Letting go of quilts

It's easier to let go of your "old" quilts and quiltlets when you know they're going on to a new life, or are helping a good cause. I met Ruth in a textiles class at City Lit and over the years she has had several "tea and textiles" events in aid of various charities, Greenpeace among them.

This time she's fundraising for Medecins Sans Frontieres. I'm happy to contribute some of the quilts made for Contemporary Quilt's challenges, and also some journal quilts (those will be mounted on board to fit into a standard frame, or glued to deep-edged commercial canvases), as well as embroidery that dates back before The Quilting Years.

Here's the selection so far -

Celtic Connections

Verge Blur

"The Rose in Winter" was in the "Figure it Out" suitcase collection

"And Flowers Almost Poems" incorporates old
silks from a friend's mother's stash

"It was her favourite tipple and it done her in" was made
in 1999, before I knew anything about dyeing fabric, and
many of the squares were appliqued on car journeys.
The long thing shape rather reminded me of a coffin cover
(hardly cosy!), hence the title

The theme for the fabric-printing challenge on the Quiltart list
in about 2001 was "Ten" - I hadn't learnt how to photo edit then, in fact
hadn't moved to digital camera, so it had to be text...

Columns were constructed by randomly pulling strips from
one or another bag of fabric, then sewn together. These fabrics were
mostly samples made in a textile printing class in the late 90s
and finallyput to some use. They look rather geological.

Same construction method; the fabrics are mostly silk,
but don't seem to have been affected by hanging in a
bathroom for a few years!

Made in Calgary or Halifax, Canada, late 70s. Hand quilted.

Sunshine and Shadows; made in Halifax, 1979. It hung in a
staff exhibition at the university and I was surprised to see how
small it looked on the wall!

More pink - the largest of the three, and made in the late 90s.
Enlivened by confetti and some rather "electric" machine quilting.

If you'd like to come along to have tea and cake, and be tempted not so much by my textiles but by the prints and ceramics, photography and smaller items that are being contributed by others, get in touch and I'll send you details. Ruth's home is in Camden (north London) and we'll be there on the last weekend in March and the first two weekends in April.  All proceeds go to MSF.

Nice book, good cause

For years Fine Cell Work has been doing a sterling job in prisons, teaching prisoners a new skill - sewing - and giving them something do in their cells, not to mention the benefits of learning a skill, and making something beautiful, on self-esteem.

Now they have published a book on the Sleep Quilt project, which involved 70 people in eight prisons. The quilt - a prizewinner at Festival of Quilts in 2015 - consists of 63 squares exploring what sleep means to their makers, and was commissioned by Tracy Chevalier. The squares are shown on separate pages of the book, alongside quotes from their makers.

The book is published today; all proceeds go to Fine Cell Work.

The Sleep Quilt’s Kickstarter initiative ends mid-November. The link is: http://bit.ly/TheSleepQuiltKickstarter

Monday miscellany

150 years of John Lews - the third floor of the Oxford Street branch will be showing an exhibition of the history of the firm from 3 May for seven weeks. The roof will be open to the public. More info here. Things have changed since the times in the picture - the store was hit by a bomb in 1940 and most of the street has been rebuilt -

Much the same view (via)

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The Advanced Style blog, launched by Ari Seth Cohen in 2008, is much loved for celebrating the fashion flair of ladies of a certain age. Its influence has, at least in part, led to brands ranging from Lanvin to American Apparel using older models. This spring sees a documentary film to accompany the site, following several AS favourites as they pull together their outfits. [The film premiers in the UK at the Curzon Mayfair on 6 May.] One woman makes eyelashes out of her own hair; another designs trousers to put over her leg brace. They are united in their determined pursuit of personal style – something that is to be admired at any age.

No age limit: scene from Advanced Style's documentary (via)

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Daily painting - a 64-day project by Christopher Baker -

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See some of the results via youtube or on his website. The exhibition is at the Kevis House Gallery, Petworth, 3-17 May and at the nearby Moncrief-Bray gallery, 4-24 May.

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30 years since the Aids virus was discovered, the public seems not to know much about the disease, especially men aged 16-24, finds a survey by the National Aids Trust. People's understanding hasn't kept pace with medical advances, for instance emergency treatment PEP. If a sufferer is doing well on treatment, the chance of passing on HIV through unprotected sex is virtually zero. Nearly 100,000 people in Britain are living with HIV, more than a fifth of whom are unaware that they are infected; in 2012, there were 6360 new HIV diagnoses in Britain - and of the 35 million people worldwide living with HIV/Aids, 69% are in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Cheap food - what's the real cost? 90% of the world's soya and a third of cereal is fed to factory-farmed animals - whereas these crops could feed millions of starving people. Cows and sheep release more than a third of the world's methane, which is 23 times as warming as CO2 ... industrial farming is causing ecological meltdown. In May, Friends of the Earth is running a Meat-Free May campaign - information and fundraising packs will be available soon from their website. As the saying goes, "every little helps", including just cutting down on meat consumption - a quarter of adults in the UK say they eat less meat now than a year ago, and one in six young people doesn't eat any meat at all. The internet is stuffed full of vegetarian recipes - here, for instance -

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"This was believed to be a sheep grown on a plant from a melon-like seed.
Introduced to England by Sir John Mandeville in the fourteenth century,
an example of this legendary zoophyte can be found at Lambeth Palace."

Adam Dant's "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary" is part of his set of chiaroscuro woodcuts, "Ten Creatures of London Legend". 

The phantom chicken has been seen as recently as 1970 in Pond Square, Highgate.

Other subjects include a 12 foot fossilised Irish giant and spring-heeled Jack.

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Beginner's guide to north london cultural gems - here - useful for residents who haven't been out of doors for some years, too. (There's a south london guide as well.)

For instance ... the Zabludovicz Collection has been within walking distance since 2007, and has a cafe, and this is the first I've heard of it?

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(via The Londonist)

Ludicrously small results ... not!

The Ludicrously Small Art Gallery

Interior of the gallery

Thanks to contributions from 50 artists, and to visitors to Sara's exhibition purchasing the Ludicrously Small works, the Maudsley Hospital is getting a cheque for £1160, how good is that! "Many a mickle makes a muckle."

My "volcanoes" (submitted as miniature garden sculptures) are now on the mantlepiece of Karen, another gallery participant -