Antibodies and Armchairs

Thank you for your kind wishes- I am on the mend now! My little pal has been keeping me company while I was sleeping on the sofa.

 

He hasn't complained about his shorter than usual walks, nor has he pestered to play in the garden.

He was happier this morning, walking further in spite of the rain.

 

Today I should be working on my Ten Plus textiles pieces...I am thinking about it, honestly. This is where I'm up to so far.

 

 

My embellishing machine has finally seen some action, needle felting strips and blocks of fabric onto wadding. It takes a while, but I find it really therapeutic and I love the texture it achieves.

 

 

The armchair was machine appliqued onto the background and I'll be adding newspaper print text, but I need to experiment with resizing the letters. I've been inspired by some "abandoned" garden chairs I see on one of my dog walks along the canal and I began collecting phrases from the memorial benches along the walk. I've been thinking a lot around the image of a chair where someone habitually sat, after they have got up, gone, the impression of them having been there and their lasting presence.

 

 

Well, I better get on so I can have more to show you. Have a lovely weekend xx

 

REMEMBER

Ten Plus Textiles are having an exhibition at Ordsall Hall in Salford. Some of the members have also been working on a community project with a local youth group to produce "creatures" which may be lurking behind the wattle and daub of the old building. Ordsall Hall is beautiful and well worth a visit.

 

 

My new work, "Remember", is on display. It combines many elements of my recent work- fabrics printed on the computer, graffiti and applique. The background was pieced, then needlefelted with an embellisher machine to distress it a little. The tree was cut from fabric that I had put through the printer to print an image of graffiti. I liked the idea of  blurring the boundary between a natural element like a tree with something more urban.

 

I am very excited about tomorrow-it is going to be a good day! In the morning, I'm having my hair coloured (ok that part is a bit boring, sitting still for ages! There are only so many Hello magazines I can stomach), meeting two lovely friends in the afternoon, then in the evening Mr Dotty and I will be rubbing shoulders with some arty types! I had a piece selected for the Open Contemporary Art Exhibition at Stockport Art Gallery and I can't wait to see all the wonderful art.

Sneak preview of my mixed media piece, "Home from Home 2". I am always very grateful for how well received these pictures of Skye cottages seem to be.

I have been busy working towards my next exhibition with the Ten Plus Textiles Group. This is a quilt I made four years ago for an exhibition at Little Moreton Hall, a stunning tudor house in Congleton.

The "strips 'n Curves" technique by Louisa L. Smith is quite challenging. I created a fabric by piecing together black and white strips, then cut these up to make the patchwork- lots of seams to match up!. I quilted it very simply with circles. It is quite striking, but I'm afraid I found it...well, dull!

So, my brains were wracked for ideas on how to recycle it (or is that "upcycle"?) I'm beginning to explore the shapes of leafless trees.

I love the ones in Skye- short and gnarly, and leaning against the harsh elements.

So, I appliqued a bold, bright, bare tree onto the quilt. The curves of the branches echo the curves of the patchwork and the tree looks as though it is offering up the moon. I requilted it with orange thread-it was originally blue- and added some black satin stitch circles to draw the eye. Then I had great fun handstitching and voila!

I don't want to reveal the whole thing just yet as it is going to be on show in October.

Right, off into the kitchen to make the second Christmas cake of the year! *smiles smuggly*

As Promised...almost!

Ok, so it isn't tomorrow as promised, but yesterday seemed to disappear, so I will have to make do with posting today!!!

Sorry, this picture is a bit blurry, but it shows the fairy houses appliqued in place, windows and doors have been embroidered on and the whole piece has been layered with wadding, backed and tacked! The tacking is quite dense as I am going to machine quilt this piece and add text, so I don't want the layers to shift at all.

I began to quilt it yesterday, but today I have been distracted by needle felting. I want to add some brooches to my Etsy shop, like the blue one on the right of my blog - I'll let you know when they are done.

We had a lovely walk through the frost this morning and the dog had a wonderful time leaping around with lots of other dogs of all shapes and sizes-he even made friends with another little schnauzer. He is so tired now that he is splayed on the floor,looking for all the world as though he has been dropped from a great height!

Happy Sunday!

Like A Flame

In case you missed the front of the wallhanging a few weeks ago.... here is a little peak before it was quilted.

Sewing is Never A Bind

It has been a while since I blogged about anything crafty and I have been busy sewing as the Knitting and Stitching Shows are fast approaching. Yesterday I was at a meeting of the Ten Plus Textiles Group and we were selecting the work that each member of the group is going to exhibit there. It is going to be a beautiful and colourful display! We had a very busy day, but it was helped along by gorgeous cakes that Diana had baked.

This morning I have been busy binding one of my pieces, trying to get everything finished in time.

A sneak preview of one of the pieces, inspired by a letter from my Nan, our shared love of cottages and a sprinkling of fairy magic!

                                                                    Nan's Dream

I quite like how the quilting looks on the back of these pieces too!

                                                            Away With The Fairies

                                                                      Like A Flame

If any of you get chance to visit our stand at the Shows, I don't think you will be disappointed. I will be stewarding Thursday to Saturday at Dublin and over the weekend at Harrogate- I'd love it if you came to say "Hello",:D

Away With The Fairies Again

Although he is still not out of the woods, my boy is beginning to heal- from the wounds and the shock!
Thank you for your kind words.

Last week I finished machine quilting my latest art quilt,so I thought I'd let you peep at a little more of it. I'd love to show the whole piece, but I feel I ought to hold a bit back until it has been exhibited in November. You can see that it has much more texture now-as do my shoulders which get really knotted when I'm free-motion quilting!

When I feel more settled about my boy I'll start on the third quilt.

Wibbly Wobbly Houses

On Monday I helped to take down the TenPlus Textiles exhibition (www.tenplustextiles.com) at Salford Art Gallery. The exhibition had gone very well with lots of visitors, positive feedback and sales. I was really pleased to find that I had sold 2 pieces.

This piece, called "Fairy Glen" is one that sold. The fabric is painted and printed with newspaper, the cottages and rocks are appliqued and all the detail is added by machine and hand stitching. I don't know who the buyer is, but I hope the picture brings them lots of joy!

I now have to busy myself making new pieces for our group exhibition at the Knitting and Stitching shows in the Autumn. I am developing the idea of cottages where fairies might live and continuing to use text. I have introduced lots of curved lines and moved away from black and white, by using lots of colour.

This is a sneak preview of the first piece, which I have just finished. There are 2 more in the pipe-line. You can just see some written text on the houses, which comes from a letter that my Nan sent me over 20years ago. In the letter she talks about her love of the countryside and her wish to stay in a cottage, which she didn't really get the opportunity to do. I really wanted to incorporate the letter, so I used Photoshop to remove the lines from the paper it was written on, then printed it, painted it and reprinted it onto fabric. Tomorrow I'll show you a little more of the letter.

Graffiti

My husband and son love going into Manchester to photograph urban grunge, particularly graffiti. Follow the link to Mr Dotty's Photos to see them. I have dabbled with graffiti images in the past as a source of inspiration for my fibre art and I've recently been working on some new pieces for my Etsy shop.

I love the colours, the textures of layers of paint and peeling posters on a wall and the transience of graffiti art. When we were in Prague, we visited the John Lennon wall where it is legal to post graffiti. People from all over the world come to write and draw there, from hand written messgages to large artistic paintings.
The images change constantly and reading the personal messages and philosophies can be a poignant experience.

This is one of the photos I took there.

I printed this image onto fabric then cut out a heart to applique onto a lime green background. I used rubber stamps to print the word "you". I think it has made a great, fun card.

This card is available from my Etsy shop (http://www.dottybluebird.etsy.com/). I'm hoping to list more items from this range over the next few days.