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I knew it, I just knew it, I take the blame for the bad weather we are having, why? well I have been very busy, too busy to do the garden and now the being busy is over I can do the garden or rather I would like to tidy up the garden but it’s rapidly turning into a loch and the burn is coming up to join it, oh, such is life but time is not a wasted, the thing about being busy is other things have to wait and the house gets very untidy too so the weather means the house has been tidied and this afternoon I have been catching up on some island blogging, just thought I’d leave a post before reading some more blogs and starting on the things that are waiting,

I thought I had better post something textiley as I haven’t for so long, I have finally finished all the blocks for my very first (and probably last) sample quilt, twelve blocks in all, digital cameras are great for laying out the blocks in different arrangements taking a photo of each then viewing them all and deciding on the best, no need to number the blocks to remember where they go, so here’s a photo of all the blocks,


I finally got into the garden today, great (except for the flies ugh!) but I managed to cut the hedge and deadhead a lot of the plants that had finished flowering and when I went into the shed I had a great surprise, last year I decided to plant an avocado stone, nothing seemed to have happened but I just left it as it was not in the way and look……

I am so chuffed, yes I know it is no great thing,

I had not been too any workshops for a long time and just felt like I would like to attend one or two or three….

So when booking and arranging to go to the Loch Lomond quilt show I decide to book a workshop, there were two that interested me but one was on Saturday when I was travelling to Mull so it was now one, Visual Music with , I love the bright clear colours Alicia uses in her quilts and wanted to encourage myself to try some bright colour, the inspiration for the workshop was artists Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Robert and Sonia Delaunay, all who were influenced by music, I looked through my inspiration postcard collection and found Windows Opening Simultaneously, there are several paintings in this series so I found photos of several and took them with me,
After an introduction Alicia wanted us to chose a painting and reproduce a likeness in fabric, now this I can not do as I do not want to reproduce someone else’s work, so I took a good look at the photos I had brought then put them away and started my own version of Windows Opening Simultaneously, this is the fabric result before stitching, on the left is how the piece looked at the end of the workshop (photo not good as taken in artifical light) and on the right is how it looks now, you can not tell in the photo but many of the curved shapes are in opaque fabrics and lace so the under colour shows a little, I have been busy on other things but now hope to do some work on it soon,






In the afternoon we had another project to start which I found much easier and freer, we had to take a plain background and then cut abstract shapes from brightly coloured fabrics and arrange them on the background, I had brought with me some gorgeous fabric sent to me by my blogging friend , (take a look at Sonji’s Art she does some amazing Art Quilts)





infact I enjoyed it so much that that evening back at the Loch Lomond youth hostel where I was staying I found the laundry room with iron and board and continued, I want to start stitching these soon too,

I had intended to post this last week but as usual time got away from me,

I spent a week in Ullapool in July doing a 5 day workshop with Eleanor White of , I enjoyed it and meeting other artists but I can’t do the art as well as I would like to, still I had a go and will keep trying,
Mondays drawing I didn’t like enough to bring home and didn’t take a photo so that’s it, most of Tuesdays work, didn’t work either but I will share one so you can see what I mean,

Wednesday was better I had been feeling by the end of Tuesday that perhaps I had made a mistake coming on the course and so really thought about what I wanted from the course and that was techniques, art tutors are always talking about texture but never demonstrate or show examples so I chose to paint a stone wall and concentrate on textures, I had a wonderful time and felt like a kid splashing paint around the paper, I was thinking my colours were a bit bright, the wall was more subdued and I was going to grey the colours when I saw another students work which was the beach pebbles but in bright colours not like the ones on the beach, I had a wee blether with her and decided to leave mine as they were and I am pleased I did, this is not a picture but a sample of textures for me to use as reference,

Thursday was not good for me but Friday was better, I only worked the morning as I wanted to get the afternoon ferry home, Eleanor told us to texturerise a sheet of paper, then when it was dry we were to tear it into pieces and choose some or all to reassemble as a collage and glue them, this was to be what we painted on, this is my result,

I finally finished the sample quilt, when I was thinking how to quilt the sashing (strips between the blocks) I was thinking how the fabric holds so many memories and so decided to use that in the title and the quilting of the sashing and border, so I have written in stitches things about the fabrics and memories, here’s a selection,

first mini shirt, mum’s dress, daughters flowered flares, friend’s maternity smock,

…fabric’s used in this quilt hold treasured memories…

I stitch my samples with fabric old and remember the stories as they unfold,

yesterday (Saturday) was the august meeting of the art club, I had missed last month so it was nice catching up with everyone, there was no tutor this month so we could all do our own thing, I had taken some photos I was going to work from but when I arrived a kind soul had set up a nice little composition with fruit and flowers, jug and vase on a pretty embroidered table cloth, so I decided to have a go at capturing some of the summer harvest, I didn’t finish, perhaps if I had had worked my hand at art a fast as my tongue at blethering I would have finished it ;o) a most enjoyable afternoon,

Just over a week ago I went down to the NEC at Birmingham to see Festival of Quilts (FoQ), I had a wonderful 3 days seeing lots of textile art and meeting people I have known via e mail for sometime, I had lunch with Friday and saw Myfanwy at her stand and ofcourse bought some luscious threads,
There are so many quilts and I seem to have taken less photos this year but here’s a few,

Rustyko by Hillka Luosa, Finland,
The name Rustyko comes from the words rustic and rusty, I wanted to make a quilt of minimalistic design with rusty colours, materials: linen, silk, wool, paper thread, linen thread and woollen thread, machine quilted,

Red Tree by Stephanie Redfern,


Keeping Balance by Leslie Morgan,

Horizons-Squall by Helen Keenan,

Illusion by Ineke van Unen-Wingelaar,

I have tried yet again to leave comments, replies to comments on my blog and as I have found time to read some blogs comments on other blogs but IB doesn't like me and won't let me leave comments, so apologises if I have not left a comment but it is not that i am ignoring you it is that IB won't let me respond,
this is getting worst than blogger!!!!*