Fair exchange I'd say!

OK, may as well face it, I'll never be thin! Made cherry, raisin and lemon muffins today and unless someone comes to visit very soon (10 minutes or less!) I may resort to eating the lot! Already tried one and yes, with that lemon glaze on the top they are as good as they look!

Amelie and I have been left to our own devices for a few hours while Laura gets her hair done. She of course is too young to eat cake but she watched my every mouthful like a hawk. Made me feel rather guilty which is probably why I stopped at just the one!

It's not all baby sitting - enjoyable as that is. Over the last few days I've been trying out Derwent Inktense blocks in an altered book. Laura bought me a box from the show a couple of weeks ago when I stayed home because of the snow and she felt bad about me missing all the fun. She knows how much I like the pencils and thought the blocks would be a treat. I've only just started to work with them but already I see the potential - I love the way the colour sits in the grooves of the gesso. We've recorded a video for DMTV so if you're a member you'll get to see the whole process very soon.

I wanted to prepare a few more pages ready for painting so I popped Amelie in her carrier and took her out to my workroom. It's not easy painting with gesso while you have a wriggling baby strapped to your chest but, you have my word for it, it can be done. I had to stand at a peculiar sideways angle to the table but she watched the painting almost as intently as the muffin eating and liked the brush washing even more.

As you can see she's very happy in the carrier. It's done my back a power of good - all that weight training must be rather like preparing for an arduous expedition or the Olympics!

I've had several comments about the lack of baby pics of late so here's another one for her fans.

The pay off for all the grandmotherly duties is I get my latest waterlily designs printed in super quick time. Here they are still on the printer. Jamie is steaming the panels as I write this and, once fixed they'll be washed, ironed and delivered to me in the morning. Not a bad exchange I'd say!!

Really, really, really can't wait to start quilting these - I'll let you see how they turn out.  Bye for now - Linda

Home from Nottingham

We're just back from the Quilters Guild Conference and AGM in Nottingham. We arrived just before our lecture this morning and had to leave soon after so sadly we didn't get to see much of what went on all weekend but we did spot our friend Hilary Beattie demonstrating like a demon. Here she is in full flow with a rapt audience. The room was so full we couldn't get in and had to take this picture from the doorway. When we bumped into her a bit later she had possibly more paint on her hands than on the fabric but looked as though she was having a great time!

And another friend, Jackie Taylor of White Cottage, was one of the traders. Must be fun to take your shop to a captive audience. Everyone is there for 3 whole days with nothing on their minds other than quilting. OK, let's be honest, maybe there's a little eating, drinking, talking and general merriment going on too!

Generous souls had contributed beautiful items to raise funds for the Guild. There was a lovely tulip and jug composition from Hilary in front of a gorgeous quilt from Annabel Rainbow. Some lucky individuals are going home with these beauties tonight. How lucky is that!

At 10.30 the Gail Lawther lecture finishes and the audience begin to take their seats for our talk which we called 'What Makes a Quilt?'

It's a huge auditorium and just look at the size of that enormous screen. At this point no one was aware the laptop was in a sulk and refusing to talk to the projector. You might just be able to make out Laura next to our tech support guy in the picture below - they are on the phone googling to find out what the problem may be. Not a great situation when there are only 15 minutes turnaround between lectures and it's about 5 minutes before we are due to start. This is the kind of nightmare that keeps us awake at night. I get so anxious I have sometimes dreamt that we turn up with no slideshow and no quilts either. Neither of us can sing or dance so what would we do? With the worse case scenario in mind I'd filled the boot of the car with a stack of quilts just in case the presentation didn't work, there was a powercut, the world ceased turning or some other such disaster occurred. We call it the belt and braces approach to public speaking!

With great calm the technician proceeded to take the furniture apart and fiddled with a mass of cables.

Despite all the fiddling and twiddling still nothing happened. Of course, true professionals that we are, Laura had a back up plan. She inserted the memory stick, the images magically appeared and we started exactly on time. The 'just in case of disaster' quilts remained in the boot of the car and all was well. Phew - why do we do these things? I'm ready for a sit down and a gin and tonic!

