THE NEXT CHALLENGE

    I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Here is the next challenge, in case you have time on your hands at the moment: 

                                     BARK

There are several different definitions you could choose from, including one I had never come across before, which is some kind of American chocolate sweet. 

THE NEXT CHALLENGE

 The next person to choose the 

subject for our next challenge for the end of October is:

JINNIE.

BEES

 I was really undecided as to what I was going to do for this challenge when I thought of bees and how important they are to our world wide eco-system.  It also allowed me to use some bright and happy colours in the flowers.  I have to give credit to my very artistic and talented grand-daughter who is studying art in her final year of school and is going onto University next year to further her studies in this subject.  She gave me the idea of incorporating the water, water lilies and water lily leaves to make it "pop" which it certainly did!  So a big thank you to her as well.  The bee wings were a challenge but in the end I used gold organza and outlined them with gold thread and used the gold thread for the veins in the wings as well.  It was fun to do and really enjoyable.

 

Sea sketch​ with seagull

​      I originally made this quilt for the Wilhelmina Barnes Graham challenge on our series on artists ( 12 By the Dozen ), but always felt it was a little boring, as it didn't have a focal point. I thought about maybe adding a seagull to it, but I never got round to it. So this was the ideal opportunity to try it out. The appliqued seagull is coloured with inktense.

Dove of peace

 

For this quilt , I’ve taken the dove of peace as my theme.  

The wings are rendered in a three-dimensional technique to capture the feeling of flapping in flight. 

Through this dove, I aim to bring serenity and joy to everyone!

Momo

Flight

 

Feathered friends

   I have always enjoyed birdwatching. We are lucky to have a large variety of birds visiting our suburban garden, including three species of woodpeckers, chiffchaffs, blackcaps, an occasional treecreeper, jays, longtailed and crested tits as well as the usual sparrows, robins, blackbirds blue tits and great tits. There is also the occasional buzzard passing overhead, and once there was a young sparrowhawk in the trees at the bottom of the garden. Altogether I have counted almost 50 different species in the years we have been in this house. It is the best garden I have ever had for birdwatching (in comfort too!), with plenty of species I have never seen in the gardens of previous places that I have lived. I think that if we ever move, I will want to take the garden with me! So here are some of my favourite feathered friends.

   I made lino prints of some of the birds I see daily (blackcap, greater spotted woodpecker, robin and blackbird), colouring them with inktense pencils. I had intended to mask the birds and print leaves in the background, but it didn't look right when I tried it, so I coloured the backgrounds with inktense too. The fabric I printed on turned out to be a bit stretchy, making it a bit difficult to put together, but overall I'm satisfied with it, even if it's a little bit wonky! I'm sorry that it is so late, but I had a few problems making it, and also have been having to work around eye strain, though that is a bit better now. The print of the great tit didn't make it into the quilt

 

THE NEXT CHALLENGE

 Hi everyone.  Now that we are ready for our next challenge for the end of July (I can't believe how quickly this year is going) I have thought long and hard above what to choose for this one coming up at the end of July and I decided on:

FLIGHT

There are so many things one can do with this subject so I really hope you have some fun creating something incorporating this subject.

Hope you are all keeping well.   

stained glass

 

I chose stained glass as my inspiration.

I used vignette fabric to show how the glass changes color as the light hits it.

I used black cloth to represent the frame.

I can't be very detailed because of time, but it's still an attempt.

Momo

THE NEXT CHALLENGE

Regarding the next challenge for the end of July I assume I will be the next person to choose the subject as Jinny challenged us with  "Trees", then Rosemary with "Shapes" and Momo with this present challenge.  I will put up the next challenge tomorrow so watch this space! 

 My favourite thing would be to travel through Europe again.  I fell in love with Italy and in particular Venice when I travelled there some time back.  However, in 2023 my grand daughter went on a school tour of Europe and whilst in Venice she took some absolutely beautiful photographs of that city.  When the subject came up I asked her if I could use one of those photographs in a quilt for this time around, which she was very happy to do. 

To be honest it wasn't the easiest quilt to do as I battled with perspective (and straight lines) but in the end I was very happy with my piece.  I did simplify some of it as it would probably be too difficult to incorporate every minute piece but I was very happy with the end result.

My favourite things

 
 As you can tell from my piece, sewing and reading are two of my favourite things. It was fun deciding how to combine two of my favourite activities. This is how it turned out.  Rosemary