I just can't cut it

Have you got fabric hiding in your cupboard that you just can't use?

I bought this as an end of bolt from a closing down sale at my local quilt store.  That particular store closed down at least six years ago, so I can estimate how long it's been gracing my fabric shelves.  I had no idea what I would use it for, but I fell in love with it at first sight and every time I see it in my stash, I give it a little stroke.

It's a beautiful Japanese-style chrysanthemum print in an indigo blue on a silvery grey background with a natural fleck through it.  There was about 2.7 metres left and it's a standard width, so about 115cm wide.  Not quite enough for a backing for a large quilt, and too much to use as the feature fabric for a quilt top without having a whole lot left over.

It's got an interesting texture.  It's not a loose weave, but it does have a slighting uneven feel to the weave.  Almost 'slubby' but not quite.  And it has a beautiful sheen to it.  The selvedge gives me no other information other than the colours used to print it, so I have no idea of the designer or manufacturer.

What do you do when you have a fabric in your stash that you love but bought with no specific project in mind?  Do you search for the perfect project, or do you wait for inspiration to strike?

I've been waiting for inspiration to strike, but so far, even after six or more years, it hasn't.  I have been thinking of making a kimono style jacket with it, but my seamstress skills are lacking so I'm not confident I could do it justice.  I've also been thinking I need a new bed quilt, something made with all my japanese fabrics that I've been sort-of collecting - indigos and wovens and taupes.  

Got any suggestions?

PS - thank you for all your facebook input and blogger comments on my 'shall I cut' question I asked in my last post.  I think I'm going to go with the two for one deal, but it involves unpicking the binding, and since I love unpicking so much (not!) I'm just procrastinating on it a little.

The big snip

I didn't show you a photo of the finished 'Dawn Contemplation' quilt.  When you last saw it, I was pushing to get it finished for the KOAST art trail, and it looked like this:

Well, the first day of the trail saw me stitching on the binding, but I managed to finish that and get a sleeve on it and it was on display on the second day.  I added some colour and a bit more stitching to the woman to give her more depth and make her more part of the whole image rather than just 'on top'.  I also added a bit more to the bird above her head.  And it's always amazing how finishes the edges makes it look so much better.

The colour of the binding was a hard choice.  I auditioned many before I went with this tan colour.  It was a serendipitous choice, it just happened to fall next to the quilt when I was looking through my purple and pink hand dyes.  I really liked how it complemented the blues and purples rather than blended with them.  And the dark grey/blacks I'd tried just looked flat, so tan it was.

But, and it's a really big but.

I'm thinking of taking my rotary cutter to it.

I'm not entirely happy with the bird above the woman's head.  It's not quite right.  Then when I was editing my image before uploading it to the blog, I played with a few croppings.  And I think I really like the image above.

The question is, do I like it better than the finished quilt as it is now?

So what do you think?

Chop, or not?

KOAST - done

Well, the Kerikeri Art Trail is over.  I'm exhausted, but on an exhilerated high, a bit like giving birth!  And I learnt a few things.  

I learnt that exhibiting and talking about my art non-stop for three days is hard work, but fun.  I learnt that I got better at talking about my art the more I did it.  I learnt that I actually LOVE talking about my processes and inspirations to people who have no idea about textile art.  

I learnt that people enjoyed watching me demonstrate how I did something.  Trail goers were fascinated to watch me free-motion quilt the swallow quilt above, and really interested to see me stencil on the sample below.  It was a great conversation starter and question generator.

I learnt that bringing my sketchbooks for people to look through was a great idea, even if it made me feel a little vulnerable.

I learnt that people are happy to pay fair prices if they love the work.  I learnt that participating in an art trail is really good for my ego!

And I learnt that comfortable shoes are a must...

I don't know if I'll get to do it again.  I can't participate in KOAST unless I'm an invited guest artist, as I was this year, because I'm not actually a Kerikeri resident.  But if I ever get the chance to do it again, I'd jump at it.  It was so very worthwhile on many different levels.

A few thank yous are in order - my family for putting up with my KOAST focus in the past couple of weeks, my fellow exhibitors Jane Shaw and Judi Souter, both very talented artists and the best co-exhibitors I could wish for, and the lovely staff and residents at Oakridge Village who looked after us, made lovely cups of tea and served us the best scones I've ever had!

Pushing hard towards the finish

Tomorrow is KOAST (Kerikeri Open Art Studios Trail) set up.  I'm a guest artist at a shared venue, so instead of opening my studio for visitors, I'm setting up a display and pretend studio in a hall.  Luckily there is a good friend of mine sharing the venue, and some of the residents at the village where we will be are putting on a Devonshire Tea to raise money for Hospice.  So I'll have good company and hopefully great tea!

Tonight is one of my 'Blogtober' nights.  Earlier this month I pledged to blog every second day to help get myself back into the habit.  And it's going great.  I haven't run out of things to blog about, people have been engaged and interested, and I'm enjoying it.

But tonight I'm doing the final push to get another quilt finished to show at KOAST.  So you'll forgive me if this blog post is short and fairly shallow on content.  Here's the quilt I'm trying to finish:

While I've been working on this quilt I've been telling myself a narrative about that contemplative hour around dawn.  Occasionally I'll get up really early (when I don't have to) and manage a cup of tea with no one else around.  The dawn chorus is the soundtrack, I'll write morning pages, and I'll feel extremely contented and full of expectation, like the day is full of promise.

Maybe I've just named this quilt.  Dawn Contemplation.

Come and see me (and hopefully this finished quilt) this weekend at Oakridge, off Cannon Drive, right in the heart of Kerikeri.  There will be two other artisits there, you can buy a Devonshire Tea to support Hospice and you'll be able to buy a trail guide to go and visit other artists too.

Why I use silk organza in my art quilts.

Jaye commented on my last post and asked:

Do you have a color preference for silk organza or tulle? Is there a difference in the two fabrics? Do they disappear once quilted or can you see the color of the organza (tulle-we use tulle here, though I suppose people use silk organza. I haven't heard much about silk organza used in the way you are using it) 

I started replying to her and the more I wrote the more I realised that this topic deserved a whole blog post all to itself.

Hand dyed silk organza

So.

Tulle is a synthetic fabric and you can buy it in just about all colours of the rainbow.  It is almost like a fine netting but it is fairly stiff.  If you use it in art quilts as an overlay, it can provide shading or highlights.  I once created a (slightly scary) self-portrait using layers of tulle.

This was done in 2010, it's nice to see my free-motion quilting has come a long way!

But tulle has scratchy edges when it's cut and the holes in it give a texture to the quilt top that I don't really want.  

I took a Susan Carlson class once and she sometimes uses a layer of tulle over her whole quilt to hold all her tiny collage pieces down.  It's a handy technique.  But I find that if I use it as an overlay over my entire quilt, it 'deadens' the look of the quilt a bit as the tulle is all one solid colour, even if you can't really see it except close up.

You can buy white tulle and paint it, but it's not as easy to colour as silk organza.

You can get finer grades of tulle - often known as netting - but while softer and finer, it still has the holey texture to it, and I can't always find it in shops.

Silk organza is finer, it's a natural fibre so easier to colour, and it has a sheer finish to it so I don't get that added texture from the weave.  Because the weave is finer, the appareance of the fabric is 'denser'.  I can use it like a piece of cotton fabric, such as an applique shape, but it still has transparency.

I first came across silk organza when I did a workshop with Jeanette DeNicolis Meyer in 2012.  We painted pieces of silk organza and then worked on abstract compositions layering up the colours.  I fell in love with the luminous qualities and the complexity of colour that you could get from layering them.

Above is one of my pieces in progress from that workshop where you can see the layers of fine colour.

And here's my beautiful friend, Sue, working on her painterly piece.  I adored how she had a piece with multiple colours, I hadn't thought to try that.

I also came across a book by Melanie Testa, titled, "Inspired to Quilt."

Melanie also used silk organza in her quilts, often as whole overlays, and she would paint it or use thickened dyes to colour it.  Her quilts are glorious, with lovely colour and transparency.

So these strands sort of all came together over the years to lead me down the silk organza path. One of my first quilts where I used it was 'Sunset Tui'.  I was using leftovers from Jeanette's class cut into curving shapes to create the background.  I attempted to free-motion quilt those pieces down but got frustrated by all the edges constantly lifting up as I would run my darning foot over them.  I put the quilt away for a while in frustration.

Then eventually I used information from Melanie's book to make a whole silk organza overlay for the whole quilt.  I used stencils to print a bird and flax frond on it and painted the rest.  The dreamy colour it made and the ease of using it to hold all the fiddly bits down had me hooked.

So now I buy silk organza wholesale and dye it myself.  I love the colours and I love to have more than one colour in a piece so I can get that range of colour onto my quilt top.  I also love that I can stencil an image onto it, which you cannot with tulle because of the open holey weave.

The other thing I can do with organza that I can't do with tulle is use a fusible web with it.  I prefer Mistyfuse because it is so fine that it doesn't come through the sheerness of the organza, but I have also used Vlisofix with some success.  However, a fusible with defined texture to it like Steam-a-seam shows very clearly through the organza and I won't use it.

Above is a picture of some of my hand-dyed silk organzas ready to use in quilts.

I found a great blog post over at Droplet Weddings, with good images, on the differences between several types of sheer fabrics.  So if you need clarification of what the different sheer fabrics look and drape like, head over there.  She say that silk organza has a lot of body to it and she finds it quite stiff.  I will add that once it is dyed and washed it softens up, but having a bit of body is not a bad thing with sheer fabrics when you are using them in art quilts!

I hope that answers your questions, Jaye.  I don't know many other people who use silk organza in the way I do, but I love it and the effects it can give.

Piwakawaka in Dappled Light

I remember spending a lot of time in the bush as a kid.  We lived on a 15 acre block that had lots of regenerating native bush and some huge old macrocarpa trees and we would run around and climb trees and play games and explore.

There's a special kind of light that hits the forest floor through the undergrowth.  It's green and bright and dark and soft all at the same time.  And that's often where you'd find the fantails, or piwakawaka, hanging out.  They are bug eaters and I guess they can see the bugs better in the shafts of sunlight.  They used to follow us, eating the bugs that we would stir up with our passage through the branches.

I started this quilt with a reverse applique.  The positive cut out of the dark grey leaves got used for another quilt, but I had cut them out of a big piece of fabric so I could use the negative shape too.  I placed some bright green hand-dyed fabric behind the grey fabric and fused it place.

Next came an overlay of silk organza to tone it down a bit and tie it together.  I stencilled a few fern fronds (the burgandy and the white one) onto the silk overlay to go with the light green fronds that are underneath.

The fantail shapes are a pinky fabric underneath the overlay.  The overlay is mostly green but had some blue in that upper region and I wanted to pick that up and get some warmth into that top corner so pink birds plus blue overlay equals a little bit purple.

I added some coloured pencil detail to the birds before I sandwiched everything together and began quilting it.  I began with the shapes that would create a foundation - a circle (marked with a mixing bowl) and the outlines of the leaves, fronds and birds.

I even recorded a little video of some of the free-motion quilting I did on one of the fern fronds.  I mistakenly call it a nikau frond in the video - who knows why!

If you follow me on Instagram (find me here), you will have seen the bottom photo of the fantail quilting in progress.  I wanted to convey the funny way the birds dart and flit and circle and almost seem to play, but are actually hunting and feeding.  

And here they are finished.  I had a lot of fun doing the 'graffiti' quilting.  Free-form flowy shapes, a few pebbles and paislies thrown in to fill up the corners.

I used an organic straight line background texture for the rest of the quilt.  It pushes the background back nicely and provides a good contrast in texture to the quilting inside the circle.  I varied the colour of the thread to help convey the dappled light feeling.  The photo above is taken in very strong side sunlight to show you the texture.

I'm not entirely sure of the quilt's name yet.  But I had better decide quickly as it will be on display and for sale at KOAST this coming weekend!

Wellington Quilters Exhibition and an interview with Fyvie Murray

While I was in Wellington judging the Wellington Quilt Exhibition, I recorded a podcast.  Part of it is an interview with the president, Fyvie Murray and part of it is 'a day in the life of' snippets of my day as a quilt judge.

Fyvie actually won Best in Show, which neither of us knew at the time of the interview.  Her silk quilt, Wellington Sampler, was a lovely work depicting iconic Wellington landmarks.  Fyvie displayed skilled stitching and quilting on the difficult silk fabrics, and an unusual colour palette that contributed to an eye-catching quilt.

Photo by Wellington Quilters Facebook

I haven't interviewed or recorded in a little while, I feel rusty!  But it feels good to get back on the podcast horse.  I love sharing our quilt stories.  Enjoy!

Download this episode (right click and save)

Stitch and Bitch

Back when I had my studio and gallery on the wharf, I also held a stitch and bitch night once a week. It was a casual gathering where locals came for a cup of tea and a chat on a Tuesday evening.  They would bring knitting, sewing, sketching, collage, card making - anything and everything creative.  And I loved it!  I saw some great community spirit and forged new connections and watched friendships form.

And then I had to close the gallery because the space was no longer available (insert sad face here.)

One of the things I really missed was stitch and bitch night.

I was able to move my studio into our flat, but I couldn't really hold gatherings there.  The driveway was tricky and parking non-existent beyond one car.  The stairs leading up to it were steep and there really wasn't a good space for a group of chairs, so I just put it out of my mind.

Then we moved off the boat and into an apartment and I moved everything out of my flat studio back into the home.  And THEN we moved out of the apartment into this house we are in now.

Man.  That's a lot of moving crap round in just a few short years....

Anyway, to cut a long story just a bit shorter, I really wanted to find a way to hold stitch and bitch again, but I couldn't really have it in this house either.  I started thinking about alternative venues and I decided to approach my daughter's primary school.  It's a small school with a fairly cozy hall and it's not far from where I used to hold stitch and bitch.  The school likes being involved in the community, because the community in turn supports them, and so they said yes!

Stitch and bitch started up again on Tuesday nights about three months ago, and it couldn't be going better!  The hall is great, it has tea and coffee making facilities, a few tables that I can set up and enough space for people to spread out patterns or quilts on the floor.  There is plenty of parking, good heating and it's easy to find.  It's neat that quite a few of my old regulars are coming back and great that there are new faces joining in too.

Have you ever thought about starting up a group like this in your community?  If you have, I urge you to go and ahead and give it a go.  People are really keen to make connections with others and if it's a low key, no expectations gathering, you'll even net the shy ones.

I use Facebook and IRL notice boards to advertise and I put out a weekly reminder on Facebook.  Sometimes I have two people turn up and sometimes I have six or seven - I don't give myself any expectations on numbers and am quite prepared to sit by myself for a quiet evening of sewing, but it's never happened yet.  Last night we had a fun crafty 'destash' night where we brought along our excess craft supplies cluttering our cupboards and had a buy/sell/swap night!

I always come home with a 'feel-good' feeling.  I enjoy chatting with nice people, I like working on projects with other people around to give feedback/support but I also like knowing that I'm the one making this little community happen.  Maybe not very altruistic of me, but it's a good feeling nonetheless.

Ailsa Craig Quilt and Fibre Arts Festival

Have I told you my exciting news?  I'm going to Canada!!

The Ailsa Craig Quilt and Fibre Arts Festival (hereafter known as ACQFAF, because that's an awfully long name!) is held every year in a little town called Ailsa Craig in Ontario, Canada.  If you google Ailsa Craig, like I did, the first thing you'll find is a tiny Scottish Island - apparently Ailsa Craig is named after that little craggy rock - so put Ontario in the search bar as well and you'll find it.

Every year, they invite a different country to come and be part of the ACQFAF, showcase their quilts, teach classes and hold lectures.  They've had places like Denmark, Israel and The Netherlands. Earlier this year they had Iceland and 2019 is New Zealand's year!

A few months ago, Aotearoa Quilters asked for submissions to be a tutor on the trip (just another benefit of being part of AQ is knowing about these sorts of amazing opportunities.)  I submitted my CV and classes that I thought they'd be interested in and I was so excited to be named one of the four tutors picked to travel!

My companions will be:

Clare Smith

Catherine MacDonald and 

Merrilyn George

I think we'll make an awesome team, plus there will be representatives from Aotearoa Quilters travelling too.

One of the exciting parts of the ACQFAF is the challenge.  New Zealand and Canadian quilters are invited to submit quilts for a challenge, which will then be exhibited and travel in both NZ and Canada.  The theme is 'New Zealand, through our eyes' and they have an interesting range of sizes that you can choose from too.  If you are interested in entering, more details on that can be found here.

You can also find ACQFAF on Facebook and follow along with them here.

And speaking of Facebook, have you found my page there yet?  I'm Charlotte Scott - Textile Artist on Facebook, click here to find me and if you hit the 'like' button, hopefully you'll get regular updates on what I'm up to.

Free photo from pixabay.com

After the ACQFAF, Hubby and the kids are joining me.  We are planning a trip to Newfoundland and then driving back through Nova Scotia to fly out from Toronto.  What a trip!!  I want to see icebergs in Newfoundland, Hubby wants to see a moose and the kids are just excited about the whole thing!

Flora Printing

I've been doing a lot of flora printing lately.  Maybe it's a Spring thing, with new foliage appearing, new colour and life in the outdoors.  It's making me sit up and take notice of the beauty around us.  It's also easier to go and pick foliage, although fresh soft Spring growth isn't always the best for printing with.  You need robust leaves, not too twiggy, but not too delicate either.  I've also been pressing some sprigs to see how dried leaves work.

Here's one I prepared earlier.  It's a metre of fabric that I dyed using an ombré technique using cerulean blue dye. Then I started flora printing on it, doing the lighter shades first.  I'm aiming for the impression of looking up through leaves, but examining it now I think it needs more very light leaves in the middle and some even darker ones in front.

