By Ruth
You wouldn’t believe what a relief it is to be finally finished. Well all bar the shouting anyway. I have just spent the best week of the summer so far with my nose so close to the grind stone that it is worn flat. BUT I have finished the object that is to be my submission for the Charles Henry Ford Award. It has dominated my life for the last 4 months to the practical exclusion of all else but work and unavoidable chores.
This afternoon we had a major shooting session to get some good photographs, but you will have to wait a bit longer to see the finished results. Here is a teaser of one stage in the production process 
I just have to make the final entries into my workbook and then put the whole lot into the post to the UK. This week we took delivery of 10 packing boxes as it was the smallest number we could order to get one box the correct size. Good job they weren’t exactly expensive. Anyone need 9 boxes?
I’ve learnt a lot making this piece. If I was to start again I could probably improve on some aspects, but time has run out and I certainly don’t have the energy or enthusiasm any more to even contemplate starting again. Nevertheless I am glad I entered and got this far. It has broadened my horizons some more. One thing I really learnt from this is that Gut Ding will Weile haben, as I am sure I have quoted before on this blog. In other words Rome wasn’t built in a day. I believe this object has improved and grown over time, just because I have had all week to cogitate my next move. What will I think about now when I’m driving to and from work? I’ll keep you posted.
I may even get back to blogging more regularly again. I hope you haven’t all gone away and deserted me in the silence.
By Ruth
Thursday was a public holiday here and it was miserable weather – grey and wet in the afternoon. So it was no sacrifice to get my buckets out in the cellar and do some dyeing. I haven’t done any for quite some time now.
I wanted to dye a large piece of red-purple. When I started my C&G course one of the first activities was to dye a 12 colour wheel. My red purple then was just the colour I was looking for. Luckily I had made a note of the particular dyes I used in the posting at the time. I have four different reds so choosing the right one would have been a bit hit and miss. I was pleased with the result again this time – it turned out pretty much as expected.
At the same time I decided to try to achieve some neurons like the one in this piece. I knew that would be more of a long shot. It is not without reason that Ann Johnston calls it Color by Accident. I didn’t quite get what I was looking for, but the results are still good. I mixed yellow with red, red and green, and yellow with purple. This time I used lemon yellow, magenta, Blau MX-G for the green and Medium blue for the purple for these 2 colour dye baths.
My favourite mix is still purple and yellow. You get such interesting colours popping up in the fabric. I’ve not yet tried blue and orange. I was using the colours that are in the piece I’m working on right now. I was pleased with the green and red one too – I almost got black in some parts. It’s always a surprise as to how the fabrics turn out.
If you happen to click on just one of the thumbnails in the gallery and get into the slideshow in the post itself, you may be wondering how to get back to the thumbnails. Your browser back button will help. A little glitch that isn’t sorted yet
Post "Purple and complementary colours"
7 Photos
By Ruth
My niece Katie suggested I might like to look at the work of the artist Claire Coles. I hadn’t heard of her, but liked what I saw on her website.
You would think that she was working in fabric if you didn’t know it was wallpaper.
By Ruth
The gallery is back as a link from the main menu. It’s made using NextGEN, which is a Plugin for WordPress. I think it looks much better than the old one and has some neat little features too. Try using the PicLens viewer. I like the way the photos are presented there.
By Ruth
While I am slaving away at my piece for the Freedom exhibition at the Needle Forge Museum in Redditch later this year, my system administrator has been slaving over his computer to give my website a new look.
So here it is launched. I like the new clean lines. I hope you all do too. I’ve done some QA – well I have to don’t I, given what I do with the other half of my time? Still if you notice anything weird going on do let us know.
For the correct functioning of the site on ancient versions of a certain popular browser made in Redmond we give no guarantee. We do try to accommodate those recalcitrant readers out there who won’t mend their ways and start using some decent software
The gallery, if you roam that far (reachable via the Links page), is not yet in the new look and feel. That’s a project for later. This weekend my sister and her husband are coming to visit, so there will be no sewing and no computing going on.
Let me know what you think!
By Ruth
I’ve started another fabric portrait today. I’m using the techniques I learnt when I took the QU class and made my Dad’s portrait. But this time I’m not making a portrait of any real person. It’s more of an abstract collage. Here’s a photo of the first stages. There is not much to see at this point.
Making these portraits seem to entail emptying the entire contents of my fabric cupboard onto the floor of my studio. It looks like a bomb’s hit it right now. I’ll spare my blushes and just leave you to imagine that image.
By Ruth
No puede explicar en español que tipo de proyectos se pueden utilizar los pies que he adquirido. Lo siento!
Pero aqui son unas paginas de web con buena informacion.
And for the rest of my readers – these pages may be of interest too.
For the cording foot try this one.
For the tailor tack foot or fringing foot as it is sometimes known look here.
And here’s the page for the quilting foot.
Be sure to watch the little videos.
And for those that want more – this is the link to the index page for all the presser feet available. If you feel inspired to order some of them – be sure to check that you get the right one to fit your machine. Not all the feet shown in the index are available for all models.
Hope this helps!
By Ruth
Well the trip to the UK to take part in the master class with Alice Kettle has made another small hole in my purse. Why is it that all the bits and pieces for your sewing machine seem to cost an arm and a leg? I guess because they have a captive market. Especially with the Bernina machines. I tried in the past to buy a spare bobbin case for my machine from an eBay shop. It didn’t fit my machine. The seller was very accommodating and took it back and gave me a refund.
When I got back from Redditch I decided that I would have to swallow the bitter pill and buy the original spare parts. I ordered myself a Cordonet bobbin case that can take thicker and speciality threads in the bobbin without having to fiddle about with the tension screw on the case. While I was about it I bought a cording foot and a tailor tacking or fringing foot as we had been using them in the class and I liked the effect. And since it was on special offer I bought the standard buttonhole foot. I only had the automatic buttonhole foot, which is a great invention, but only works if the surface you are sewing on is completely flat. So it’s no good for sewing the top button hole near a collar – as the collar seam gets in the way. And then there was the special plastic quilting foot that seemed like it might be worth a try.
I completed the purchase with ten spare bobbins that were also a real bargain. So how come I ended up with a 150 € hole in my pocket?
By Ruth
I’ve just got back from a one day master class with the textile artist Alice Kettle. I met eight of the other finalists for the Charles Henry Foyle Trust award. It was an interesting day. The most enjoyable part for me was to meet up with other textile artists. We came from many different areas of the textile art world and all had very different styles. We spent quite a long time introducing ourselves at the beginning and having a show and tell of pieces of our work. Afterwards we did some collage work exploring aspects of line.
After lunch and an interesting short presentation of her own work by Alice, we moved onto to exploring line using sewing machines. We each had a Pfaff machine to use courtesy of VSM UK who also provided the rooms where the workshop was held. In no time at all the day was over. I couldn’t believe my ears when Alice said there were only twenty minutes left. Sad that it all whizzed by in a flash but it was fun to meet the others and I left feeling that we weren’t really competitors but all people on the same journey of discovery towards expressing our creativity as textile art. Whoever receives the award in September will deserve it.
Here are a couple of photos taken in the afternoon. This is Alice at the machine demonstrating various ways of making line and mark with the sewing machines.
Here are Carla and Charlotte hard at work.
And here is a small selection of our finished work from the day.
By Ruth
Here is another piece of my coursework for C&Gs. I had to produce a patchwork block using inserts. My first thoughts were along the lines of flowers, which is what most people seem to do. But then I decided to try to interpret a traditional block using inserts. When I made my sampler from a pillowcase I used some rectangular inserts that are folded in half to make a square, which is then inserted between two square patches. The insert can then be opened out to look like triangles. So I chose a block that was based on half square triangles and made it up using inserted rectangles instead. You have to choose a block which has the two half triangles side by side to make one larger one. I found about 15 blocks that would have been suitable and chose to do one called the mosaic block. As the edges of the inserted triangles are then on the bias you can fold them back like the cathedral window blocks. It is very quick to make. Much faster than sewing the block using HSTs. Of course it does take a bit of time to hand sew the edges of the triangles down, but if you wanted to you could use the blind hemming stitch on your machine.
