Spring in the City Rozette

I recently received some lovely news in that my quilt Spring in the City won second prize in the Comtemporary Quilt Category of the British Quilt and Stitch Village show held at the Uttoxeter Race Course. The quilt itself arrived back home safely today, accompanied by a blue rozette and certificate. That meant I could take the above picture of it.

This quilt is one of a series of work inspired by our trip to New York back in March/April 2016. Although the quilts in this series all look quite differently they started life in the many photographs I took during that trip. This flower one has now sparked a whole series of it's own featuring flowers as I fell quite in love with making them. So you can expect more. Needless to say they are amazingly time consuming as the flowers are all hand embroidered and embellished. I used Hero Arts stamps for them.

You can read more about this particular quilt (which went through a tedious revision during the making process!) in a previous blog post here. All the efforts have paid off handsomely in the end!

Spring in the City

Finally I can share this quilt with you as I have retrieved the rozette that came home with it after the quilt had been displayed at the National Quilt Championships in Sandown, back in June. Somehow the rozette got lost on my desk and turned up again when I stopped procrastinating and picked up my Tax Return form. It's sort of ironic as this quilt too has been the subject of much procrastination which is not at all typical for me.

I started making it not too long after our trip to New York in April 2016 and it was of course inspired by that city's skyscrapers and also by the fact that there was so much spring like greenery and blossom to be admired there set off against the grey and red stonework. The fabrics I used were all from the first fabric collection of Uppercase fabrics. The background is pieced and represents the buildings and then I made the flowers separately using the same fabrics and a collection of Hero Arts stamps. They are hand embroidered and embellished. The quilt itself is machine and hand quilted. I finished the quilt in February 2017 (those flowers took forever!) and I thought it was done.

Then one night not long after that I woke up in the middle of the night with the thought that the randomly appliquéd flowers were all wrong and that they should be in line with the buildings. Once you have a thought like that, it doesn't let go even though I thought myself mad. So there was nothing else for it but to remove all the flowers again and lay them out as I had imagined. I was right in that it looked much better but sadly I didn't have enough flowers to complete the layout. I needed at least 50 more (in the end there are more than 100 flowers on this quilt).

Could I make myself produce more flowers? Yes, I could but it took the best part of last year (which to be honest was mostly taken up with settling in a small, sad traumatized dog so making flowers was a perfect way to fill in the spare minutes).

Almost a year exactly after I thought I had finished Spring in the City, I finished it again, this time for good! And the effort has paid off as you can see by the presence of that rozette which represents the Prize for Embellishment at the show. You can see some of the details of that embellishment in the above pictures. Of course I will never know if that might have happened anyway in it's previous incarnation but I do know that I am much happier with it which in the end is all that matters.

New York, New York 2016

In a wonderful moment of synchronicity the prompt on Joggles Art Journal Adventures this week was to use the letter N and to include an animal. You should have seen me sitting behind my desk and almost shouting YES at the computer screen.

As it happens, it's exactly two years ago since the trip to New York and the most iconic image I have taken away from it is this view, taken from our tour bus, of the woman with her small dog standing on a street corner in Peter Cooper Village on the east side of Manhattan. I still find it hard to put my finger on why she made such an impression on me but she did (you will have seen her before on this blog if you are a regular reader), and consciously or not my little Flora bears a striking resemblance to her (at the time we still had our previous dog). It was one of those pivotal moments in life that remain in your memory forever.

You can also see her in this video of the trip.

 So I knew it had to be New York in my A5 journal this week and the background was done using the TCW729 City Buildings stencil from The Crafters Workshop. In the foreground I used the NY skyline mask from The Ink Pad shop, located in New York itself.  That was pretty much it, apart from the addition of some luminescent pink and the photo of the little dog and her owner printed from my own photograph by Social Print Studio, as well as a New York themed washi tape.

If this was a book (and it isn't!) perhaps I should go looking for her but I would rather she retained her air of mystique, and I will remain wondering about her, her life, and her little dog.

Recognition

The spread I posted on Monday was the very last one in my latest A4 sized Dylusions art journal. Before I added it to all the other full art journals on the shelf I thought I would have a quick look through it and when I did I came across a spread from which the above picture is a detail. I made it in April 2016 only weeks after returning from our trip to New York. You can find the blog post I wrote about it here. The woman and her dog made a deep impression on me at the time I photographed her, from a stationary tour bus, although I had no idea why. Now I'm wondering if I had some kind of premonition of what was to come. 

Her little dog is the spitting image of Flora (seen above and acquired from Barking Mad Dog Rescue in November 2016)) and I now also know why she had that large empty bag hanging on her arm. It was to carry her little dog in should it get tired or if it should rain. Did I subconsciously remember her little dog when I choose mine. I guess I will never fully know, just like I will never know her or anything else about her apart from the fact that she loves her dog as deeply as I love mine.  Add to that the fact that she is clearly in agreement with me about little dogs wearing pink coats!

Life can be very strange and unexplainable. And totally amazing.

The Chrysler Building

The Chrysler Building is my very favourite out of all the beautiful New York skyscrapers and I took many pictures of it, while there. It even inspired me to make a small quilt as you can see at the bottom of this post. So when I discovered that Stencilgirl Products had produced a new stencil (L502 Art Deco Borders designed by Gwen Lafleur) my squeals of delight could probably be heard in Stencilgirl headquarters! I just had to use it.  What better place to do so than in one of my projects as monthly Guest Designer for them.

 I combined it with the Nathalie Kalbach designed stencil L469 Chicago as well as a stamp from her Urban Scribble set as well as two of my own photographs and some New York themed washi tape (I seem to have a lot of that!).

 You can find a full step by step tutorial for this spread, done in an A4 Dylusions art journal, on the StencilgirlTalk website. I was so pleased to find a quotation I liked by Walter Chrysler himself, no less. I too like to do things! Specially if they involve paint and stencils.

To read more about this small quilt you can go to a previous blog post. 

There are Moments

After our trip to New York last year, the friend that went with me gave me the NY Through the Lens book by Vivienne Gucwa. Not only does this book feature stunning photographs of the city in all seasons but the words are beautifully written too. 

It inspired me to make this spread in the 8 x 8" Dylusions art journal as my latest Stencilgirl Products project. 

When it was finished it didn’t look so much like New York but reminded me more of Venice (I suppose because of the colours!). I didn’t let that worry me. It means it captures moments from trips to both places. I used part of the quotation that is my favourite from the book. 

The entire quotation reads:

"There are moments that remain etched into time: moments that aren't easily forgotten no matter how much time passes in the yawning gap between memory and dreaming".

It's amazing to think that the trip was almost a year ago already. I'm quite ready for a return visit. 

You can find the full step-by-step tutorial for these pages on the Stencilgirl Talk website today, and remember it doesn't have to feature either New York or Venice but could be any city of your choice. Amsterdam would also make a great subject with all it's gabled houses and canals.

New York, New York talk

Walking the High Line

Jane and I gave a talk about our New York trip back in April to our quilting group, theThistle Quilters. It brought back many happy memories. So to celebrate here are some pages from my travel journal.

Visiting the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

In Central Park

Trip of a Life Time

 t was a very happy discovery to find that this week's prompt on Colour Me Positive was: Travel. This gave me an opportunity to use some of the many photographs I took during our New York visit earlier this year! I used one of the Chrysler Building and the other one of the view over Turtle Pond in Central Park, both bringing back many happy memories.  I found a quotation by Brenna Smith that says; "Travel...the best way to be lost...and found...all at the same time" and wrote it on the postcard.

The spread was done in my A4 Dylusions art journal and it went through many transformations in the process. I collaged on some vintage papers (you can still see them in some places) but wasn't happy with the effect so collaged over them again, this time with Tim Holtz's tissue wrap. You can barely see the stencil that I used in the background originally as I went over it so many times with other stencils and paint so if it isn't visible any more I am not mentioning it in my supply list. The figure too has been glued over another figure that just didn't do it for me. In fact I kept changing my mind all the time while working. This wasn't anything to do with the spread but with with a restless mind that was thinking of other things. But in the end the spread came to a conclusion that I'm sort of content with.

 Techniques used: collage and stencilling.

Materials used: acrylic paints, photographs, Tim Holtz's Tissue Wrap Postale, vintage paper, stencil S191 Open Buildings from Stencilgirl Products, the medium stencil from June 2016 Stencilgirl Club and L361 Art We There Yet.. For the postcard I used stencil TCW109 Postage Stamp by The Crafters' Workshop. postage stamps

The Chrysler Building

After our trip to New York we were challenged by Judi Mendelssohn, the organizer of the PandQTours, to make a small quilt with the theme of: Window on New York.

To that end she gave us a piece of fabric from a line of New York themed fabrics exclusive to The City Quilter shop that we visited during the trip. Our challenge fabric shows Times Square and you can see it in the background of my piece.

I took my inspiration of the beautiful Chrysler Building, my favourite skyscraper around in NY. I build it using a mix of fabric/paper collage and commercially available cottons. The size of the piece was decided by the piece of the Times Square themed fabric we were given and it ended up 10.5 x 14.1/4" or 26.5 x 37cm.

The piece was machine appliquéd, hand and machine quilted, hand embellished with beads, sequins and Swarovski crystals most of which were bought while in New York.

Our challenge pieces will hang on Judi's stand for PandQTours at the Festival of Quilts, Birmingham during the show, 11th - 14th August so have a look if you're visiting.

After that I will be a treasured reminder of our New York trip.

A Journey into Yourself

Colour Me Positive's prompt this week was: Journey, and the art challenge to add a place on your page that you would like to  go to on a journey. Well, never mind the fact I was there back in April, I would very much love to return to New York so this is another journal spread dedicated to our trip there.

It was good that I had so many New York related art supplies to play with, as well as many, many photographs. I started with Stencilgirl's L443 City Buildings stencil and played with it both by removing paint through it and adding paint in the traditional stencilling method. I wanted the pages (in my A4 Dylusions journal) to look both grungy and graffiti like.

Once I was happy with the spread I added collage with deli paper previously stencilled with black. I grabbed another great New York related art supply, this time the Urban Scribble foam stamp, cling rubber and stencil set, designed by Nathalie Kalbach and added the rubber stamp image along the bottom of the pages.

I had found a quotation I liked and that related to the theme of Journey. It reads: "To travel is to take a journey into yourself" (Danny Kaye) and added it to the page using collage with magazine words as well as by rubber stamping some of them on.

The next step was to add on the images which are all my own photographs printed sized 2 x 2" by the Social Print Studio. On the right hand page I used pictures from Times Square while the yellow taxis feature on the left. The pictures were distressed using a Prima tool and scratching over them to stay with the grungy look.

Finally I added bits of New York themed washi tapes as well as a postage stamp with the Statue of Liberty on it. Together the pages are another great reminder of our visit.

NY

I'm still lagging behind showing you the spreads in my Wanderlust 2016 art journal. These pages were made for our second prompt in June that was: What is different today than a year ago that you are grateful for. I went with the first thing that came to mind: our trip to New York back in April! I'm working in the small Vintage Vanity art journal designed by Finnabair for Prima.

There is some collage in the background mainly done with some of the New York themed washi tapes I have acquired before and since the visit. Then I set to work with the wonderful stamp/stencil set: Urban Scribble Foam Stamp, Cling Rubber and stencil set designed by Nathalie Kalbach. This is such a good buy and I specially love the enclosed stencil which features tiny squares. So versatile and especially useful on these pages.

The other New York themed images come from a stencil from The Crafters Workshop TCW342 Mini Urban Landscape which to my intense delight features the Chrysler Building among others.

I wanted the spread to look like urban graffiti and I think it's worked. As a focal point the photograph I took during our visit , of Macy's while their flower festival was on, was used, printed in a 2 x 2" size by the Social Print Studio. 

Love how the pages turned out and they are a great reminder of that fantastic visit.

By the way you can still sign up for the series of Wanderlust classes till the end of July, if you are interested.

The Secrets of the City

Today it's time for another one of my projects done as Guest Designer for Stencilgirl Products done in the A4 sized Dylusions art journal. And that means you can find the full step-by-step tutorial together with a list of all the stencils I used on the Stencilgirl Talk site.  There you can also read how these pages took a wrong turn at some stage. That sometimes happens when you are particularly keen for it not to, as it is a project! I think subconsciously stress starts to play a part. But in this case that gave me a chance to try and "rescue" the spread and to my satisfaction it worked! You can read more about the how here.

Once I had the background right it reminded me of some of the photographs I took while in New York, back in April. So long ago already, but I'm thinking back on it a lot and review the images in my mind as well as all the pictures I took. I grabbed some of the latter, cut them up and added them to the grid on the pages.

They feature images taken during our walk of the Highline Park, views of Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry and photographs taken during our bus tours. They all toned in beautifully with the painted pages.

We fitted in an astounding amount of activities during our stay but nevertheless I would love to return one day soon to do some more. Having said that I guess that even if you live there for years there must still be places you might not have seen. It's the reflections that stole my heart.

New York Memories

The latest issue of the British Patchwork & Quilting magazine is out (Issue 270 July 2016) and in it is the article I wrote for them about our wonderful trip to New York back in April.  Most of the pictures shown are also by me. This magazine ran the Stars and Stripes competition to celebrate their 30th anniversary which I won and the New York tour was my prize. 

It's great to look back on what we did and saw during our time in NY and remember the fantastic time we had. I hope to revisit this amazing city again some time soon.

In the same issue you will also find an article, written by Joanne Kent, the editor of the magazine who was on the trip with us, about our visit to the Brooklyn Quilters Exhibition, held in no less a place than the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel. They do their quilt shows in style over there!

And finally to top up the joy you can also see my small quilt La Linea d'oro as part of the review in the magazine of the Quilts UK show held in Malvern a few weeks back where this quilt won the Small Wallhangings section.

Definitely an issue to treasure!