taking it down a tone...

you might not be surprised to hear i love bright colours. i love looking at them and working with them. but just lately i find myself drawn to a much paler palette - more neutral tones paired with softer colours. like in this beautiful piece of work by matt connors. in all of the *stacks* of plains (solids) i've been collecting because of my improv obsession i just can't get the look i'm after for a new idea i have...the dyes are too saturated and too, i dunno, plain. i don't want to go down the 'batik-y plain' look, and i'm not especially interested in hand dyed fabrics, what i'm after is something more watercoloury. does that make sense? so this morning i painted my own. they aren't perfect flat colours, some areas are lighter than others and some darker, but they're just right. and they took nanoseconds to do which suited my terrible impatience...

just in case...

...you missed out the second time around, i've listed a few more scrap bundles right here in the shop! three have gone already so get your skates on if you want to nab one! a couple of them contain some one off layered prints - like the one in the image below...

cut & come again

serendipity this evening when preparing dinner...first barbecue of this lovely weather we've been having...burgers, check. burger buns, check. salad? ummm...bugger. then up pipes frank, don't worry mum, i've grown some in my greenhouse...god love 10 year old eager gardeners, eh? it was blooming delicious, too.

in the days before the internet wasted my time...

i went over to my mum's today and we got out some old work of mine that i gave her to hang up on her walls when my parents moved house a few years ago. like the best laid plans though, the pieces have just moved from my drawers to hers! these are a bit arty farty really, and they're way before any internet shenanigans too - i didn't even know there was a 'textile world' on the net when these were made!

they were all made when the boys were babies - the coloured appliqued 'flowers' quilts were pieced and quilted during the day when frank (he's 11 this year so i reckon they were made around 2003) was asleep then beaded in the evenings when he was in bed. they were deliberately created so i had some hand work i could do while still spending time with my husband in the evenings. i remember we used to watch buffy the vampire slayer and cold case, haha! what a multi-tasker i used to be :)

the second set of pictures are of a little row of 4 quilts made from those colour catcher thingies you throw in with your washing machine to catch the rogue dye (or dirt, nice) and it was based on a kid's story book (whose title fails me right now) about a baby fox who wants to know about the stars and his mother explains that they're lights from when people die...or something like that, it used to make me cry a lot. profound, huh? adverts on the telly used to move me back then. must have been hormones.

the last set of pictures is of a mixed media quilt - there's a ton of techniques in this one, lino printing, stamping, quilting, free machine embroidery etc etc...i sort of still like it, but i'm not so fond of the earthy tones. this is the only brown piece i've ever made. and hopefully the last. i can't stand brown in my work.

anyway, i hope you've enjoyed a little rummage through my 'back catalogue' (not a euphemism, i hasten to add...) as much a i did. it's funny, i'm taken aback when i happen upon an old piece of work - i sort of only vaguely remember making it. wonder why that is? maybe it was lost in the new-mother fug. oddness.

i clearly had too much time on my hands -
i guess little babies spend most of the time asleep, right?

all that dirt out of our clothes...sorry, i mean loose dye

got it covered...

so there was a bit of excitement yesterday evening when the cover artwork pinged into my inbox...crikey! it's actually happening!

click to see it a bit larger & in all its glory!

heavy metal...

i don't think it's any secret that i like to work in happy, bright colours but i'm working on something for festival of quilts and i've gone in a completely different direction. i'm ever so slightly out of my comfort zone, but i'm liking it! 

it's funny, i'd been intensely working with these colours for weeks, then we went to the harry potter studios and i was very drawn to the chess pieces...can you see why?! i spent the whole day during the tour wishing i could have start a career making props for films. i nearly cried with joy at the beauty of hermione's 'time turner'!

printing metallics

strips

at the harry potter studios

i know it's faked, but doesn't it look amazing?

what an amazing job it must be to decorate props for films!

keeping a secret...

so, i've totally been keeping something to myself (actually that's not entirely true, because i've got a big gob & can't keep anything to myself for 5 minutes, so remember that if you ever feel compelled to tell me a REALLY massive secret, 'kay?)

i wrote a book. a BOOK. an actual book with my name on the cover and everything. i'm aware that these days everyone and their mother is writing some kind of quilting book or another, but SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! and i wrote it myself, too. actual words and sentences & there might also be some paragraphs, capital letters and the occasional full stop. i couldn't get the hang of apostrophes so i let my editor handle the hard stuff. i also considered having a ghost writer but realised i just had to let my own voice be heard, to let it out to the world, what i had to say was too important to be muffled by another's words. *snigger*

so, it's about improv quilting and it's called 'quilt improv'. it's already up for pre-sale on amazon. (on amazon!!!) it was a lot of fun to write and i spent that miserable (weather wise) summer last year frantically making the quilts...i'm very scared it's going to be slated (i actually woke up in the night worrying about it) but if nothing else, the photos in it, taken by the uber brilliant mark scott, are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

in the book, i've taken photographs of ordinary things, like drain covers, air vents, holes in fences, kid's toys and used them as inspiration for the quilts. although there are instructions to make quilts like mine, the emphasis is finding your own way to create your own pieces without too many rules and regulations & getting hung up on measurements and 'the right way to do things'. hopefully there's something for all quilters in it, from the beginner to the more experienced who feel braver to try out all the different improv techniques in the book. gosh, that almost sounded sensible, didn't it?

'quilt improv' is  published by F&W media international and will be out in september, priced around £14.99.

 i'll leave you with some fun shots taken from the photo shoot at the farm...

mark hard at work whilst wonderful sarah the designer looks on

isn't this glam? you'll be pleased to know the b-b-q & crappy
chair cushions didn't feature in the shot

in the orchard (translation: by the apple tree)

lovely mini quilts on the green barn door

quilts flapping madly in the breeze (this was hilarious, sarah & i
had to leap in between shots to save the quilts. the final shot is stunning)