A Stitch In Time

S is for Swap

So I joined my first swap... I've watched you all doing it but wasn't sure how to get involved. Eventually I chose the 'Back To School Swap' hosted by Friday Prize, mainly because dometicali said it was a good idea! The plan was to make a tote bag and fill with a sketch book and any other inspirational crafty bits or projects in preparation for the new school year.



My partner listed Lily Pullitzer prints among her inspirations, (which I'd never heard of before), so I had a look at the website which was in pink and green and features some really funky, bold retro style prints.

Amy Butler's Lotus fabric immediately came to mind as I'd lusted after a bolt at the Festival of Quilts and here was the perfect excuse to buy some! And I noticed from her blog that Emily likes knitting so I had to send these perfectly co-ordinating candy twist needles.

Being a newcomer to swaps I'm not entirely familiar with swap etiquette. Am I allowed to post photos before my partner's received her package? (I did warn her not to look!) Should I even post photos at all or is that just horribly egotistical in a 'look at what I made' kind of way? It's a nerve wracking affair, like a vast minefield of pitfalls, the biggest of which being: I like what I sent.. but will she?!

PS My next post will be my 100th, so in good old blogging tradition there will be a give-away!

W is for Wallpaper Weaving

 

Annie went back to school today. I'm obviously not as dedicated as some parents out there because for me it wasn't the bittersweet experience I've read other blogging Mums write about. I was overjoyed and skipped home!

I relished the peace and quiet and spent the day crafting. I finished a book cover to go with the bag and goodies for my back to school swap partner (which I'm itching to show you but I'll wait 'til next week so I don't spoil the surprise;)
And I had a go at this project which I dreamed up as part of the crafty alphabet:

A month or so ago I collected an obscene amount of wallpaper samples from a DIY superstore. I took so many I worried I was going to get stopped by security for taking more than was reasonable but nobody seemed to notice or care. It was good fun (the weaving- not the 'almost' shop-lifting!) and surprisingly comes closer to the effect I was trying to achieve with my Sean Scully patchwork.

When Eliza saw what I'd made she wanted to have a go too. And at the end of the day I picked Annie up feeling much more human. She joined in with the  weaving frenzy too!

Here's some awe inspiring paper weaving from flickr:

1. Paper weaves, 2. Woven Paper, 3. BLUENEWS, 4. REDCOUPY, 5. Woven paper hearts, 6. rhombus and hex weave, 7. Woven Paper, 8. What to do with old magazines, 9. Paper weaves, 10. another hex weave - another view, 11. Kahnstruction ll, 12. paper project 9 of 16, 13. Paper weaves, 14. woven paper collage, 15. woven law books, 16. It's a colorful world

P is for Patchworked Painting

When I was in Barcelona last month my sister, her girlfriend and I went to the Joan Miro Museum where a Sean Scully exhibition was showing. I'd bought a print of the painting below for David's birthday last year and was really delighted to see it in 'real' life!

Wall of Light Light by Sean Scully

The painting is huge (108 x 120 inches) and although I'd admired the print I wasn't prepared for the hypnotic, absorbing presence the painting would have.

I'd been thinking about making a patchwork inspired by the painting for a while and I've finally made a preliminary sketch. I wanted to learn from Scully's use of light and colour, but I doubt he's thought of giving patchwork workshops(!), so examining the painting by copying it is the next best thing.

This is what I've learned so far:

Within the painting there are tiny changes in the size and scale of each segment that I didn't even notice until I came to draw a pattern up, which are essential to the creation of movement. For ease I made my piece more uniform but it's lost a sense of flow in the process, for example, the slightly taller cream and brown segment on the bottom left in the original pushes into the space above and the blue and orange pieces in the top left corner flow across into the next segment.

Although the painting has a uniform feel, there's a huge range of tones and shades within each band. There's a depth that's absent from my version; the light is not bright enough, the dark not deep enough; my tones are too similar. His really does glow like a stained glass window but there's a flatness about mine which deadens the design, takes the life away. So I think I need each colour made up of lots of smaller pieces, each slightly varying in texture and tone. Or maybe working onto the top of the patchwork with embroidery and embellishments.

These aren't colours I would usually choose to work with, they're far more muted and neutral. I am pretty far out of my comfort zone with these shades but I find his piece is bright and glows without using the bright, highly saturated colours I usually rely on. 

Because of the obvious brush strokes in Scully's work his piece seems full of energy and life. I'd like to add much more texture to mine, I feel it should be more heavy and gnarled; it's too uniformly smooth.

And I want to scale it up massively, the huge scale lends Scully's work an impact. If its small it's somehow just a nice, pretty picture. The immense scale gives it a presence and power and fills your field of vision so you become totally absorbed.  I want mine to be bigger, not by using more pieces but bigger pieces made up of lots of subtly varying colours and textures.

In the long term I don't want a pale imitation of Scully's work and if I follow it too precisely it can only ever be this. But if I study this piece I can use the knowledge I've gained to create something new.

I would love to tell you more about Sean Scully but when I got home I found out that the English exhibition catalogue I bought is in fact written in Spanish. You can find out more about him here and here

M is for Monochrome

 

I've been thinking about the stark appeal of black and white for a while (remember this?!)