Bye for now - Linda

Creative Sketchbook Course

I expect many of you know that Laura and I have offered a variety of online courses for the last 13 years. A little while ago I received a request from one of the students who had recently finished our online Creative Sketchbooks - she was wondering how fellow students were interpreting the course. We have students all over the world and for many it is a welcome opportunity to take a course that would otherwise be unavailable to them. While some love the independence and freedom of working from home I guess the downside is not being able to see how your own work compares. A very recent graduate (just this morning!) has kindly allowed me to show you a selection of her work. Berit lives in Norway and tells me she has really enjoyed her time with us! Here in no particular order are a few of her pages.

Some of the first activities are inspired by the kitchen!!

Students are encouraged to introduce their own favourite themes. On this page Berit used stencils and pastel to create these lovely positive and negative shapes of dragonfly.

How about this for high drama with a few well chosen pots on a table!

What is it about colourful, patterned jugs? Irresistible shapes aren't they - I can't be the only one who loves them!

Paper cutting and folding reveals the page below. Think children's' pop-up book and you'll get the idea!

Combining print techniques with a limited colour palette for graphic effect.

Making your own sketchbooks is fun and the perfect place to show off your printing skills.

Stitched spine bindings work beautifully for simple book construction.

Hope you've enjoyed seeing just a small selection of work Berit produced for the course. I'll prevail upon other unsuspecting students to share more pages with you soon.

Thanks for dropping by today! Talk to you soon - Linda

All over now

Last time I posted we were getting ready for the show at the NEC. I know we English are weather obsessed but it's supposed to be spring here so why on earth did the weather refuse to co operate?

This is no country road - this is the access lane to a major motorway so you can imagine what it was like trying to get out of our little village!

Despite the hairy journey, Laura, Adrian and Jamie did get through to the Exhibition Centre and soon set to work building the stand. At first it looks as though all the stuff will never fit in but a few hours later........

It's all beginning to look quite colourful and tempting. They emailed me pictures throughout the day so I didn't feel left out of things! (I'm usually quite bossy setting up at a show but I didn't have the nerve to interfere and tell them to move things around!).

At the other end of the space Laura set up her embroidery machine and an area to demonstrate fabric painting. The three quilts you see displayed here are all digital prints made by Laura and Jamie's bespoke Fingerprint service. They attracted a lot of attention as few people have heard about wide format printing and were curious to know all about it. I had some of my sketchbooks there to show how a small image could magically become a large print and ultimately a quilt.

The weather worsened over the four days of the show and we decided it was too risky to take Amelie out in such bad driving conditions again. She'd been a big attraction on the stand on opening day and really enjoyed her introduction to the exciting world of stitch but we couldn't risk getting stuck in a snowdrift with a hungry baby on board so I opted to stay home with her for the rest of the show. I'm sorry if I missed any of you although it seems more people were disappointed at not seeing the baby!

When we're at a show we're busy working and it's hard to escape the stand long enough to see the other exhibitors. Luckily the WI stand was between us and the entrance so even though I was only there one day it couldn't fail to catch my attention.

This gem of a collection is housed at Denman College and has never been exhibited in its entirety before. I loved all the smocks but the Gardener's smock was my absolute favourite. Like me it's from Staffordshire! Also like me it doesn't look as though it's done much gardening! Maybe it was kept for best.

Just look at the detail - isn't it lovely? Apparently there were specific motifs that were embroidered onto each smock to signify the trade of the wearer, for example a forester might have trees and a shepherd a crook. This made them easily identified at a hireling fair. Maybe we'll have to make ourselves a smock decorated with paint tubes and a sewing machine?

I do feel inspired to have a go but perhaps I'll be realistic and start with a baby sized smock before I take on anything bigger! 

This is quite a long post with so many photographs but I could have included loads more! I know a lot of you didn't get to the show because of the snow so I hope this has given you a small taste of what you missed.  When we send out tomorrow's newsletter we'll include some more pictures and there have also been a number posted on our Facebook page over the past few days that you might enjoy.

Fingers crossed Spring is about to appear!!

