Over 3 hours in the eye clinic

Got the ok to go for the eye test for glasses!!!!🤓

There was a whole lot of waiting going on. 🤨🤪
Just doodling. Then it started looking like a cheeky tunic so I kept going til it was. 😄

oh yes, it's Wednesday

Today I got the 3in sleeves on the black and white journal quilts. They need to be at the Grosvenor office by the 9th or the 11th. (different dates on different paperwork). So, I parcelled them up properly and went down to the Post Office...
which was shut. Oh. I forgot it was Wednesday. The post office has half day closing on Wednesday. So, I will go back tomorrow.

Last night we saw The Hobbit. Very Good! I am so glad Peter Jackson was able to carry on with this Tolkein story. He is able to make a film that is so much like what you imagined in the book.

BlacknWhite Cows running amok

Isn't amok a funny word? you should look up the meaning sometime and the background to it.

Anyway, Here are the two Black and White pieces I posted yesterday with the story about the cows I had as a teen.

I added some lollypop trees to fill in the space.

Then I quilted the background, taking inspiration from one of Leah Day's patterns called Landscape. But rather than quilt curves in every 'hill', I quilted 'plow lines' in different directions in selected 'fields'. You can see what I mean by looking at the back of one of the pieces. If you get close enough to see the quilting in the first place, it helps to move your eye around the piece.

This is the first time I have done much stitching on the screen printed black with white screen ink fabric. This was an experiment some time ago. The black, I learned, took forever to dry and then I had to use another fabric to 'blot' it when I heat set it. (The blotting fabric is what the pale print fabric turned out to be that I have been using.) The white on black didn't seem to be a problem...at the time. But since trying to stitch it for these last few days, I find it crumbles a bit and goes powdery in the areas where you stitch. and because the black fabric is a tighter weave, the areas with thicker white paint can sometimes cause the machine to balk at stitching through. I think I am going to find a way to use it up without alot of stitching, and then screen some replacement fabric with textile paints.

Anyway, here are both completed.

I think one will be Cows in My Field - which referrs to phone calls from the neighbours when the cows escaped.

and Cows in the Woods - which is what they did when they were supposed to go sedately down to the creek to drink.

So, now to fill out the forms and (SHOCK) sendthem off early!

I think I will do the last blue fruit - I have started it - for the Contemporary Quilt journals, and then November sewing will be focussed on something else.

Edit: I have linked this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday

BlacknWhite - Cows

As I am on a roll here... I thought of another Black and White Memory to depict. You may not know that I grew up on a farm where we had no electricity or running water. No one at my school lived this way. Some memories are not anything I look back on with joy.(an understatement)It was hard work!

However, that aside, it was my job to look after the cows. Which also involved milking 2 of them every morning and evening and either leading (being dragged)them to the creek for water or lugging 2 5gallon buckets of water up from the creek to them - repeatedly till they had drunk their fill. So, having escaped the farm to the ease of surburbian England, I became a collector of cow things in my kitchen. Eventually there were way too many and I don't dust very often. Put it this way, when I do dust, I have to use the hoover!

So, I have now rather limited the cows to one or two I quite like and any that are a bit fun. I have been looking for a way to depict my own abstracted cows for a while. So, when I was thinking what else I could do for this black and white theme, I happened to notice the cloth serviettes we are using tonight. The cows torso is like a black and white checkerboard. Funky.

I thought, okay I could use some of the black and white printed fabric and see what I can come up with. almost straight away I came up with shapes I liked, but it took a while to find fabrics that suited for background. I was going to use the pale print I used on the Ivy piece, but I wasn't very happy with the look. I probably would have ended up adding 'grass' and would have had another Not BlacknWhite piece on my hands.

So, here was the selection and placement idea when I went to bed last night.

Tell me what you think. Fun?

Today I am working on it further, but I will post the steps tomorrow.

Old Streets, Snickleways and Half-timbered Houses

or BlacknWhite York piece.

Today I had a play with stitching a different design into each section on the BlacknWhite piece that I did last week which I said reminded me of York.

I got some of the ideas from Dijanne Cevaal's book 72 Ways Not to Stipple or Meander. She also has another book 72 More Ways Not to Stipple or Meander. You can purchase them from her by following the links in the sidebar of her blog.
Another place where you can get ideas for quilting patterns is from Leah Day's blog. She developed 365 different designs and has a weekly programme for working out ways to use them.

Anyway, I used this as a chance to play really, and try out ideas. Small chances, but there we are! The point was not for them to really be seen, so I used white thread on the centres of the sections.

There were already loads of lumps and bumps due to the seaming in the piece, so I used a few scraps of wadding for this one. What's one or two more bumps to sew?

