DECISION TIME

I have been pondering for a while as to whether I can continue making pieces for the group.  I feel that it has lost momentum again, despite having 15 members.  I put a great deal of effort into getting it restarted and it appears to have been in vain..

I hope to remain a member, if the group continues, but will not be doing any more new work at this stage.  It doess disappoint me as I have enjoyed responding to the challenges but there comes a time.....

With regrets and best wishes to you all.

Under the Sea - Irene MacWilliam

As I had recently completed a number of sea/fish pieces I was a bit stuck on this theme so I took the angle of pollution. 
I made a printing plate (see second image) from foam scraps that a friend was discarding. The grey shapes as printed represent all the bits and pieces that float around our oceans.
 I used a lino cutter and a school rubber to make the fish skeleton stamp. The letter stamps for 'Pollution'  were made from a wooden alphabet bought on ebay several years ago. The fabrics are all scraps or a

recycled old sheet, dyed or in some cases paint dyed. Free machine quilting.
I have had another idea so I might be contributing another piece, who knows.

Signing off

Dear bloggers I am sorry but I will not be able to continue with this. In fact i never really gor started. Unfortunately my primary breast cancer has spread which means that I will not be cured. However with new treatments and some luck I will be continiung to make quilts but I don't want to committ to any deadlines and let anyone down. I hope your group thrives. Please take my name off your membership lists. Best Wishes Tricia

Long Walk Home Tricia Revest

I'm sorry if this is a bit late but I am emerging from a bit of a bad patch and only just getting back into the studio. My offering for Long Walk Home is entitled "Imagining Walkabout" and was inspired by the landscapes and art works of Australia which we visited last year. Driving along the west coast from Albany to Darwin it seemed that we were so far from home both physically and culturally. The landscape even in the deserts was never entirely brown and there were many different types of vegetation hanging on in nooks and crannies. We visited a number of sites where rock art showed how the local have used the land for 40,000 years. I wanted to include the idea of walking across the landscape from place to place but these are not towns or villages in European sense but resources for life, waterholes, caves and food sources. Truely a long way from our home.

I am not happy with the piece, it seems bitty and uncoordinated and I would do it differently if I were to do it again. View it as a preliminary sketch in fabric. I just felt it was important to get going again.

A LONG WALK HOME - ESPECIALLY IN CLOTHES LIKE THESE!

This was a fun piece which is unusual for me.  It was before a certain date so future work is likely to return to my usual dystopian outlook.  I am sorry it is late but the design and printing were done ages ago - it just never got quilted.

I was stuck, initially, for a suitable idea until we came home from an exhibition on the train.  The 'Evening Standard' carried an advertisement for a Fendi shoe and this was combined with an exotic dress I found.  These set me wondering what it would be like to walk this eight mile journey in such gear.  I added one of my 'Ascot hats' and the trainers on the left-hand side to the mix.  The background is meant to reflect a spiral type route from the centre to the destination.  I cannot remember now how the background was compiled except that it came from earlier design work.

The quilting is intended to reflect the longest possible route from the centre to the outside.  I do not use much green usually but I just went with the flow as it developed.

New theme and poll result

Our coming theme is: Under the sea and is due October 1. The result of the poll is that a majority of 88% wants to continue with the present situation: using the master list. So if you have any suggestions for a theme, email them to me and I will put them on the list. Every 3 months I use a random number generator to pick a theme.
Sorry that I am late, but I was abroad and could not access the yahoo group.

The Long Walk Home

It has given me a great deal of pleasure to take part in this challenge even though it took a while for an idea to take shape.

This quilt was inspired by a photograph of my Granddaughter taken when she was not quite two years old.  Having grown up in Leeds, my lovely daughter and her partner decided  to move to live in the countryside and found a cottage completely surrounded by farmland.. Long walks along extremely muddy paths followed and having been a city girl all her life, my daughter suddenly discovered nature! The countryside where they live is very flat and featureless, but ideal territory for a toddler learning to find her feet. Isobel is now eleven and will be going to high school in September, but to us she is still that little girl starting on a long journey.

I used my own handdyed fabrics and all the quilting and embroidery were done on my sewing machine.

Penny Leonard