Workshop Up-dates

Here is a quick reminder of our workshops for next month and what we'll be getting up to next week.

There's still time to join us this Tuesday 5th March for our Quilting and Textile Design Course, just drop us an email with your details and we'll send you an email straight back with your requirements list.

Thursday March 21st Sail/Tug Boat Workshop at Fraddon Village Hall 10am - 4pm.

We're now taking bookings for Monday April 22nd for our Doodle Cushion Workshop at Coast & Country Crafts and Quilts, Perranarworthal.

Photos of our workshops and all the details can be found on our web site.

We are visiting two quilting groups next week, Monday we're off to Strand Quilters at Tywardreath, who have requested to do our Strip Cushion Workshop.  Then on Thursday evening we will be taking our Dissovable Workshop to Friendship Quilters at Tresillian, very talented ladies in both groups so we should have some lovely snaps to show you next time.

Thanks for reading, back soon
Sue

Enforced Separation!!

Work in progress

Well, I will be very happy to see the Spring and hopefully the back of these awful "bugs" that are doing the rounds.

Sue & I have not been able to get together for a couple of weeks due to the awful cold and eye infection that she has had, so we have had to do a bit of "solo sewing"!!

Following on from our last very successful 'Turtle Day', I have been continuing to work on that project. 

I will wait until I have seen Sue before showing you any more, but all I can say is that great fun to re-visit the Artist Wassil Kandinsky's work.

My fingers are itching again, so I think I will have a little lunch and disappear into my room this afternoon, and maybe do a little sketchbook work!!  No don't get excited Sue, it will pass!

Carolyn

 

Mixed Media Stitched Book

Those of you who follow us on a regular basis, will remember we signed up for the Journal Quilt project last year. Obviously that's all completed now, but I haven't shown you the finished hand made stitched book I had been working in. It was a small book to work in but now it's looking fat and full.

Hand stitched book

I've shown you this weave page before, but to carry it forward I used an aperture to select different areas, then translated the shapes and lines within the aperture with stitch.

Selecting areas of interest

Small sketch and translating with stitch 1

Small sketch and translating with stitch 2

Small sketch and translating with stitch 3

I like to cut things up and re-arrange, here I had a number of photos which I cut into, glued to a paper background, scanned and printed, then cut the printed papers different ways and re-arranged. The original image on top with the square photos is my favourite and is now in my book.

Cut and re-arranged papers

I also like using layers to create transparency, on this page I have drawn Agapanthus onto different materials so each image shows through.

Tissue paper and organza layers

I think this page feels very delicate.

Lace printing and wax stencil Agapantus

So, from this little book I have gain all my inspiration for the 12 Journal Quilts, I love how the spine shows the colours of each section.

Spine colours

Journal Quilt Project 2012

Hope you enjoyed having a look through these pages, I'm sure I could revisit some and continue to gain more inspiration.

Thanks for dropping by

Sue

'What If'..................

We still have spaces if you would like to join us on Our Quilting and Textile Design Course, which starts on Tuesday 5 March for 6 workshops at Fraddon Village Hall.
Starting with a pattern fabric as your design inspiration, we sample a variety of mixed media products and guide you through a range of techniques to change the surface of the fabric, this will give you the know how and confidence to carry your work forward and ask......'What If'.
We supply all the art material - paints, Markel Paintstiks, soft pastels, wax pastels, heat gun etc. so you can try these products without the expense.   All the details can be found on our web site.

We mentioned in an earlier post a new venture for us The 'Shopping Shed', here are a couple of images, we'll be adding more soon.

Printed cards depicting our work

Designed by us, Sail Boat and Tug Boat.

That's all for today, I'm feeling very sorry for myself, I have a dreadful cold and an eye infection, which is likely to spread to the other eye. I look like I've been in the boxing ring, so I thinks it's the sofa, a coffee and some quilting (if I can see) for me this afternoon.

Hope the aliments are not affecting you, back soon 

Sue

Explore, expand, create..............

Just what 'turtle' days were made for................

translating designs

glimpse at design wall

Super creative, fun 'turtle' day............

Back soon

Sue

One Pheasant and Two 'turtles'

Hi everyone,

Funny title you may think, but I've been asked if the no. 2 man in my life is still visiting, so here is a recent photo to show you he's still looking splendid.

Mr.  Pheasant Jan 2013

As for the next part of the title, we have had 2 'turtle' days this week. Tuesday was all about admin, up-dating paper work, deciding on new pieces for workshops and working on ideas to take Beyond Patchwork forward.
To that end, we have set up The 'Shopping Shed', you'll find it up and running on our web site, thanks to Carolyn's daughter Rebecca. At the moment we have our Sail Boat and Tug Boat 'Recipes', a selection of our printed cards depicting our own work and gift vouchers, which always make good presents. We will continue adding an assortment of items, so pop back often to see what's new.

You'll also find our newsletter on the web site, but if you would like us to send you a copy each month, just drop us your email address, so you'll always be kept up-to-date.

Our second 'turtle' day was Thursday, having got the mundane stuff out of the way it was time to get things rolling. In an earlier post we showed you some background fabric, this has now been used to make a project for our Easter Retreat Weekend at Degembris Manor Farm on the 22nd-24th February.

Tulip Bowl

View of lacy lining

It's based on our ever popular Fuchsia Box, we've made changes, shape, construction and the addition of a pretty lacy lining made from dis-solvable fabric.
This would be the perfect addition to an Easter table filled with Easter Eggs or Easter Biscuits or as a gift for someone special.

Now, to leave you with another little teaser, a few photos of work in progress for a Transfer Dye workshop.............

Longer than normal post today, but hope you enjoyed seeing what we get up too.
Thanks for reading
Sue

Inspired in Germany

Konstanz

We have just come back from a wonderful weekend break in the South of Germany.  Although it was only for a such a short time we saw some lovely sights and I have come home inspired!

Konstanz

The town of Konstanz is on the boarder with Switzerland and was all that you would expect from a Germany town built circ 1400.  These are just two of the photos that we took.  The building were painted to emphasise the square blocks.

This old door was typical of the heavy doors that we saw, with beautiful iron work.




We also took the train to the Rhein Falls.  This photo does not do it justice, but hopefully you will get an idea of the volumn of water and the noise!!  It was incredible.  We did managed to get quite close to the water,, but because of the snow we were unable to get to the lowest level, maybe next time!

Rhien Falls

Now to get my ideas out of my head and into fabric (via a sketchbook Sue!!) I will keep you up-dated of my progress.


Carolyn

Shades of BLUE - eventually!

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Well.......eventually I have finished the challenge Sue & I started last January.

I have kept the same thought process for all of the pieces in this challenge, that was to experiment with various media; for the four Blue months I have used ‘weave’ as my background.  I have always liked to weave with fibres and fabric, but this time I wanted to try different styles too, although looking at all 12 together they do seem to hava a similarity running through them.  

I thought that ‘Blue was going to be an easy choice, but again I have favourites and some that I would not do again.  I chose the ‘sky’ as the theme for these pieces which has predictably developed into the weather too.

September - Storm Clouds

September - Storm Clouds

For this piece I used threads for my warps and a variety of weights fabrics for the weft.  The fabric (Weft) is a selection of free cut, hand-dyed cotton and satin; and purchased felt, wool and the warp is a variety of wool and embroidery threads, both of which were bonded to a background fabric.  I love the juxtaposition of the thin and thick, rough and smooth.  I decided to keep the quilting to a minimum so just used large seed stitches to depict the rain drops.

October - Iso-Blue

October - Iso-Blue

The background for this piece is just 3 fabrics, again bonded to a background fabric.  In this case the weft is hand-dyed felt and the warp is purchased cotton and satin.  I covered the piece with blue organza which I burnt away in a few places to reveal the weave below.  The echo quilting was done on the machine and represents the ‘Isobars’ on the weather charts.  I have furrowed the organza and added silk tops for areas of ‘depression’.  Large seed beads and hand quilting have been added also.

November - Rainy Days

November - Rainy Days

I used a piece of calico covered with Gesso and scrim which was then painted with Inktense and spray painted, this became the free cut warp.  The weft is a piece of purchase satin that was also free cut.

The quilting mirrors the pattern of the weave with the addition of smaller felt, fabric paper and thread weaves.  I called it ‘Rainy Days’ because it reminds me of looking out through a window at the rain pouring down. 

December - Torquay Skies

December - Torquay Skies

My final piece is possibly my favourite piece, possibly because of the colour.  I was going to call it ‘Turquoise Skies’, but changed that to ‘Torquay Skies’ because as a child I spent every summer in Torquay at my Granddad’s and as we all know it was always perfect sunshine when we were children!  

I used a technique that I found in Gwen Hedley’s ‘Drawn to Stitch’ book, which is a variation on weave.   

Again all the pieces where bonded to a background fabric, and I used paper, cotton and satin.  All the pieces were torn and the rough edges left.  The machine quilting is simple lines and couched threads.

Now I can get busy with all the new things that are buzzing around my head.

Carolyn