Working Ever-so-small

Week of miniatures, me doing small stuff as HB quilts...

Today's blocks, trimmed to 1-1/2 inches (note the 50p piece for scale) for a version of Green Venus, long sold but still a favourite

Fussy-cut!

Micro-trees

A good day's work

And the mess. Silk is frightfully messy

Original, sorry the colour is so poor

More tomorrow

HH

 

At last, a little silk

I made a bigger version of this earlier this month, which I haven't managed to photograph yet (but I will). The original, from a nice pattern on the Wife Made blog here, I made entirely from my scrap-box at home. Then I reduced it by half, reprinted and had a go at a silk version (with a touch of Japanese cotton) - end result is about 9 inches across
Sadly, my week has been utterly delaminated by a huge chest infection. I've given up till Thursday now, and come home to cough in peace

Happy wotsits

A WEEK OF... Day 5

I have moved onto playing with silk for the last couple of days, and wanted to get this small piece finished before I signed off for Christmas (visiting in-laws; hand sewing only when not wrapping the sprouts and roasting the presents)

The pudgy fingers are just there to give an idea of scale. Not quite a miniature, but definitely small. When I get home, I might try it again half this size!

Week of Wool and Silk (and linen, and such)

Well, I spent a deal of day one arranging boxes of Stuff, and making these Workshop Pincushion Bags in assorted tweeds and sparkles.. Poor image, sorry..



Then some experimenting. All rather diverted by a lovely Solstice Supper with my nearests and dearests, which was enjoyed muchly by all..

A WEEK OF...Day 1

Every now and then we like to have A WEEK OF... giving us a chance to concentrate on a particular aspect of our art practise, or in fact our respective businesses (being a penniless artist might sound romantic, but really one has to be self supporting.) This week we are combining both areas and having a A WEEK OF SILK & WOOL. This is a great opportunity for us to rake through our every increasing stashes of silk and wool (it seems to self generate - I am sure we didn't have this much last time we did this) and work on something a bit different, perhaps an inspirational piece, or some things for the shop. Anything to reduce the size/number of the boxes.

Most of the time we work in quilters' cotton, but occasionally you just get a hankering for a bit of texture. To this end we have also included linen, heavy cottons, and of course hand-dyes, indigo, tweedy checks and tartans.

Now the fun begins - pressing, cutting and making. We'll be posting throughout the week to show you our progress!

Triumphant Return

Well we have returned from the Festival of Quilts; in triumph in the case of HH, with her second "Judge's Choice" award in two years with this exquisite silk tree miniature called "Another Fair Copse". I watched Helen construct and quilt this piece while I was teaching a class on foundation paper piecing at her workshop and, apart from the breeze moving the tiny silk strips about at inopportune moments, it was all made in an amazingly short period of time.

As you can see the award is almost as big as the quilt!

My miniature had the distinction of being smaller than just one of the blocks on the "Ebb Tide" quilt that I had entered into the Modern category. It finished at under 8 inches square and includes 81 individual blocks! But then I am known for being a bit o.t.t. about miniatures.

I made this design  originally as a 3 foot square wall hanging (much bigger blocks) for Michael Oakshott to show off his new range Longshott cottons. Click on the photo below to go to the Oakshot Fabrics website