Colour fun

Part of the point of me starting this blog was to encourage myself to get making more and to share my work with people. I also intended to use it as a kind of online journal, recording the process as well as the finished outcomes. So far I've not really done that, in fact it would be fair to say that I've not done that at all. So, I'm going to give it a go and see what happens.

I'm currently making an art quilt (by currently making I mean I've been thinking about it and semi-planning it for about 3 months and have finally started on it today) to enter into the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August. As I said in my previous post I entered a piece in January for a touring exhibition which is showing at said Festival and it would be really cool to have two pieces on show. It would be especially good as the piece that has been accepted, Rise, is small scale and the piece I'm now working on is large but they are both closely related in terms of both concept and technique.

Organza (top) layer

Base layer-there will be another layer between this and the organza top layer

Today I have been making the most of the sunshine and dyeing the fabric for my piece. I'm using cotton muslin and silk organza, both dyed using procion dyes. I've been bucket dyeing and painting on the dyes, with varying levels of success! I've over dyed the main layer twice but I'm happy with the colour now. I like to work with coloured greys, I like the soft, muted tones it produces. I mostly work with blue and green greys as I think it gives a calm and reflective feeling, giving people chance to think about the work. The fabric for this piece is a lovely soft blue, I'm looking forward to stitching it!