At the quilt festival I found these (mostly) black and white quilts inspiring:


(B)ordered Orange by Christine Dance

Black and White Rag by Alexandra Lake

This close-up shows the rainbow of tiny pieces between each block.

I've always resisted black and white, I was trained in art school to see both as 'non-colours'. Then I saw a book about Nancy Crow's quilts and I started to change my mind. I'm still resisting combining black with colour, I think it takes a really skilled touch to carry it off, but I've warmed to the idea of black and white with little coloured highlights here and there.

I was working on the beetle cushion (for my current bugs phase!) while I stayed in Birmingham for the festival and those quilts must have influenced me because I couldn't resist adding a touch of lime green to the finished cushion when I got home.

This monochrome-with-a-touch-of-really-bright-colour combination appeals to the 80's youth in me, when things like that were all the rage!

G is for Gingham

The perfect compliment for spider redwork!

F is for Felt

Today we raided my felt and button stash and created little critters.

To make it nice and easy we used cookie cutters as templates.

Annie also made a mini pillow and asked me to knit a little blanket for her tiny ted. For some reason she also decided to stitch a length of ribbon to the top of hers.
Which gave me a brainwave. I've had this keyring since Christmas (check out the site: pakhuis oost.com) and I really love it.

             

Apart from the cuteness of it and the groovy retro fabric, I love that it's so huge and bright that I can find it in the depths of my bag relatively easily.But (as it resides in the depths of my bag) it's become really grubby and tatty so needs replacing. Voila:

             

Now I am aware that the cute, rounded form of a gingerbread man doesn't lend itself perfectly to skeletal embroidery, but I decided to do the embroidery after I'd cut and stuffed the little fella. And with this alphabet/letter a day business, I'm on a tight schedule!

I used some felted wool scraps I bought from Betz White (you can also get  felted wool in the most beautiful, muted range of colours from Purl).

The skeletal inspiration came from numerous sources, but my main influence must be Pandora's Button Box which I discovered recently and visit regularly.

E is for Embroidery

Well, redwork, if you want to be precise.

But I don't as that doesn't begin with E!

For redwork inspiration you can't get better than Redwork in Germany's flickr set.

Check out Angry Chicken's weblog for someJapanese redwork love.

B is For Buttons and Backgrounds

Here are some button rainbows:


 
I can't decide which background works best.



Before I stitch them down...



... tell me which you prefer!

A is for Applique

I've been in need of fresh inspiration for a little while and it's finally come in the form of a meme on Bella Dia's blog. She's creating an 'Encyclopedia of Me', which basically involves revealing a little bit of information about yourself each day, using a letter of the alphabet as a starting point. Read all about it here!

As I've always been one to follow the rules, I'm going to rebel (I am an official 'rockin girl blogger' don't you know?!). Anyway, I'm not great at memes so mine is going to be a crafty alphabet, starting with A for applique. I want to give myself a creative kick up the bum, so I'm trying to make something every day. And as it's the school holidays the girls are playing along. Here are their appliques:

It's the most simple form, using bondaweb, but the results are instantaneous which keeps them motivated and they get to use an iron which holds so much excitement for a 3 and 6 year old, you wouldn't believe! (before I get arrested by health and safety officials, let me just point out they were heavily supervised).

I'm not promising to post every day, this may take me 52, rather than 26 days, and I may not go in alphabetical order, but hopefully I'll see you tomorrow with a B!

Lucky Dip

I started thinking about making this apron way back at the beginning of May. It's been through quite a few changes since then and I took a long time getting to this version. But it's finally finished and I am happy!

I made it for the May/June Tie-One-On challenge which was to make an apron with a pocket. I had visions of a folk art inspired apron with bird shaped pockets amidst 70's style foliage and flowers, in bright colours on a white ground. But I found that the simple silhouette shapes worked better in a printed fabric and to be perfectly honest, my applique skills weren't quite up to the job, so my design changed drastically.  I'm still practicing the techniques I learned from the 'invisible machine applique' book but I feel I'm really getting there now, and I've finally found a way around the point dilemma. Unfortunately I reached it after I did the bird's beak, hmmmmm.

I used the reversible apron pattern from Lotta Jansdotter's book which is a really modern, stylish shape. It looked better on David's sister's tall, elegant form than my full-on curvy figure though, so she kindly agreed to model it for me (and what a beautiful job she did- thank you Paula!).
It was a good pattern to work from but I did get a little lost on the pleats where the straps attach. I'm no stranger to dressmaking but I couldn't work out how to make two pleats from three notches? More diagrams/detailed instructions would be good. I love that there's still lots to learn though, I found out how to turn something narrow but long the right way out from the book, which I've struggled with for years.

Now, as you may be aware I made some birdy loveliness for myself along the way, and I also made myself an apron in February. So I don't need this one, love it yes, but don't actually need it!
But maybe one of you fellow bloggers would like to have it? I'd like to give it away to say thank you for your supportive, inspiring presence. And also because I'm starting to feel a little self-satisfying by just posting things for you to ooh and ah over every week. It's definitely time for a give-away!
So, if you would like this pinny, leave a comment between now and next Thursday's post and I'll get Annie or Eliza to draw a name out of a hat.

Until next Thursday, happy crafting!