And now for something completely different!!
I made this for a friend with a significant birthday. It's from a pattern designed by Frieda Anderson, an American art quilter who designs and makes fused quilts. I bought this pattern whilst at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas last November.

I have heard they are fit right in with her bedroom decor so great minds.......

We've started our project at college this week and I've decided mine will be based on coastal pebbles I've collected at Westward Ho! beach. I've always loved the simple beauty of these pebbles / stones and have wanted to do something in stitch using them a s a design. I've taken lots of photos and used these to develop some sketches to encourage me to look more closely at their shapes and colours.

This was done using charcoal so I could attempt some shading in a neutral colour range but also rubbing out line patterns with an eraser.

Watercolours looking at colours and tones.

The first thing I did was to make a sample of a selection of pebbles translating it into stitch and using about eight shades/tints of grey.

I drew out the shapes onto calico and placed it in a hoop and filled in the shapes with free motion embroidery. I quite like this but the shading in the central pebble is perhaps too sharp but it's a learning curve!

I'm now attempting a finished piece so here's the progress so far......

Lots of spirals with a very loose tension to bring up the thread from below.

Not so sure about the black background - think I may have to tone this down a bit.

See you soon!

I've been working on two sketchbooks these past couple of weeks with a mixture of frustration ( chuck it in the bin!) to finally feeling I'm getting somewhere.
These are for my city lit course and I've been using photos of pebbles from the beach at Westward Ho! in North Devon.

 Here I have traced over photocopies of a variety of pebble photographs. I used pro marker pens, which are alcohol based, to shade in the pebbles with an aim of showing contrast between them. My sketch book is A3 size.

Here I traced again but this time through the page of the sketch book followed by cutting away sections of each pebble with a craft knife. This can then be overlaid an image lying underneath - in this case, a photocopy of the pebble picture shown previously. Hard on my wrist but good fun!

Last week in the course I used an embellisher to create designs based on rock strata...a very loose interpretation!! These samples are made of wool felt, wool rovings and habotoi silk.

Silk enbellished into an acrylic felt base. In real life the colours in this are gorgeous and I shall definitely give this another try.

In my Design Matters creative sketchbooks course I've been doing some block printing from a pattern on an Ottoman vase from the V&A. I carved the shape out of soft lino but don't think I will be doing this again as it hurt my wrist. I'm going to try out something called" Easycut" because it's a really fun technique and something I want to do more of.

 Repeated pattern on textured background using acrylic paints

 Pattern printed twice with second print a contrast dark over light and slightly off centre to create a shadow effect.

The two pages were collaged with three types of paper and painted over with water colour paint. The image was stamped over using acrylic paints.

This has been a long time coming but my excuse is the silly season followed by a very wet and sometimes chilly January. Anyway, my textile course has started again so I can update with a few pictures.
Our topic this term is "Down to Earth" and we have been making some sketches and mark making based on this.

One piece derives from a colour scheme we had to choose based on earth/land tones. I worked from a beautiful wood sculpture made from lovely, subtle colours. We used a thin mettle frame around which I tightly wound cotton string creating a web type structure. I then free motion stitched all over the string changing colours so as to produce a more flowing transition from colour to colour. Finally I inserted some organza and also stitched some tiny cobwebs within some of the shapes.

I've been working into my creative sketchbook for Design Matters as well cos time is running out to complete it. Module 3 contains print making e.g. monoprinting, text, colour,  plus anything we may have done in previous modules. I love working with text and in fact made two quilts for flat warming presents at the end of last year - unfortunately I forgot to take pictures.
These are pictures from mod 2 but with text added.....

Ok, I need to be a bit more vigilant with this blog stuff so I can document what I manage to finish this year.