Thanks for dropping by - I appreciate it, Linda

It's show time

Tomorrow is set up day for Fashion Embroidery and Stitch at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, UK. It's been frantic here getting everything ready for the stand but as well as the quilts, the sales items and the demonstration bits and bobs it is important not to forget the inner man. With 5 days at the show we shall need to eat - I've been busy tonight baking bread so that everything will be as fresh as possible.

They look pretty appetising don't they? I'm home baby minding tomorrow while the others build the stand - think I've drawn the long straw this time! It'll be a treat to turn up on Thursday and see it all looking gorgeous! We'll be taking lots of pictures and I'll let you see how it looks really soon.

Bye for now, Linda

Mother knows best

Well, trust my mother to be right! Apparently, in the early fifties when I was a baby it was the done thing to put babies outside in the garden for a daytime nap in their prams. I told her things had changed and nobody did that anymore. She says fresh air helps babies sleep and I was outside come rain or shine, or even snow. I said how ridiculous - she just nodded knowingly in that irritating way that mothers do.

Now before anyone reports me to the NSPCC for neglect, Amelie was wrapped up and cosy under her quilt and didn't seem to mind the gentle drizzle we endured all day today. She was just outside of the window and so I could watch her like a hawk. I had taken her for a walk around the village and it didn't seem fair to wake her when we got back. She sleeps so little in the daytime that any sleep is precious. Perhaps it was the sound of rushing water from the nearby brook or the breeze in the trees that lulled her but even the raucous calls of the local crows and rooks didn't wake her for almost 2 hours. May have to try this again tomorrow although next time I might try and do something useful and not just sit waiting for her to wake up!

A couple of days ago the weather was much kinder and we took advantage of the sunshine to have an indigo vat in the garden. Toby, curious as ever, was quite fascinated to see Laura covering the lawn with wet fabric which soon turned blue in the bright sunlight.

The indigo will remain active for a while yet so back in the studio I experimented with a selection of papers including these foiled fortune cookie wrappers.

This handmade Asian paper is still very wet but I prised the folds open just enough to see it is showing promise and is much improved on its original state.

I'm gathering quite a pile of blue papers to combine with some of the fabrics we dyed. The trouble with an indigo vat is knowing when to stop. It soon becomes a case of searching frantically for anything else to dunk! While I was rifling through my desk for suitable candidates I came across a heron intaglio print I made last year. I couldn't actually dye him because he's been waxed but as he's a blue heron, he must surely have a part to play with all the indigo in a new piece of work! Watch this space for more mixed media!

Bye for now - Linda

Counting down

As the Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch Show at the NEC approaches alarmingly quickly it's time to focus the mind on what we'll have on our stand.

I've been putting the finishing touches to a few more mini cushions today. They are about 8inches square with a little folded insert at the edges.

Maybe I should call them my Cannibal Collection as they have all been made by chopping up old quilts. Old though only in the sense that they were made a while ago and have served their purpose (which was to feature in an exhibition). Since then they've been hidden away wondering if they'd ever see the light of day again. This original quilt of hand dyed fabrics with applique, free motion quilting, hand embroidery, metallic pastel and beading has now been digitally embroidered with new motifs. Whew - that's a lot of techniques!

I had so much fun with these I had to search for another likely old quilt that I could cannibalise to make this cushion. I could drown in quilts if I wanted to - there are so many so it doesn't take long to find a candidate. The butterfly embroidery is a Husqvarna design worked in Madeira rayon and my favourite Madeira soft metallic machine threads.

There's only simple quilting with a bit of fabric painting on this one before the butterfly is added.

The mini cushions will all have a better shape when the gaps are closed now the stuffing is in place. It's my least favourite part of the making but obviously essential.

With more serious work in mind I've also spent hours and hours on the mad heron quilt ( no proper name for this work yet but I'm sure something will suggest itself soon).This is just a tiny detail but I think you can see how the digital print has captured the quality of the painted collage from my sketchbook. The collage papers were sprayed with paint to achieve that delicate mottled colour. The whole heron quilt top and its sister piece is on our SiX and Friends blog if you'd like to see quite how demented the heron really is! You'll need to scroll down past Laura's Origami hands and Annabel's portrait of Steph in Still Life with Orange to find them but if you haven't seen either of those pieces you're in for a treat!

Hope you're enjoying a pleasant weekend - bye for now!
Linda