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

Signs and Signposts

This month's photography theme was Signs and Signposts.  I haven't been anywhere this month apart from my back treatment appointments so I trawled through the archives.

Here are just a few of the photos I found:

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Saturday Story

Today I thought I would look at the letter M.  Are there particular stories in your life concerning words beginning with M?  We all have memories - good memories, bad memories!

All the travel posts on this blog are memories.  Here's a photo of Mount Hood from 2017

Obviously there are real mountains, but there are also metaphorical mountains in our lives.  There's the saying: Don't make a mountain out of molehill.

It seems to me that we can easily make mountains.  We let our thoughts run riot and exaggerate nothing into something.  We can take someone's comments about our work and make it into a rejection of us. Not liking our work is not the same as not liking us as a person.

Over the years I have chase after techniques in the hope of finding my voice - my style.  I've taken part in workshops online and in person.  Good ones, poor ones and great ones!  Basically in search of me in my work.  It's good to know techniques, but it's even better to actually make work.   It's good to find out what is a good fit for me.  I listened to this great podcast this week: Art Juice - Is Your Personality in Your Art

One of the most helpful things I have found is mentoring.   Christine Chester is an excellent mentor.  Here are the memories of the mentoring session.

Currently I am over half way through a year of faith based creative expression mentoring with Matt Tommey.  This has been an excellent way to consolidate the things I have learned over the years, combining my faith with creative practice.

Matt has an excellent podcast series plus a blog.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice