logcabin...

...well, it's that time of year again, when i start thinking about entering the festival of quilts at birmingham nec. my grand plan is to enter three categories, which means the sketch blog will be somewhat neglected for the time being, although quilt progress will be chartered either here or there, i haven't decided yet...so anyway, i've been playing with my paper stash and probably my favourite patchwork block, logcabin. working in paper like this is so lovely - the blocks have a nice weight and are very tactile, the blocks are quite little, just over 2 inches square each meaning the that the whole thing is only around 8 inches so far, so pretty labour intensive!...you can see some of my other paper quilts from a few years ago on my flickr stream here.

felty

hi folks, hope your weekend was a good one. i helped out at a little sales table at the quilter's guild agm with my quilt art group and sold a few bits and pieces, so that was nice. my sunprint magnets have had a good response at both at the agm and in my etsy shop...but i'll be soon running out of the fabric. never mind, time to find another alternative :)

on a different subject, i need some advice from my lovely blog readers if i may be so bold to ask for it. above are two pictures...one with a collage attached to a six inch felt block, the other to a five inch felt block. i can't decide which i like more, the one with a bigger or smaller border. i'd love to have a bit of feedback! thanks so much in advance!

oh, by the way, the other day i discovered the lovely bigfish at etsy, she sells all sorts of ribbony and felt goodness...i'm ordering some divine colours for my backgrounds this week, i've just got to work out how much i need.

up!

well, actually not 'up', more like laying (on a table, no wall big enough for this fair beast of a project.) as expected a couple of pretty god-awful photos, these only show a portion of it, but it gives a fairly good effect. it really reminds me a traditional patchwork quilt...a sort of modern twist on one and i'm pretty pleased with the outcome.

for the geeks...each cathedral square is a 2" square, and nine of these make up a 'nine patch' (did you see that coming? ;) 6" square, that i call a 'block'. the overall piece is 4 blocks wide (24") by 10 blocks long (60".)

done!

woohoo, drum roll please...'skyline' is finished! i've literally just finished stitching the last four and flung them in a heap to photograph. i will organise them on to a wall a take a pic later on so you can see the full effect. although it will most likely look terrible...all those blues and greys tend to blend into blurry sludge from afar. oh well, we'll see.

googling

i've just googled myself (yeah, i know i'm bloody vain - i prefer to call it curious) and found two very interesting things (well, interesting to me, anyway); firstly, i've discovered why i sold so much in my first week of etsy - i was blogged by cuteable, which is very exciting!

the other thing i found was the above pic from the nahcotta blog. it's of the package i sent them full of my paper quilts for the enormous tiny art show. very strange to see it on someone else's floor all the way over the atlantic sea!

home again, home again, jiggedy-jig

hello all! well, i'm back from the world of birmingham nec. much excitement was had, especially seeing my six paper quilts in the final of 'quilt 2007' they are imaginatively called '20/20, 10/10, 5/5, 4/4, 2/2 and 1/1' (top pic is from the exhibition catalogue.) there were over 150 submissions from all over the world, and i got down to the last 19. so that ain't bad for girl from hicksville, suffolk is it? ;) my other big news is that my paper quilt 'revealed 2' (pictured above in it's work in progress state, and side angle when finished) won it's category, 'innovative, small', out of 92 other submissions! woohoo! i had to get up to receive my prize at the gala dinner on thursday night. i had a few stiff drinks to calm my nerves and had extremely high heels on, but thankfully i managed to negotiate the stage without falling arse over tit, which was my biggest fear. i was with a gaggle of quilting pals and they took pics, if any came out well, i'll post them another time.

right, i'm now off to immerse myself back into my old life and tackle the gargantuan tower of washing and ironing that has grown to K2-like proportions during my absence. bloody hell, there's nothing like coming back to earth with a bump, is there? ;)

ow, my finger hurts...

from stitching all the velcro on the backs of the nahcotta quilts. the labels are now done too, an enjoyable evening was had stitching in front of a csi double bill! so i've just got to package these up and send them on their merry way at last. isn't it weird how the enjoyable bit (making the collages) doesn't seem to take long to do, but all the binding and label making and stitching seems to take forever? by the way, you can just see a tiny moo sticker peeking out, top left.

