Textile Artists

During this 30 day blogging challenge I have shared with you about mixed media artists who have influenced me and blogs that I follow.  Today I thought I would tell you about some of the Textile Artists I follow online.   Interestingly when I compiled the list I realised that I have met all of them and done real-life workshops with them.

Hilary Beattie
I met Hilary at a two day workshop at The Festival of Quilts where she crammed in all that subsequently became 12 days spread over a year as Make It Personal.  This was the collaged piece that is still not stitched!

Steph Redfern
I started making this textile book at a Steph Redfern workshop at The Bramble Patch.  It took me a while to finish it but I'm pleased to say that I did.

Ineke Berlyn
This is a zigzag book I made as a result of a day's dyeing workshop at Ineke's studio.  I showed how it developed here.

Linda & Laura Kemshall
I have done two online Creative Sketchbook classes with Design Matters and a day's workshop at Laura's studio.   This was the book I made from the class.

Anne Brooke
I haven't done a textile class with Anne but I spent a day at her studio doing a Workbook in a Day class.  I showed my follow up work in this post.

Although most of these textile artists are quilters you can see the mixed media influence.

Next weekend I'm going to a retreat workshop taught by Cas Holmes.  I'm looking forward to seeing what I learn there.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Journal Quilt for April

This month's journal quilt is based on a seascape or a cityscape.  I had several photos from a trip some years ago to Cornwall and I particularly liked this one of St. Ives.

I put together a selection of photos in my sketchbook to inspire me. The bottom two photos are of the harbour in Mousehole.  (Pronounced Mouzzall).

I really don't spend time sketching so this was way out of my comfort zone.  I drew with pencil and then coloured the page with NeoColor II watercolour crayons and then did a water wash over it.

I drew round the houses and boats with a black pen.

I went to the quilt show at Uttoxeter and whilst I was there I bought some hand dyed fabrics. 

I ironed some Heat and Bond onto some pieces of material.

I traced my drawing and then used the tracing to cut out the shapes from the fabric and ironed them on.

I machine stitched the lines round the houses and the boats.  I didn't much like the straight line where the sand met the sea so I randomly machined along the join.

I added hand stitching for the chains that hold the boats.  I also handstitched along some of the patterns in the fabric that represents the sea.

I have yet to bind any of my Journal quilts.  You can see the one for March here.   I have been sharing the April one during each stage on Facebook and someone contacted me about me making a quilted book cover using the April design.  Wow!  Exciting.

And more excitement to come this week.  Tomorrow the The Art of Practising Gratitude starts.   I hope you will join in.  To ensure you get every blog post, sign up for the emails by putting your email address in the box at the bottom of the blog page at The Art of Practising Gratitude.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Journal Quilt for March

I wrote about my journal quilts for January and February last month.

The theme for this month's landscape was line.  First we were asked to make marks with different types of implements and then using our source material make a collage using torn up magazines.  To be honest none of this appealed to me and so I have left it all right to the last minute.

I don't have very much fabric but I did buy the one on the left and the middle one when I was at The Bramble Patch.   For the last two journal quilts it was suggested that we use rusted material and I tried to master the technique but was totally unsuccessful.  However a friend gave me some rusted fabric (thanks Annie) shown here on the right.

I dyed the three fabric with a green dye and it is actually darker than this photo shows.

I also dyed some of the fabric that I had previously painted and dyed at the Make It Personal class.  I tore the fabrics into strips and laid them on top of the cotton fabric and wadding.

I ironed a piece of bondaweb on and then ironed the fabric strips on although that wasn't totally successful.  So I added some pins.

I machined the whole thing.

It probably needs some hand stitching and it does need a focal point but I will come back to it later in the year.  Sometimes you have to walk away from something for a while!   I still haven't decided how to edge the quilts so have left it rough at the moment.

This is what it would look like if I trimmed the edges.  Each quilt is A4 (letter) size.

Here's the quilt with the collage on the right.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Journal Quilts

With my return to textiles during 2014 I am doing an online Journal Quilts class with Ineke Berlyn.  I hadn't heard of Journal Quilts until I went to an exhibition at Ineke's studio.

Despite not having a clue what I was doing I survived January's quilt.  Ineke sends instructions to follow and I almost managed to stick with the brief.  I am a tutor's nightmare because I always want to do something different.   Here is my sketchbook.

And this is my unbound A4 sized finished piece.  I haven't bound it because I'm waiting to see what the other months look like and whether I bind them all to match.

As you can see from the finished January quilt I didn't use the building shape that I liked.  However the opportunity came with the instructions for the February quilt. I played about with the size of the building in my sketchbook and made a foam stamp.

 I painted my sketchbook page with watercolours and stamped my building shape.  I also 'stamped' the grasses with a piece of card and some acrylic paint.  I printed out my original photo in black and white and painted it with watercolours.

I used some bought fabric for the land and some painted cotton for the sky.  I used Markal paintsticks to make the tree shadow in the background.

I handstitched the shading.

I machined stitched the quilt.  It is still unbound but I cropped the photo.

The grasses are a bit out of proportion with the building! But hey, isn't that what artistic license is about?


Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice