Ready or not!

We've enjoyed a long weekend with family to celebrate May Day this week but pleasant as that was, there's now no time for day dreaming - it's time to get back to the priorities of the day! Our work is packaged and labelled for its trip to Bilston Craft Gallery tomorrow morning. The talisman pockets which we've called, 'This is Everything That We Are' don't look too impressive squeezed into their boxes but I'm sure they'll be fine when they are displayed on the gallery wall. The secret thoughts and wishes sent in by my blog readers and Laura's workshop students can just be seen peeping out of some of the pockets.

All the work is destined for 'The Liberated Quilt' a really international exhibit involving 24 artists. Organising the logistics has involved Annabel and Laura in a lot of work but I'm sure it will be worth all their efforts. You can check out the details of the exhibition on the Through Our Hands website.

Back in the studio - as soon as one deadline is met it's time to focus on the next. With a vague idea for a quilt, (yet to be tested!) my preliminary swallow studies are multiplying!

For what we have in mind we'll need a whole flock of birds. I'm trying out different media - the drawing above used water soluble Graphitint pencils made by Derwent.

This one is watercolour.

This one combines collage elements with watercolour on a gesso ground. We'll be able to combine all the different birds in Photoshop to create the final composition before we print to cotton fabric.

Although we've been busy as usual we did manage to fit in a visit to the local auction house again. Just because I loved them I came home with these silver thimbles.

I won't be using these for quilting you understand. None of them have the recessed top I like when I'm sewing so they will just have to sit looking pretty on my print tray!

Thanks for reading today. The Liberated Quilt exhibition will be on in Bilston until 25th July so there's loads of time to make a visit. If you can come and say hello on May 16th when several of us will be there we'd love to see you!

Bye for now!
Linda x