Down on the Farm

We took our visitors to Acton Scott Historic Working Farm in Shropshire on Sunday.  There were lots of animals to see and a ploughing demonstration using shire horses. A very interesting day out.  We popped into Ludlow on the way there for a short break and I found this lovely metal sculpture which I had not seen when we visited previously.

There were three smocks on display in one of the buildings at Acton Scott which had some interesting patterns on them.

Buttercups at Croome

Had friends to stay for a couple of nights over the weekend so went off to Croome for a walk on Saturday afternoon .... it was a glorious day and the meadow was full of golden buttercups and swaying grasses.  We spent a lot of time lounging in the deckchairs, which are dotted around the grounds, enjoying the views and soaking up the sunshine.

A New Book

During the past week I have been making an effort to make some simple books for the forthcoming string of events we are selling them at as the group 'Cut, Fold, Bind'.  This one is a coptic binding combining wrapped long stitches and French Link stitch.  The paper was a gorgeous handmade and printed paper I had found on one of my excursions.

More on the Blue Theme

I was so inspired by the Shibori weekend that I have sat and stitched more resists and then done some dyeing using Procion dye in shades of Indigo and Rust since coming home.  I have even got the blue hands to prove it!

I wrapped three short pieces of dowel into this piece and stitched three circles in the gap in between two of the poles. It really shows up what occurs if you do not use a double thread to stitch the resist.  The circle in the middle only had a double thread on the outer ring.

This pieces was produced on silk and is rows of double thread stitched on a curved fold with a running stitch.

More running stitches.  The fabric was folded in half vertically and then diagonal lines were drawn on and stitched in place before pulling them up nice and tight.

I never got round to trying this technique at the weekend. Fabric was wrapped with a thread into points.  The remainder of the fabric was pleated and tied into what looked like a twig before putting it into the dye.

Another method I tried at home.  A grid was stitched across the fabric.  Unfortunately one of my threads came out as I was drawing it up so I have not got a complete grid.

In conclusion I think I preferred the Indigo dye, however, I have still got two pieces of cloth which have been dyed with the 'Rust' coloured Procion dye and I could now overdye them with indigo once resists have been applied.

Bird Prints

I have got myself in a bit of a flap over my bird prints.  I have just realised that when the collagraph background is printed that the lino print bird is facing the wrong way.  Guess Sue knows what she is doing and it will all be okay at the end of the day?

Tissue paper background

Gelli print background

Gelli print background using leaves and apples

Collagraph print

The lino print bird will go in the place left on the collagraph print next week?

Malvern Spring Quilt Show

I decided to pop out for a couple of hours on Thursday to the Quilt Show to get a couple of things I needed.  Bumped into a couple of bookbinding pals and the sun shone whilst I was there which was an added delight.  I had a quick look at the quilts after doing my shopping and liked this pair of Journal Quilts ...

Blue Moon

 

A larger view of the 'moon' circle done in Shibori. The lines were created using a running stitch along a folded edge of the fabric. The guidelines were half an inch apart. The circle and lines were drawn onto the fabric with a water erasable blue pen prior to stitching.

Life in Miniature

One of my friends is busy making a miniature quilt for her final year of City & Guilds Patchwork & Quilting at the moment and whilst looking for something else in one of my many boxes I found this small quilt I had made years ago. It is approximately 8" x 5" and was foundation pieced using up old scraps of fabric.

A Little More Blue

I have now taken pictures of some of the samples I produced at the weekend.  We used various methods of resist, some I had done before and some new to me.  There were vats of natural indigo, synthetic indigo and woad dyes to try and I also decided to pop some threads into the pot as they always come in useful.

Stitch Techniques

The above piece of silk fabric had been scrunched up and put into a mesh bag before popping it into the dye bath.

Various clamped items were employed above: foodbag clippits, thin wooden hearts and circles, milk bottle tops with their severed threaded necks and acrylic blocks normally used for stamping.

Fabric had been wrapped around a drainpipe

Beads and Elastic Band were used here

Dyeing the Blues

Just spent a wonderful weekend with Janice Gunner at Missenden Abbey in Buckinghamshire.  I will photograph some of my efforts and blog them later in the week but here is a taster of what the class got up to.

Wonderful tutor, lovely company and fantastic food what else could one ask for - except perhaps more days doing this wonderful activity.

White and Wonderful

This year I decided to plant some pots of tulip bulbs which have been a major failure really.  One pot produced leaves and started to get flowers before rotting off and the pot above has got stunted growth, but presumably encouraged by the recent sunshine, has now flowered and looks rather nice with the blue anenome blanda in the bottom of the pot - a 'Freebie' which I won in the local Horticultural Society raffle.

Well Dressing and All That

Over the Bank Holiday the wells in Malvern had been dressed and Malvina was no exception.  The Elgar statue had also been 'bombed' again - this time with textile ivy leaves created by students of Malvern College of Art.

Printing Class 2

This week we printed our lino cuts onto cartridge paper, did some chine collee and could also use printed papers we had brought along or old non copyright book pages. We also produced a mountboard registration print ready for the collagraph we are going to produce next week.

My bird printed onto old Geli Plate prints

More of my birds plus a couple of prints by another member of the group using patterned tissue paper as a background with the chine collee technique

This jolly lady was a chine collee print by yet another member of the group.  Such fun.

Printing Class 1

Last week I created this linocut image ready for printing this week.  I have never really done much printing with lino and struggled to get nice neat clearcut lines. I am determined to persevere though as it is something that is easy to do at home. We tested our linocut by making a rubbing with a graphite stick over a piece of printer paper. It showed up where there were areas that needed further work.

The bird image was inspired by a tile I had seen in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery collection.