At Sixes and Sevens

Like others I have found this an impossible subject, no idea why but nothing would come to me - until this afternoon that is!!
I have been involved in a small challenge where a group of us were given a piece of hand dyed fabric, 7" x 8" and then were given instructions how to progress it over a number of months, stitch it, decorate it, embellish it and so on.  Finally we were told to cut it into at least six pieces and reassemble in a different format.  As I sat finishing it off today it suddenly occurred to me that I had received a "Handout" of fabric.  Rather a stretch of the subject I know but now that I am back in harness I would really like to try and do one a month for a while.

November Theme... will be late with it

Hi Everyone, I suddenly had an idea for the November theme of -Hand Out - so hope to make a piece but it may be a bit late. Now I have the idea I really want to do it.

theme December 2014

Sorry, but I am a bit late. The theme for this month is: Painted Face. Have fun with it!

Hand Out/Handout

Hand Out / Handout

I had a lot of fun playing around with the phrase. Not being able to choose any single meaning since I just couldn't make any of them turn into pictures in my head, I resorted to messing around with words instead. 

For the background I chose one of "failed" dyed pieces. It had been put aside for overprinting. Here it represents the sometimes conflicting meanings of the word/phrase Hand out / Handout. Some have meanings which arouse strong feelings in some people - hence the bright colours. I searched for meanings in my dictionary and Thesaurus, jumbling these all together in to a sequence of words which are repeated as part of the background. The calligraphy was achieved by writing directly onto the background fabric using permanent markers. Over the top is the outline of my left hand printed onto silk, again with repeated words. The whole piece has been free-machine quilted using hand outlines in variegated thread.

Townscape - Ghost buildings.

Ghost buildings

During a tidying session in my workroom, I came across some photos I had taken during the winter of 1974/5 as part of an art project for my final year at Teacher Training College. Ooh dear, that last statement really dates me, doesn't it. I am one of the last to have gained a Teacher's Certificate rather than a degree....................

Ah well, back to the plot. At the time the centre of Macclesfield, Cheshire was being redeveloped. Walking around, I took several photos of buildings which were soon to be flattened. This little collection of shops used to stand in Derby Street, now long gone, lying underneath Churchill Way, which was built to ease the traffic in the town centre.

I like to think of these as Ghost buildings, memories of what once was the townscape. As in all things, there has to be change.

My own dyed fabric, with photos printed on cotton, free machine quilting. The brick images have also been printed onto cotton. These were part of a series of paintings produced at the same time.
I really ought to apologise for being so very late with this piece. Sorry about that.

Townscape

I am later than usual, but here is my vision of townscape:

Contrary to what I normally do, I used commercial fabrics this time. Only the doors and windows are hand dyed. Now I only have to finish the facing and the sleeve, and than the quilt is actually finished :-).

Composition in Blue

Yes, I know I'm really late with adding a contribution to the Blue themed month, but I did make one for the challenge:

I belong to a local art group that is working on alternate grid pieces, and I decided to make my piece fit into our Blue Themed month. 

I hand dyed 4 gradations of blue, and after I started piecing it, realized this would have been much easier if I'd just fused the half square triangles in place. 

If you kind of fuzz up your vision, the background piecing goes away and the alternate grid concept is more obvious. 

Hugs...