The first of a series

You may remember the Nonet I wrote called Dancing in Fetters.  I also wrote recently about the zoom workshop I did with Julia Triston.

One of the exercises was to write words on a piece of paper and cut it up and reassemble it.

Instead of the textile I was going to make, I started a new piece by writing the whole of the Nonet on a piece of calico.  I used a thermofax screen I had made some years ago of chains that I had drawn.

I cut this fabric into squares and reassembled it using the sewing machine.  The letters show up more as letters than marks as in the original paper collage.

I printed out various sizes of a treble clef, stave and music notes to see whether this was what I wanted on my hanging.

I settled on a size and drew it out on Stitch 'n' Tear.

I straight stitched the stave on the machine and tore off the tissue.  I hand stitched the treble clef.  I then satin stitched on the machine over the top of the straight stitch.

I drew the music notes on bondaweb befor ironing it onto fabric.  I cut out the notes and ironed them onto the hanging.

I used calico to make the binding.

I had some fabric in my stash that was a perfect match for this piece as it looks like bass clefs.

So, Dancing in Fetters 1 is finished.   Now on to Dancing in Fetters 2.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Summer School 2

After a few days with the pale fabrics I decided I liked them after all.  Now we had two days back in the studio to start using them.

Right at the start of the four days I had said I did not want to make a hanging nor did I want to make a book.  I was all booked out after making so many for Festival of Quilts.

I played with the fabric tearing up strips and bonding them to a piece of acrylic felt.  In my head this was inspired by the costumes that are worn at the Venice Carnivale in February.  To be honest it was okay, but not really doing it!

I used one of the fabrics I didn't like to make a box.  That really didn't work.  It does with paper but not this fabric!

With the very palest fabrics I tried out the different parts of how you fold to get the box above.  Each piece is part way into making a box.

By the end of the day I was particularly frustrated.  Thankfully for all concerned Liske has phenomenal patience.  She did however point out what I had said at the beginning of the Summer School.

I went home and made these from paper.  The largest box was made from a 21cm square.  The rest of the boxes were from 19, 17, 15 and 13 cm squares.

I gave myself a good talking to that evening and went back to make a hanging and a not-a-book.

I cut the fabric into strips of different sizes and moved them around so the fabric wasn't how it was originally.

Then I cut each strip into rectangles.  They are supposed to look a bit like buildings.  I decided to put some plain blue between some of the rectangles - a glimpse of the Grand Canal maybe?

I machined each strip together and then machined the 5 strips together.

I'll let you know how this progresses.

I'm going to introduce you to the not-a-book in another post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

One finished, one to go!

In the post Another new piece, I showed you how far I had got with piecing some bought fabric togther.

And this is the finished piece:

I went back to the other hanging which I had got stuck on.  I realised it was because I was trying to replicate the Paul Klee work too closely.  Stepping away from it for a while was a good thing.

I continued to cut up fabric and stitch the fabrics fairly randomly together.

I made some strips narrower and some wider than the original 6 inch strips.

I sewed some of the strips together and kept making extra bits.  I made the rust coloured strip at the top narrower.

I sewed all the strips together and trimmed the whole thing.

It's ready for the wadding and the backing.  I haven't decided whether to bond the layers together and then add the binding, or use a technique called stitch-in-the-ditch to quilt it together.  Stitch-in-the-ditch involves machining where the seams join.  I would only do it in the verticals.  There are far too many horoizontal seams!  However I've never done it before so I'm a bit wary.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Another new piece

You may remember this post: Starting a new textile piece.  It didn't get any further than here:

Firstly because I think I was trying to hard to make it like the Paul Klee painting and secondly, I got sidetracked into messing about with the sketchbook.

Last year I bought some fabric from Littleheath Barn Studio and then last month Liske advertised some more which I also bought.

My mind was buzzing with what I could do with it so I put the paints and sketchbook away and starting cutting up fabric.

I stitched the strips back together.

 

 

As you know, I love cutting up my work, so having stitched it all together, I promptly started cutting it up and inserting narrow strips of a contrasting colour.

I tried out the remaining fabric in different positions

Then sewed it together.

And joined the whole thing together.

Only then it didn't look right.  I tried the contrast strip in various places before cutting the piece up again.

It still looked a bit odd and I needed to decide how to finish it.   I printed out the above photo and cut out the images and tried different versions of cutout.

I chose the last one and cut the actual fabric.  Now to decide whether to use a binding or a facing and whether I should quilt it.  I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Aurora

I signed up for Lisa Walton's Aurora class at the beginning of December but only started the online class last week.  Rather than dye or paint some fabric I bought some gradient fabric from The Bramble Patch.

As ever, I didn't want my work to look like the tutors so I took the principle of how to cut the fabric and made it long and narrower than Lisa's sample.  Although it is actually wider than I meant it to be.

I have made several unsuccessful attempts at photographing this fabric.  It either comes out black where it's blue or the pale bit in the middle which is a matt finish shines so brightly it's hard to tell what colour it is.  At least it's blue in this one!

Interestingly it is described as black on the Bramble Patch website.

I decided to print onto the fabric using stencils, some fabric paint and acrylic paint.

I started machine quilting.  I tried to follow the lines printed on the fabric.  I forgot to put the walking foot on but I don't think it would have made much difference.

It really doesn't look good up close.  The layers all decided to do their own thing despite the copious amount of Mistyfuse!

At this point Lisa suggests machining with thick thread in the bobbin, then some handstitching.  Currently it's going to sit in the 'I don't why I started this project' pile.

And of course there's always the option to cut it up so that I can cut out all the bits where the fabric pleated!

Thank for joining me today
Bernice

 

Cut up and put back together

Remember all those bits of fabric from my last post Monochrome Mark Making?    Well I cut them up into rectangles and squares and machined them together.  Then I added some plain strips to edge them and join them to the next line of joined together fabric.

I cut this strip into 3 and turned the middle stripe upside down and rejoined the strips.

Here are all the strips sewn together.

And a closeup of it.  As you can see there aren't many straight seams!

And now to decide what to do with it.  It doesn't lend itself to being a book and I'm not keen on making it into a cushion (pillow for US readers!).

Anyone any ideas?

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice