An unusual "woodblock Wednesday"

Thanks to the winter-illness season, I found myself doing emergency childcare so that The Poppet wouldn't have to spend waiting time at a walk-in clinic with her parents.

We had a lovely morning but she didn't spend much time on the play mat. Though she's not crawling just yet, she can roll and roll -

The mat started life as hand quilting (on beige, what was I thinking?!) in the '80s. So it's taken about 35 years to finish! The catalyst for the final push was finding some triangles and bias strips that had been cut from old shirts for some other project. I trimmed the ragged edges of the quilt, bound it, and appliqued the pinwheels to enliven the centre.

It seems to have a lot of mouth appeal -

But the bare floor had its attractions too. How is it that babies are interested in Every Little Thing?

To end the day,  a long coffee with a friend from afar, and then a film at the Francis Crick Institute - Hidden Figures, based on the true story of three African-American "computers" working for NASA in the early days of space flight, when IBM's computers were still under development and calculations were performed by people, usually bright women with maths degrees.

The film is set in 1961 - a time of entrenched segregation as well as American achievements in the space race -  but the women's  personal achievements had occurred earlier. There are also other discrepanicies in this heart-warming crowd pleaser, but hey, it's Hollywood!

So, all in all, I did nothing relating to the watery woodblocks. Next week is the last class.

Festival of Quilts 2019

The best part of the day - always - is the encounters with old friends. But there were things to see, too.

Works from the 40 years of the Quilters' Guild - these
(by Diana Harrison and Jo Budd) are from my formative years

 Eco dyeing was/is "big"....

India Flint's gallery

In  the "Natural Selection" gallery nearby - the 52 books
 made weekly by Alice Fox

Simplicity and complexity by Lotta Helleberg

"Did you see the pots?" people kept asking me. I did, and they made
me want to get back to stitching! By Fabienne Rey

Liz Hewitt's "Give Me Strength"

Mepuru by Caroline Bell

Inuit wallhanging from Sandra Meech's gallery

Sandra's Antarctic works on paper

From the bojagi gallery curated by Sara Cook, work by
Yoko Kubota 

"Silk Road" by Elizabeth Brimelow - strips of silk,
carefully tied at both ends ... a long thin piece

Another long thin piece (easy to store!) by Janet Twinn

 I went to the lecture by Michael James, but looked at his gallery first and was struck by the monochrome quilts. These were made during the time of his wife's final illness.

Detail showing how the quilting adds to the work

Recent, happier work - he explained how the fabrics were digitally
printed, based on photographs and drawings from India

Karina Thompson's gallery made a 3D labyrinth
out of her piece from the 2013 Saltaire exhibition

Leprous Hands is digitally embroidered

The Fine Art "Quilts" are usually contentious - and now it's become a "textiles" category! These are among those that appealled to me -

 Nearly missed the tiny gallery with five complicated quilts from the Japan quilt show. The detail of the work is astonishing -

Finally, my favourite piece(s), from the Pojagi exhibition, are these "collages"  by Marian Bijlenga - oil paint on used sandpaper -

Art work at the ready!

After another afternoon with stepladder, nails, hooks, nylon line, etc, almost everything is in place at Ruth's for the "tea and textiles" art sale in aid of Medecins Sas Frontieres, which starts this weekend. 

Now all that's needed is pricing of the ceramics, and a few cakes baking - and hoping lots of people come! If you're in London and free on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon before Easter, do email me (mcooter3) at gmail.com. The venue is in Camden.

Intense embroidery - seas and sunsets

"And Flowers, Almost Poems" - vintage silks and
Chinese characters 

Verge Blur travelled as part of a CQ challenge

Small quilts that need new homes

Mounted quiltlets - abstract landscapes

These two go waaaay back!

Travel Lines bags

Little "japanese" bags, and single and grouped porcelain pots

Just to say that it's not just work by me and textiles and photographs by Ruth Ingram - there are also ceramics by Kate D'Arcy, Robert Harbord, Jackie Lewis, Lindy Mason, and Kate Macindoe, textiles by Sue McKay, prints by Gillian Harding, and poetry books by Rorbert Hirschhorn, Fiona Moore, and Christine Webb. And greetings cards and little notebooks by various people.

I've been fixated on this for so long, and can now turn to tidying up (and clearing out) the home studio, getting back to the ceramics studio, and getting on with woodblock printing.

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.