite a few years ago I met a fellow embroiderer with the last name Studholme and she collects silk postcards. When we got talking and when I revealed my passion for the pretty lady postcards from the turn of the last century she told me about her namesake and how she had been pictured on numerous cards. So as soon as I got home I checked my collection and discovered I had about 5 or 6 cards of her already.

Since then I actually search out her cards on Ebay and in antique shops and postcard fairs and to date I now have 133. And only very few doubles! She really was a very popular girl in her day (the early 1900's) and on the postcards you can see her often in the various costumes she wore to appear in Lady Madcap.

This is one such postcard which I have scanned into my machine and then digitally manipulated to make colour variations of it. These were printed onto Transfer Artist Paper (from Transfer Artist, by Lesley Riley) and ironed onto hand-dyed fabrics in the same shades. I love the fact that transfer paper allows you to print on already coloured fabrics and love the soft handle that this particular transfer paper maintains for the fabric.

The 3 different versions were stitched onto the red background and vintage (and I think very old) lace was added around the pictures as well as size 11 seed beads in matching colours. And then for some reason I felt this piece needed vintage buttons so I started stitching them on, and on....and on!!

Border has been done as for the January JQ, with transparent ribbon.

Journal Quilt 2009 January

Once again I was seduced into making 12 Journal Quilts this year for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles. The size this year is 6 x 12", so half the size of last year and this size also means that the resulting quilts will fit together nicely. We can use both horizontal or vertical orientation or a mixture of both. As I'm planning to make these into one quilt at the end of this year, it suited me down to the ground.

I had been planning to make a quilt on the theme of Marie Studholme already so I have made her the star of my JQs this year.

Marie Studholme (1872 - 1930) born Caroline Maria Lupton or Marion Lupton, was an English actress and singer, known for her supporting and sometimes starring roles in Victorian and Edwardian musical comedy. Her attractive features made her one of the most popular postcard beauties of her day (Wikipedia). I had bought several postcards featuring her in my vintage postcard collection but have started to actively collect postcards featuring her image in the last 3 years or so. At present I have 133 of them (how did that happen??!!).

For January I choose one of my favourite postcards (featuring her in her role as Lady Madcap, hence the hat!) and scanned it into the computer with 600dpi resolution as I knew I wanted to upscale it. I printed it out onto a new transfer paper sold by Leslie Riley and which I must say I like. It has a really soft handle when transferred and you can easily hand stitch through it. I transferred it to one of my hand-dyed fabrics with an emerald colourscheme. This was then stitched onto a dark green (sort of Victorian looking) velvet background. Behind her head I added a bit of vintage lace and at the bottom a vintage velvet ribbon. I added vintage buttons to the ribbon, a flower embellishment to Marie herself as well as an actual necklace made from beads. Beads and pearls were also hand stitched onto the lace and running stitch to her hat.

I'm making temporary bindings to these JQs using transparent ribbon, but I might remove these again when it comes to putting all the JQs together at the end of the year.

My final collages

And here are my final collages for the 11th Collage Exchange. I will keep you updated on this blog when one of each of the collages from the submitting artists are put up for sale in April 2009, which will give you the opportunity to buy one of them.

Marie Studholme #9

Marie Studholme #10

Marie Studholme #11

Marie Studholme #12

Love and Life collage, the only collage which does not feature the Edwardian actress Marie Studholme but another of my vintage postcards!

More Marie Studholme collages

I'm still busily finishing off my collages for the 11th Collage Exchange which I started to show you on yesterday's post. The beading and hand-stitching all take a fair amount of time but do make the collages sparkle so I think it's worth it. So without more ado, here are the next ones, all again featuring the Edwardian actress Marie Studholme!

Marie Studholme #4

Marie Studholme #5

Marie Studholme #6

Marie Studholme #7

Marie Studholme #8

11th Collage Exchange

I've started work on my 13 collages for the 11th Collage Exchange held down in New Zealand. I participated in this years' one (no. 10) and it was such fun that I'm doing it again in 2009. One collage will be up for sale ( I'll let you know which one towards the 1st April 2009 and you could actually buy that one online at that time!) and another one will go to the collection of the MADD Gallery school of found-art assemblage and collage in Samoa. The other collages will be swapped and I will receive work back from 11 other collage artists. My collages are A4 sized when mounted on the card.

I made a start after my eye fell on a pieced quilt top lingering in my studio. It was to form part of my Reverse Seam quilt series but I'm sort of fed up with this series (although I'm not saying I will never make another one!) and this quilt never caught my heart as testified by the fact that I had still not gotten around to quilting it. So I made a decision on the spur of the moment that I would cut it up and to stop me changing my mind I immediately made the first cut with my rotary cutter.

As I expected the quilt looked a lot better once it was in bits and I used the bits for my collage backgrounds. The other theme I used was my collection of vintage postcards featuring Marie Studholme, a early 20th Century actress, who just looks adorable. She seems to have had a predelection for HUGE hats! I have quite a collection of her cards (and am still discovering new ones on Ebay regularly) and decided to import them into my computer by scanning and then used Photoshop Elements to alter the colours in each card so I could make them blend into my quilt backgrounds.

These were printed onto self-adhesive cotton sheets (from Crafty Computer Paper) and stitched onto the background with zigzag stitching. I also added decorative stitching to the background after layering it with wadding (batting). The texts were printed onto a variety of sheets, both cotton and linen, of which I had left-overs. Finally the collages were mounted onto a cardstock background by machine zigzag.

I then added vintage buttons in matching colours and beaded around the Marie Studholme images with size 11 seed beads and using bead mixes from Whimbeads. I finished these 3 today and will work on the other 9 in the coming days as ideally I would like to mail them asap after Christmas.