I had to draw cubes for various activities in module 5 on Form. It wasn’t a particularly challenging exercise for me but fun anyway. I have been doodling tumbling blocks for years now. When I started at the Girls Grammar school we all had to line up in alphabetical order and then starting from the doorway we were allocated desks in the classroom going up and down the lines of desks. My surname then was Glaze and I was more or less in the middle of the queue of girls. I ended up getting the desk immediately in front of the teacher’s desk which was up on a small podium. On the corner of the desk was the chalk box and on the chalk box was a design just like tumbling blocks. I copied it into my rough book and have been doodling it ever since!

Here is one half of the sketch book page showing the cubes shaded with pencil.

As it is an adjoining page to the collage I made with the same star block I chose to use similar colours. It is painted with acrylic paints and has fabric swatches to show possible fabrics to use if one was to sew it.

I didn’t quite manage to get the same green from the collage with the paints, but I did find fabrics that were a good match to my painting.

Since I had such an easy time with the first exercise I did activity 2 as well today. I had to deconstruct a box and then use it as a pattern to make two more. Yesterday I was sorting out our collection of greeting cards and emptied a clear plastic box that had contained Christmas cards. This was the ideal size and material to use as my pattern.

I used papers that I had made for one of the activities in module 4. The first box is made from painted paper left to dry under cling film. Once the box was constructed I wrapped black thread around it and used the lines made as the design (not my idea but part of the exercise). Here’s a photo of the box all tied up:

I used a dark purple acrylic paint for the lines. They are painted in various thicknesses and some are dotted. As it is actually one continuous line you have to keep your wits about you, so that the lines connect properly with no strange jumps in thickness.

The second box is made from painted paper sprinkled with salt grains and left to dry. I thought dots would go well with the salt grain patterns. I used a hole punch to create dots from some off-cuts of the paper. Then I had the idea to make ticker tape from the holes too. I added some dark green and dark blue dots punched from magazine paper and some dots I found inside the hole punch when I opened it Here is the box in 2D:

And here it is in 3D:

I’ve started the next module. This one is all about form. I anticipated that the first activity would be to provide a selection of images to illustrate form. While on holiday in June I (well we actually!) not only took photos of texture but also of form. So most of the work for the first activity was done. I just had to make a choice. I also took a few photos yesterday of objects in the home.

As usual I’ve uploaded a selection to Picasa. Here’s the link.

Last night I did the final piece of course work for module 4 of the C&G course. It was another collage. I used wrapping paper this time. If you look carefully you can read parts of the word Christmas I wanted to try out an idea I’ve had in my head for some time - namely to do a traditional type of patchwork but to have the colours migrate across the piece - a kind of metamorphosis.

This is a small attempt at the idea but I am pleased with the results. Small being the operative word here - the squares are one inch squares. I wanted a size that would fit onto a page of my sketchbook!

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon and early evening making collages. Not to mention most of Saturday evening choosing two images to use as inspiration. I had quite a lot of fun making them. Funnily enough apart from doing pottery the only other thing I remember from art classes at school was making a collage of a guitar in a still life class. My finished piece hung on my bedroom wall for ages!

Here I am surrounded by various pieces of paper, working on my first collage based on a landscape. I chose a seascape as I love the sea. I grew up at the seaside and really miss it being stuck in the middle of Europe here near Frankfurt.

Here is the original photo taken on holiday a few years ago on Madeira.

And here is my version of it as a collage made from magazine paper:

The second collage is based on architecture. I thought the Hundertwasserhaus would be a bit different from the usual wall, window, door image.

My interpretation is made from magazine paper and a paper bag from the bread shop.

Technical support to the rescue. The photographer has made me a detail to show the chain stitch. So here you are:

I finished my crazy patchwork mini-quilt today. It’s 25 cm square and I actually did put a binding on. When I come to think about it I believe this is the first piece from the C&G’s course that I have actually “finished”. I’ve been treating everything as samples up to now and haven’t bothered to complete them with batting and binding. Although there are some pieces that I feel are good enough to warrant the treatment. Myrna would not be pleased with me.

