In my alphabet series I'm up to the letters U and V ... one more post and I'm all caught up!
U is for umbel shapes found in nature
I took this photo at Geevor on a walk between Geevor tin mine and the inspiring ruins of Levant steam engine houses
At the moment I am noticing beautiful umbelliferous seedheads everywhere growing out of the tops of hedgerows silhouetted against stormy skies
Yes, we've had stormy skies and weather for the past week. On Thursday one of our trees came down in the lane outside our cottage. Removing it was very hard work for hubby but on the plus side we now have a good store of logs ready for autumn
Small seedhead from Queen Anne's Lace pressed in my sketchbook
Utterly in love is my offering for the letter U in the alphabet challenge on inchybyinch
utterly in love
My week was not Uneventful!
On Monday I went into hospital and had my operation. It went as well as could be expected and I'd like to thank you for your kind messages and thoughts. I've been home resting this week apart from working like crazy on my art quilt entry for Festival of Quilts. More on that later in the post
The same day the tree came down (Thursday) we were woken at 5 am by a blackbird flying into our bedroom and landing on the top of the wardrobe. I was really worried about it messing up our new cream carpet which has only been down a couple of months. Despite still being half asleep, I instinctively grabbed a towel from the bathroom and hubby threw it over the blackbird. He was then able to pick it up and release him back through the window without a single blob of mess ... Unbelievable!
Vintage feel
This is my mosaic for Mosaic Monday featururing a beautiful blackbird, vintage images and contemporary fine art that I consider has a vintage feel about it
Thank you to my wonderful flickr friends and faves!
1. ATC seaside available 2. Vintage advertisement - Bestform 1945 Good Housekeeping 3. Family tea in the garden 4. Marching 4x4 5. IMG_5990-1 6. Monoprinting 7. Victorian beauty tips 8. Nue 1171 9. Nada (5) 10. Palapeli/Puzzle 11. Grace 12. Testa 54 (Camille C.) 13. Untitled
V is for vintage ... my inchy for the inchybyinch challenge. I used a piece from an old bracelet as a charm, photo'd on an old art book I have
V is also for Violets and Valentines
all she wanted was a box of violet creams from Harrods
My week has been dominated by surgery and my art quilt. I first joined Annabel's group last September and have known all along that the quilt needs to be finished and posted to the Festival of Quilts by the end of July. So, quite typically of me I only started it on Wednesday!
Fortunately, quite some time ago I had planned my design, researched my ideas, gathered all my materials and piled it all up ready to start as though I had all the time in the world ... but there is sat untouched! I am now paying for my earlier procrastination!
Paint patterns on my desk
These were patterns
left on my desk after
dyeing my fabrics
As well as taking
photos, I also made
some monoprints
Colours of stormy St. Ives skies
So far, I have accurately measured, cut and dyed all the pieces and I have also pieced it together with a border that doesn't show in this photo
This is the front
It's based on elements of St. Ives that I particularly love. I chose warm purple/plum/grey for an exaggerated stormy St. Ives sky, the yellow for a sandy beach scattered with shells and the green for the sea. I wanted the green to be a browny/olive green for the colour of seaweed
You may think it looks a bit yukky at this stage ... but I have plans! Hopefully, all will become apparent when the quilting and embellishment is added. There are also elements I haven't mentioned yet
I know what you are thinking! Where's the red? Where are those warm rosy reds, pinks and plums that I love? Ha ha! I've surprised myself with this one! You could say it was an Urge!
The back
I know it's an Unusual interpretation of the colours of St. Ives ... but all will be revealed soon!
Now for my avocado skin dyeing. I showed last week some fabrics that were left in the avocado dye for one day. These are the fabrics that I left soaking in another jar of avocado skin dye for just over a week
A much richer, deeper colour was achieved from leaving the fabrics in the dye for longer. These fabrics have been washed and are colour-fast and I didn't use a mordant of any kind. I would say the silk fabrics took the dye best and if a mordant had been used it would be stronger still
The picture below shows the gradient of dye. The bottom layer of crochet is undyed. The middle piece of crochet was left in the dye jar for one day and the top layer of crochet was left in the dye jar for a week. You can see the strength of colour of the last piece
Well, enough from me. I must get back to the quilt!
I will show some more progress in the next post
Have a lovely lazy Sunday
Carolyn ♥