The back shows the stitching a bit better even though it is white on white.

and here is the completed A4 piece. For now, it will be the companion piece to the Pepper piece for the Grosvenor show journal quilt challenge due end November.

BlacknWhite - Pepper finished

I finished the quilting and then the edge stitching on the piece about Pepper today. If you are visiting via Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday, the link you followed should show the posts I have been doing this week in the lead up to this piece. If you want to read each of them in order, just scroll down to the bottom and work your way up to this post.

This was the original sketch I was working from...a small bit of post it note one day when she was in here being my friend. I am glad I did it, I have several photos of her doing things, but not many just being my friend.

I showed the thread sketching previously. I used regular black sewing thread which is much more like Pepper's fur than a rayon would have been. Photos don't really show, but I went over certain parts with black rayon to be highlights.

Here is the quilting finished.

and then hanging on the 'design wall'*.

A look at the back. I was getting too much of the black bobbin thread coming to the surface. Not too bad for the part I designated 'floor'. But I changed to grey bobbin for the top section which I designated 'wall'.

I think I will finish off the piece that reminds me of York, to submit with this one for the Grosvenor Show Journal challenge. I may get around to working up another Pepper one, but the idea for it has been in my head for ages. Trouble is, she was so black that it is hard to discern where the limbs stop and start in photos.


*Currently a black linen skirt I intend to refashion in some way! LOL

BlacknWhite - dog

So, I got Pepper 'coloured in'.

I have started the background quilting. It needs to be tight and close to take care of the puckering. However, the fabric the image was printed on is very sturdy, and with it layered on the quilted piece, the puckering is not as bad as it could have been.
Will finish it off tomorrow.

BlacknWhite - this one!

Okay, I realised this print (from my pile of screen print fabrics) is the one which works as a background for the 'something black and white' that I want to put against it.
Which is...Pepper! A sketch I did of her in March 2009.

I really miss my little friend hanging out with me in here. So I thought that would be a great idea for Memories in Black and White.

In the above photo I was working out placement. Now I have started thread sketching over the image. The actual sketch was done on pink post it note! So, I took it into Paint Shop Pro, used the colour changer tool to convert the pink background to white. Then printed it out onto cotton printer fabric. Because the sketch was done in pencil, the graphite was read as grey with a cyan hue. I was just going to stitch over the image to give definition, but because the image looks grey, the black definition stood out too much.

So, I have started colouring her in!

unfortunately, I had decided to leave the 'shadow' on the image when I fused it to the background. So I will have to colour it in as well so it doesn't look like it is a lighter area. She did have white on her chin, but only in front. and white on her chest, which doesn't show in the sketch, and her toes, which does show.

Will work on it more tomorrow when I have a bit more brain.

'Not' Blacknwhite

It started out to be blacknwhite, but rather got coloured in.

Even him upstairs - (A Certain Young Man who Has Opinions) - says it's Not black and white. Even if you use it for a background for a black and white something. And wouldn't the black and white something get lost in the background?

I guess you are right.



Nice fence with ivy though, don't you think? I enjoyed the drawing with the machine and the colouring in with coloured pencils.



******
The blacknwhite thing was going to go in the general area of the vacant spot in the ground, so no point in scribbling grass in there. But instead I turned it into a worn patch. I think someone plays ball in the garden here.
*****



Okay. Try again.

This, by the way is fully 'drawn' with thread through 3 layers. But I won't finish the edge yet. It might want to be part of something else some day, who knows.

The original fabric before the thread drawing and colouring in.

you can just see the print areas in the piece - adds a bit of depth. and in the worn patch, I drew over the cracks to make the ground.

BlacknWhite

This week I am trying a few things with these black and white screen printed fabrics I did some time ago. I have an aim in mind, but I am not sure what sort of background I want to use.

Today's background is made using Kathy Loomis' method of piecing. It is far too graphic for what I had in mind -it would overwhelm the image I want to put in front. But I absolutely love it! It is up on the wall to see where I will take it from here. This is just the top - A4 size. At the moment it looks like it might just be a stand alone piece. It is kind of saying something about York to me.

old street maps, snickelways and half timbered buildings come to mind.

I want to enter the Memories in Black and White Journal Quilt challenge put on by the Grosvenor shows. If I get my original idea done, I will tell you when it works. Not ready for advice at this point. But it will be okay to do more than the 2 you need to send. You can send multiples of 2.
So, now, rather than doing 2, I am looking at doing 4. See how things mount up? Well at least I am way ahead of my normal self. The entry is due the end of November.

Is this a plus side of not teaching...that you can do work for things and actually be ahead? Or is it a minus in that you opt to do things you would not have done before? Am I doing more work now or less? Interesting questions.