sittin' in the sun, just me and my boy

' blue honesty'
' little person'
'red stalk'
'abstract'
'boat'

my mum (bless her cottons) took arth for a nice long walk to get him off to sleep yesterday, while frank (aged four) and i sat in the sun and did 'some work like mummy does'. it was excellent, and he was brilliant company. above are the results of both his and my work. how cool is his boat?

bound

i've been busy binding the nahcotta quilts and they're now all done. you have to be in the right frame of mind to do a mass of binding i always think, and yesterday was exactly the right day and i was in the right 'mood'. i got a production line going and they all went together pretty well. now for all the velcro. (they're having velcro stitched on them, top and bottom, then the other side of the velcro goes onto small flat battens, you screw the battens into the wall then the quilts to the velcro, and hey presto! really professional-looking quilts slightly hovering on the wall! it's magic! none of those nasty sleeves and poles for me, i've said it before, i'm a damn classy bird.)

once upon a time i found a key

this is nahcotta number four - a little yellow offering of which i am quite pleased. yellow is not a colour i use often, so i went out of my comfort zone, and i'm so pleased i did. as with the other paper quilts in this series, it is based on a piece of writing from my 25 year old school books (clue in the title on what the story is about!) and i have a tiny vintage key with two rather handy holes in to stitch on after it's bound. hope your day is as happy and sunny as mine has been today, i'm feeling smug because not only have i quilted all the quilts so far, i've stuck a casserole in the oven and i've got two happy kids playing in the garden. life is good. (as i write this i can hear frank...no arthur, you do NOT hit! it's naughty. mummy, arth's hitting me...better go.)

i'm goin' across the pond! (well my work is anyway!)

i got great news via the medium of email today! i have been accepted into the enormous tiny at show ii at nahcotta, a beautiful gallery in portsmouth, new hampshire! lots of exciting talents already taking part, including swallowfield, and amy ruppel, two artists i love. i have to produce 6-8 small pieces for the show in september, i will post them as i do them. above are two pics i sent with my application. the first is detail of 'one/one' and the other, 'ten/ten'.

don't you just hate it when....

you're getting on nicely, thank you, with a piece of work, you put it aside while you (begrudgingly) deal with domestic duties. you go back to it an hour or so later and your thread disappears. you look under the chair, behind the chair, under the cushions, under the coffee table. no joy. then you think, "maybe i took it with me absentmindedly into the kitchen" so in you trot, you look on the table, under the table, in the cupboards, the fridge and the oven. no joy. in the toy box? nope. in the garden? nope. in the dustbin? (it's been done before) "ahhhhhh.....maybe i hoovered it up!" nope. so where the bloody hell is my flippin' red thread?! it's sitting somewhere mocking me. if threads had feelings and thoughts, it would be sitting curled up in some random hiding place, thinking "aha, watch as she flies around the house looking for me. i have no intention of being found and chopped up in to small pieces and tied onto that potentially award winning quilt" that's what it would be thinking. well sod you, red thread, sit in your hiding place getting dusty and gross, i've already ordered your replacement. i'm gettin' myself some trophy thread. so what if it ended up costing me over a fiver what with postage and packaging? so what if i only actually need a metre 'cos i've nearly finished the quilt? it will serve it's purpose and will get all the glory.

anyway, the darn quilt is nearly finished so i thought i'd share with you a couple of shots; a side view to show the little tufts sticking up and a closeup. hope you like!

see you in birmingham, paper quilts!

i've parcelled up my six paper quilts for consideration in to 'quilt 2007' at 'the festival of quilts' at the nec in birmingham in august. it's a juried competition, and it would be an enormous honour just to be included. so fingers crossed folks! if they don't get into that particular comp, they will be hung in an alternative category, so whatever happens, the next time i see these, they will be hanging up in birmingham. above is '20/20' and '1/1', the last and first quilt in the series. right, i'm off now to carry on working on 'revealed 2'. evenin' all!