LE TOUR ETAIT ICI

(Or 'A Ride through Yorkshire')

I started this piece in response to the 'Street Scene' theme but somehow it was never finished.  I was going to show it to you anyway when complete but the opportunity has arisen for it to satisfy the theme of 'Through'.

As you can see it is a response to the Tour de France spending the first two days in Yorkshire.  At that time there were high high hopes for a third consecutive British victory but, being British, we have to give the others a chance, don't we?  So Chris wobbled on the cobbles and Cav. crashed in the dash and that was that.  Business as usual!

I have tried to show the speed of the riders by portraying the cyclists and blurring the place names on route. The row of white roses was based on the fact that the Tour went through Yorkshire.  (For non-British members the white rose was the symbol of the House of York in the so-called 'Wars of the Roses' and has remained the badge of the county).  Coincidentally, I was writing this in draft on the day that Richard III was interred, with some pomp, in Leicester Cathedral.

The section underneath the riders is based on pavements, tarmac and cobbles whilst the spectators sitting in deckchairs was inspired by a poster I saw in which the Tour was going through the countryside watched by these relaxed inhabitants.

I tried to make the stitching reflect the subject matter although I am not sure that I managed to show speed that successfully.

In conclusion, we must hope for a better British performance this year.

Through

In March the theme for EB's masterclass was lines. I made a quilt for this one in a big size 40"x18", but before I started working in this size, I had made a small sample. This sample only needed an oval and it would fit the theme for this group:-). This is how it turned out:

There are always so many ideas floating through my mind, that it is nice if sometimes they can double up. This quiltlet will be by contribution for the SAQA auction later this year.

Looking Through Me ---Irene MacWilliam

As I said in my previous post I had a number of ideas but discarded them as they did not hold much interest. Years ago I designed some pieces using eyes but never took them further. I thought this would be easy, just establish the grid for the black squares which I did by machining the background to the felt wadding. However when I bonded on the black squares they did not always cover the the stitched grid so I had to unpick that. I then by machine buttonholed round each black square. I scanned in a photo to get the eye image using TAP for printing them. (Transfer Artist Paper by Lesley Riley). The eyes were bonded on. I did my narrowest binding yet as I wanted my outside squares not to loose too much of their dimension. I like the effect of a narrow binding so will use it more often. Now to do some of my designs on a larger scale and find an easier way of getting my black squares accurately placed.

Lateness with theme piece for THROUGH

Sorry been mulling over this theme and discarding ideas as they seemed too banal and had no interest for me in their construction. However yesterday I came up with an idea and spent most of the evening working on it so hope to have it ready for posting soon. It is rather stretching the word through but I had to have a go.
Have a good Easter everyone.