Magik Quilt 2012 Complete!

The finished Quilt

I'm so proud of my textile group at The Heathlands Project for all the work they've put into this years quilt. It's fantastic to see how far they've come, their level of skill and patience has improved dramatically over the last year and we've produced a really beautiful piece of work. The quilt has been a great opportunity for me to teach lots of different textile processes and I'm really impressed with the finished project. A special thank you to Susan for all her help sewing all the patches together!

Detail

Detail

Detail

Detail

Detail

Method of quilting-Cross stitches

Stitch detail

Star stitch detail

Stitch detail

Life Drawing 12th July 2012

New Dates

Continuous line, not looking at the paper

The last of this set of Life Drawing sessions was 12th July. Martin was our model and it was a lovely relaxed session. Thank you so much to all the models and to everyone who's come along; if you're interested the next sessions start in September.

Red and blue pen

Blue pen, continuous line

Pen

Pen

Selected lines

Layered sketches

Stretching

West Cumbrian Game Fair

In the marquee

I had a stall at the West Cumbrian Game Fair at Armathwaite Hall, near Bassenthwaite on Saturday. It was not a very successful day for me but I did get to chat to some other lovely crafters and we didn't get rained on!

Things and stuff

Lovely owls

Lovely key rings

Lovely hair things

Culture Bazaar

My Stall

I have just returned from a very tiring but very enjoyable day at The Culture Bazaar at Richard Rose Central Academy in Carlisle. I had a little stall there which was very nice and I was also there demonstrating how to make friendship bracelets and demonstrating my favourite activity; crocheting and melting plastic bags! As Heathlands was also there we took the lace space down and the marquee covering we'd made in textiles to display. All in all a good day and here's some pictures as I've lost the ability to put words together coherently!

Brooches

Cushions and brooches

Owl Brooches

Keyrings

Doorstops

The Lace Space (Indoors!)

Lace Space (detail)

Lace Space and marquee covering

Display

Brooch Displays

I'm doing another Craft Fair next weekend; at Armathwaite Hall, Bassenthwaite. It's the West Cumbrian Game Fair and I'll be with the Solway Crafters in the Fell Gather Tent. This will be the biggest event I've done so far and I've been thinking of ways to improve how I display my work. I think the last stall I had at Appleby had too much on it, I'm going to try and edit my display more carefully this time. I also wanted to display my brooches more effectively so today I went and bought some frames and have turned them into brooch displays. I just bought fairly cheap silver coloured wooden frames as I wanted something nice but not too showy as this would distract from my pieces!

Frame with Button Heart Brooches

It was really easy making them into badge boards; I chose frames with stands (extra easy to display on my stall if they stand up by themselves) and then took the glass out and covered the hardboard backing with wadding and felt to give a cushioned surface to pin my brooches to. I burnt my fingertips on the hot glue but apart from that it was quite an easy job and I think the finished product looks pretty good.

Frame with Felt Flower Brooches

Frame with Suffolk Puff and Origami Brooches

The frames will get a test run tomorrow as I have literally just been offered a stall at Carlisle's Culture Bazaar tomorrow. It is at Richard Rose Central Academy from 11-5 if you're in Carlisle tomorrow!

Magik Quilt 2012

Some of the patches

Last year I made a quilt with my textiles group at The Heathlands Project. It was a really great project but very hard work and quite stressful for me so I when I asked the group earlier in the year if they wanted to do the Festival of Quilts again or if they wanted a break for a year I was kind of hoping they'd say have a break! However, they didn't. They were adamant that they wanted to make another quilt so since March we have been working away on a patchwork quilt. Our theme is 'Magik' and I have taught tie-dye, batik, block printing and hand embroidery. Because we chose to make a patchwork quilt this year we wanted to make sure that even though each patch would be made by different individuals the quilt would still work as a whole so we chose a limited colour scheme of blue, purple and green. We tie-dyed our base fabric these colours and then made print blocks which we used to print on top of the tie dye. We've then used hand stitch to complete the patches.

Adding stitch to dyed and printed fabric

It is all starting to come together now and I'm really proud of all my students, they've produced some fantastic work and it's great to see the progression and improvement since last year. We're currently finishing the last few patches and starting to get it all sewn up, then it will be down to me to construct it and get the quilting done!

Learning to couch

Block print with embroidery and sequins

Block print and hand stitch

Work in progress

More patches