But this time I felt that it was time to go the whole hog and put a binding on too. I can’t remember the last time I actually made a whole quilt, whatever the size. But before binding it there were a few other things to do. I sewed down all the patches with different threads and embroidery stitches on my machine. Sometimes it’s a bit tricky to judge when to stop to turn a corner, the needle is jumping around all over the place. I also added some of the sheer fabric as patches over the rest using gold thread to sew them down. They added a bit of interest where there was just plain coloured fabric. Then I did a bit of hand embroidery and added a few sequins sewn down with beads in one corner.

So here it is:

And here’s a detail to show some of the hand embroidery. I tried out doing chain stitch with two colours of thread. Once you get the hang of it, it’s quite easy. You can’t really see it on the photo on the blog It’s the brown and yellow stitching in the left hand corner. I added some straight stitches too.

This C&G course is having one positive effect at least. It is forcing me to try out things that I’ve just collected articles on in the past: see my cathedral windows piece. I even paid to do a course at QU on crazy patchwork and then never got started. It’s the only class where I paid my dues and then didn’t do the course work. So now I have again been made to do something that I had been slacking over.

I got my act together last night and made a first layout. Then I went to bed and this morning before work I took another look. I decided it had too much orange and not enough yellow. So this evening more or less the first thing I did when I got in, was to remove some orange and add more yellow. I also rearranged quite a bit of the last corner from last night. This is the state of play:

I used light weight iron-on interfacing as the foundation and not a piece of muslin as directed. This is my lazy way of getting around doing any basting. As we are to make a quilt sandwich and then do machine embroidery over the edges of the patches I decided I could get away without the extra stability offered by a muslin foundation. My interfacing is quite flimsy so as not to add too much extra bulk in the way I usually use it.

I got as far as auditioning the threads to use for the embroidery. Considering I’m trying not to buy any extra materials for this course except those that are really necessary I’m pleased I managed to find enough fabrics and threads to cover the whole colour range of the inspiration photo. My stash is quite paltry compared to some of the photos you see on the internet from other quilters.

I have a couple of sheer fabrics in the right colours too that I may use as some extra embellishment. One of them is folded up in the top left hand corner of the photo. Having got started I’m now looking forward to doing some extra embellishment on this piece. As we have to make a complete quilt sandwich I shall probably also finish it completely with a binding. I feel it’s time to complete a piece again rather than just keeping it as a sample.

I’ve been reasonably productive today and got another exercise completed too. This time it involved manipulating pleats in fabric.

I started off with two different fabrics, both with stripes, which I used as the starting point for my pleats. I discovered that the width of the pleats and the spacing has quite an effect on how you are able to sew them down. I was surprised at how far apart you have to sew the topstitching lines to get the finished fabric to lie flat. I didn’t quite get it right on the green striped piece.

I experimented with using some embroidery stitches on the machine for the top-stitching.

The second piece was a small square of an african print.

It turned out rather smaller than I anticipated because of course the fabric got eaten up by the folds!

I was more successful with the spacing of the top-stitching on this piece. It does lie flat

I was able to recycle some bits left over from other classes in this exercise for the C&G course. I tend to hoard all my samples as you never know when they may have their use. I was able to recycle a four-patch square, a strip-pieced square, a hexagon and a diamond-pieced hexagon for this activity. The only thing I had to cut especially was the triangle.

Here are all the samples. As the tape measure shows they are quite small.

The four-patch square gave a nice result. The centre square on the strip-pieced square is a bit messy because the original strips were not all the same width. They were only rough cut.

The folded hexagon made from one piece of fabric is an interesting effect. Unfortunately the diamond-pieced hexagon didn’t really work.

The problem was that there was nowhere for the seams to go at the back. Maybe if the starting piece had been larger I would have been able to get a bit neater hexagon on the front, but the problem of the seams would still be there.

Funnily enough that wasn’t a problem with the 4-patch square.

And to finish up here’s the folded triangle:

For good measure here’s the reverse too - quite an interesting pattern of kite shapes on the back.