Textures and textiles

Good morning! Happy start to the week :o)

Here is my mosaic for Mosaic Monday ...

... a tonal study incorporating interesting textures found in art and nature

1. | 2. Kokon 3. Drawing detail 4. Sketch 5. Fly blackbird fly 6. Portrait 7. Snowflake 8. Clay bird tile 9. Magical holidays 10. Frost 11. A winters day 12. Hemp 13. Chough 1 detail

Thank you to my flickr friends and faves for their amazing work ♥






















Last Wednesday I visited the exhibition of fine art textiles held in St. Ives Society of Artists' Gallery including the work of Sue Dove and Mel Sheridan (one of my most favourite artists!)I was particularly interested in Sue Dove's sketchbook ... a page a day project and the textile piece it inspired (no photo, sorry)

Here are a few general photos from the exhibition. I'm going again later this week for another look








































































Well, my St. Ives quilt has been at the Festival of Quilts from Thursday to Sunday and if you got to the show I really hope you had a great time. I'd like to thank everyone who has left me a nice comment to say they've seen my quilt hanging in the show. I'd especially like to thank Gina and Julie for getting photos of my quilt and blogging about it as I wasn't able to get to Birmingham this year

My time off continues ... on Friday I travelled to Somerset to stay with family and have enjoyed doing nothing much. I went round the charity shops and my best buy was a vintage copy of Gray's Anatomy for £1.50 and a book of Victorian ephemera

I've also been having a few lessons playing with digital textures and layers in Photoshop






















This is my first effort. I used a photograph I took of St. Ives last week and added a texture from a flickr friend Playingwithbrushes to age and distress it. I now feel that the world is my oyster with ageing techniques and interesting textures and I just know I'm going to love playing with this some more!

I'll be home on Wednesday and very much looking forward to getting back to some textile work and the projects I was working on before

Hope you find time to play this week

Carolyn ♥

Elements of St. Ives - Art Quilt

We are very lucky with the light in this beautiful part of the West Country and the golden sunrises and purple sunsets can be absolutely stunning










I love moody, stormy skies too. Skies heavy with dark greys and plummy mauves. The light in the bay of St. Ives is truly amazing and I really wanted to feature this element in my art quilt for Festival of Quilts
















A few of you have asked to see my quilt so I thought I would share a few photos of how I made it and a little about what inspired it

















I started by thinking about the elements of St. Ives I wanted to incorporate and the colours I wanted to work with. I spent some time gathering together inspiring fabrics, threads, beads, shells and images of cottages that I collect














St. Ives cottage inchies





















I decided to work in layers of colour and the fabric I used is dupioni silk which I dyed myself. I made some colour samples first before selecting the colours I wanted to use to dye the pieces
















The back





















This is the front panel. The four pieces were dyed separately then stitched together. There is also a border around the back and front panels in variegated dyed silk

I washed the panels on the front so they are lighter than on the back






















I appliqued a row of Cornish cottages as though on a brow of a hill, using many different fabrics such as silk, cotton, painted and monoprinted calico, crocheted lace, scrunched tea dyed cotton and painted bondaweb

The roofs were made from textured fabrics such as linen, hessian, three types of scrim, furniture fabrics and salt dyed cottons which I distressed with mustard gold ink for the look of lichen, which is very distinctive on the roofs of St. Ives cottages

The clouds were made from wadding bondawebbed to the silk and later quilted with pearl seed beads. I added a snippet of text to one of the clouds "from a pale grey sky"

















Next I prepared a backing layer for the cobbles. I used a natural backing fabric and snippets of many different fabrics which I bonded together with bondaweb

Snippets















The photo above shows the backing fabric, a layer of bondaweb and the snippets of fabric. I used hessian, polyesters, cottons, silk, metallic threads, metallic fabrics and cellophane sweet wrappers. I covered this with a sheet of baking paper and ironed the layers to fuse the snippets to the backing fabric














This is what it looked like after peeling the baking paper off

















The cobble panel was tacked behind the front panel below the cottages and then I free motion stitched "cobble" shapes through all the layers and quilted the cottages

















I don't have any more pictures to show of the next stages as I started to run out of time and needed to spend every spare moment stitching

I quilted ripple patterns on the layer of sand and hand stitched heat distressed chiffons decorated with real limpet shells, mussel shells and beads






The seaweed layer was lightly quilted and the bottom of the quilt was embellished with seaweed shapes which I made from heat distressed chiffons and ribbons and also melted plastic carrier bags. I added lots of beads, shells and eyelash yarns for coral










Finally, I cut through areas of the cobbles (reverse applique) to reveal the fabrics behind the front panel, added a binding in salt dyed cotton, water drop crystals for rain drops and window details to the cottages










So, that's it! I ran out of time in the end! It had to go in the post on Thursday to arrive Friday 30th (the Festival's deadline day!). I only just made it! I was still stitching it at 4.30 and really could have done with another hour, but in the end I just had to call it a day and managed to get it in the post at 4.45 (Next Day Delivery). Phew!

Elements of St. Ives





















If you are visiting Festival of Quilts at Birmingham in August I do hope you enjoy seeing all of the quilts. If you look at mine, please be gentle with me and bear in mind that it's far from perfect, that I only started stitching it on 14th July and that in my own mind it needs "titivating" when I get it back! I thoroughly enjoyed stitching it, I just wish I'd started much earlier!






















August rushes in ... and it's going to be a busy month but I'm hoping it will feel more relaxed than July did while I catch up with my other projects and blog buddies

Hope your week ahead is a happy one
Carolyn ♥

Tea and Textiles

Thank you for visiting me today. I hope you will share a cup of tea with me while you visit ... and pass the biccies ...

I'm up to the letter T in my alphabet series. T is for textiles, tea, teabags, tea cups, teapots, tags, teabag art and thundery skies

poured tea





















Tis for tea - my inchy for the inchybyinch challege. I used a scrap of torn tea towel (drying up cloth) and a teapot button mounted on a black inchy chip with a snippet of text - poured tea

The teabag is raspberry, cranberry and elderflower. It's such a lovely colour I like to use the tea to colourwash sketchbook pages and papers

having tea













Torn linen, text and image from Emma













T is for tags coloured with tea and embellished with tea time thingies

fairy cakes





















This one was made with a tea dyed tag, torn linen, a dried teabag, cup cake and some text






















I photo'd the tag on the first cookery book I ever owned when I was aged 13 called "Good Housekeeping's Cooking is Fun". It even has instructions on how to make a pot of tea or coffee including wise counsel such as "fill the kettle from the cold water tap and put it on to boil" :o)

the tea tray


















This tag was simply made from a scrap of torn tea towl, a tea cup button and the words "the tea tray". It just needs a little bead or button for the lid which I forgot to do!

share a cup of tea





















Torn linen, torn (are you reading this Carole!) tea towel, torn teabag edge and a snippet of text ... share a cup of tea

Tag treatments





















T is for tags dipped in tea ... I added some paint and specks of copper metallic powder while the tags were still damp. This is how I do my tags and then I sometimes edge them with distress ink to make them look like they've been around a bit

I made a teeny mosaic inspired by the colours of these gorgeous tea cups - this is my particular favourite tone of red (but all reds are lovely!)

Red spotty teacups





















1. Wall Hanger Be Mine 1 2. For those of you who love those cups 3. Tiny Spark Mixed Media Collage 4. Untitled

The picture on my kitchen calendar for June was pretty and aptly tea related ...






















... make the most of a sunny afternoon, bring out the best cups and saucers and linger over tea on the terrace ...

Thundery ... our weather this week has been more humid and moody than sunny

Stormy skies
















I took this photo from the top of the open top bus on Wednesday. I went on the bus to Geevor to meet up with a good friend. We went to Morvah Schoolhouse gallery and tea rooms and had a pot of tea and hot buttered crumpets. They were yummy!

Textiles - the current exhibition was called "Natural Elements" showing textiles by Gillian Farrell and ceramics by Jemima Mitchell

Treading Lightly - we also visited the current exhibition "Treading Lightly" at The Yew Tree Gallery at Morvah ... a wonderful gallery of contemporary art in all media

I was so pleased to see the beautiful woven willow work of Lizzie Farey at The Yew Tree Gallery. I was at school with Lizzie and her twin Rachel for five years ...






















... and I really enjoyed seeing the whimsical art of Edwina Bridgeman






















I made a little mosaic from photos I took on Wednesday






















1. Jemima Mitchell 2. Interesting patterns in wood 3. Magie Hollingworth 4. Gillian Farrell 5. Pebbles 6. Edwina Bridgeman 7. Edwina Bridgeman 8. Gillian Farrell 9. Jemima Mitchell

Textures - the 3D paper pieces by Magie Hollingworth were wonderful, with such interesting and inspiring textures



















Thursday I had another go at dyeing with avocado skins, this time with a bit more success! I boiled the skins for 15 mins and then added the fabrics for another 15 mins






















I had these fabrics (below) in the dye jar for two days






















I'm leaving the fabrics in the other jar for one more week to see what happens and will let you know if anything interesting develops

Things I Love Thursday
Tea dyeing and teabag art





















Things I Love Thursday - fabrics and lace dyed with tea, natural dyeing experiments and samples, using tea as a colourwash on paper and beautiful teabag art

1. New works 2 - flock 2. Highfield Wagga 2002 3. Tea + iron 4. Teabag art 5. Autumn 6. Muslin lavender sachets 7. On a rainy day 8. The tea bags - so far 9. Cyanotype tea tone tests 10. Teabags 11. Tea 12. Pure but never simple - scrap salvage corsage brooch 13. Winter acorns - a mosaic I made for the flickr group TILT on Thursday just gone

Thank you for reading my rosy ramblings. Hope you have a fab week
Carolyn ♥

Rosy red ramblings

R is a lovely letter!

Rosy red ramblings make me so happy ... so my post today is full of roses and lovely things that are red ... perfect for the month of July

Starting with a mosaic I made full of gorgeous inspiring reds






















Beautiful reds

1. ~peek~ 2. Barn stationery 3. Slow cloth detail 4. On the bias ATC 5. Red background errors 6. Badcock T- blue wren 1 7. Spring's heart 8. Coral garden sketch book 9. Seeds 1998 10. A heart's affection 11. Coral garden sketch book 12. Growth series: Creep (red) 13. Monoprinting - red paint 14. Silly girl 15. Things to do with leftover scraps 16. Kimmeridge no entry 17. The red stuff 18. Starting with the back 19. Tie dye explosion 20. Doublet 21. Knitting 22. Untitled 23. Hide 24. Who knew what when? 25. Vintage girl tag

Thank you to my flickr friends and faves for their amazing REDS






















Berries are one of my most favourite red things. I made a tag using a vintage photo of a little girl with a basket of red berries






















I sewed some Christmas berries to the tag and added a vintage sewing machine bobbin with red thread (which I found in the loft of my old cottage). The thread is too old to use but it makes a nice embellishment

















R is for rubies - my inchy for the alphabet challenge on Inchybyinch


















R is for red letter day and red stamps






















Things I love Thursday - romance, love notes in a keepsake box, antique papers/envelopes, vintage letters, beautiful handwriting, black ink and red postage stamps from faraway places I may never get to visit

1. Original envelope from outlaw Frank James' widow - 1915 2. Love letters 3. Vintage envelope 4. Postage stamps 5. Postcard for Alice - #11 - Red Ink! 6. Untitled 7. Stamps 8. South African stamp 9. Untitled - for the flickr group TILT















Red letter day

I really love making tags. For this one I used some undyed silk paper, some vintage text about collecting postage stamps, an English stamp that is a particularly lovely shade of red and the words "a red letter day"






















Time is flying so fast, I can't believe we are into another beautiful month!

In my calendar for July I used a vintage photo of my Mum and Dad with red heart shaped rose petals from my garden and some text about love






















Rose petals I picked this week






















Roses in my gathering box - as well as limpet shells, a mussel shell, a pebble, a lead bullet I found last year, a fossil from the beach and some oak apples






















During the week I had fun making a whimsical stitched collage






















It wasn't easy to photograph but there are lots of layers - a calico base with vintage beige lace that features roses. I added some linen and scrim

The leaves are free machine stitched ... you can see on the back here















The flowers are cut from a strip of lace Julie gave me last year and I used various vintage buttons on top. The "love stitching red" stitched strip was made for me by Cathie

Love Stitching Red
















I decorated with printed tape machine stitched down and some hand stitching with red beads and finally added a dried seed head that I dyed red






















The red ribbon flowers with buttons gave me a whim to make some rose corsages using silk petals, crochet lace and old buttons













































































































































I had a "Crow Day" with Jo yesterday. We both worked on hand stitched projects, had a good natter and put the world to rights. I took along my red slow cloth I've been working on from time to time. It hasn't seen a lot of action for a while!

I cut 22 squares (each roughly 4 cm square). The photo shows the squares positioned. I have since sewn them to the cloth and shall decorate some of the squares with more embroidery, before adding the next layer

I found it very hard to photograph the red which in real life is very rich and vibrant with shiny gold metallic. I think my photo looks a little flat

It's an ongoing project I come back to every now and again, inspired by trips to Thailand and Mexico and stitched during my trip to Egypt earlier in the year. Some of the gold embroidered fabrics I brought back from Egypt



















Jo spoilt me with more birthday pressies including this wonderful rustic bird she made for me. Meet Rosy Bird

Rosy Bird












Rosy Bird is made from hessian and red/pink rose fabric with secrets in the pockets (I'm whispering ... there were little heart shaped buttons hidden in Rosy's wings). I'm a lucky girlie. Thank you Jo ♥

Wishing you all a very happy and sunny weekend and thank you for reading my rosy red ramblings

Carolyn ♥