I've also been working on smaller pieces.  These are flora prints too, but whereas the piece above used flora to directly print on the fabric, these smaller pieces have been done on a gelli plate with a few different layers.

Experimentation always includes disappointment alongside satisfaction, and it often takes multiple tries to reach the satisfaction part.  I'm glad I kept going with my flora printing trials.  When I remember back to my first ones (some photos of them popped up in my photo feed the other day), I cringe.  So if you've tried something new recently, and been disappointed, give it another go.  Flora printing is now one of my favourite practices!

PS I'm posting on my iPad because I'm at the beach for the weekend, apologies for some of the wonky fonts...

The Art of Fabric Exhibition

Yesterday I flew to Wellington.  Today, the lovely Chris Kenna and I judged the Wellington Quilters exhibition.  Phew!  What a day!

We started ed at 10am and were finished by about 3.30pm with a bit of a break for lunch.  It was pretty smooth sailing, with a well organised exhibition, straightforward categories and judges who were in good agreement on the top contenders in each category.  But it's still hard work, not only because you are walking back and forth, back and forth, but because you know you are dealing with people's precious hard work, and you have to be very secure in your final choices.

I'd like to say a big thank you to the Wellington Quilters and Fyvie Murray, the president, for entrusting me with this responsibility.  It's a big charge and I take it seriously.  I've entered plenty of shows and had plenty of judges look at my quilts, and now that I'm on the other end of it, it's good to know how seriously judges take the job.

I'm not going to list the winners here as I don't want to steal anyone's thunder, and to be honest I don't have a full list with me!  I'm pretty sure Wellington Quilters will have the winners up soon on their webpage or facebook, so I've put those addresses below for you.

I've really enjoyed being in Wellington. It was my home 20 odd years ago and I loved seeing so many familiar buildings along with the new.  It also made me smile to see the steep narrow streets, the houses that have a very particular 'Wellington' look to them, and to hear and feel the familiar wind (Wellington is famous for it!) I enjoyed a walk this afternoon and saw a Kaka (endangered species of native parrot) flying overhead from the predator proof bird sanctuary that is right next to the city.

But I'm home again tomorrow on an early flight,.

Goodbye Wellington, thanks for having me!

the art of fabric 
Fri 5 - Sun 14 Oct 2018

NZ Academy of Fine Art

1 Queens Wharf, Wellington, 

Tickets $7 Concession $5

www.wellingtonquilters.org.nz
www.facebook.com/wellingtonquilters

Deadlines and Blogtober

I've been pondering ways to reinvigorate my blog, trying to find ways to make blogging a habit again and it came to mind that we have hit October.  Have you heard of Blogtober?  It was a challenge thingy that ran for at least a couple of years - the rules of the challenge were pretty simple, bloggers would blog every day in October.

I don't know if there is a Blogtober thing happening this year, but I thought I might hold my own personal one.  I know I'll fall over if I try to do it every single day, and it's already the 2nd of October, so I'm making it my goal to post every second day.

So welcome to my first Blogtober post!

I'm working towards a deadline at present.  It's amazing how great a deadline is for motivation, and because this deadline is an exhibition of sorts, it's also been amazing how great it's been for my creative output.

I lead a busy life.  I'm a mum to two growing kids, a midwife, an artist, and a wife to a busy man.  We've moved house twice this year, sold our boat, I've moved out of my studio, we're renovating the house we are in, we're tackling the horrendous garden on our rental property, and now we are in the process of selling my husband's shares in his two businesses.  

So I could easily make excuses.  And sometimes I do.  But excuses do not make good art.  Ever since I read about Jane Sassaman making art on her kitchen table for years and what she achieved using whatever tiny space she had, I've known that if I want it badly enough, I just have to make do with what space and time I have, and just do it.

But a deadline sure helps that 'just do it' attitude!

My deadline is the KOAST art trail.  Kerikeri holds a very successful art trail over Labour weekend every year.  I can't take part because I'm not physically in Kerikeri, but this year they've invited me to be one of their guest artists, exhibiting at a shared location.  I'm really excited and honoured to be chosen and looking forward to the experience as I've never been a part of anything like this yet.

If you want to make a long weekend of it, you can use the contact form here and order a KOAST trail guide.  Kerikeri and The Bay of Islands has great accomodation if you are from out of town and want to make a weekend of it.

So there we have it, my first Blogtober post.  It wasn't so hard.  And now I must get back to making art.