Who said I couldn't find a puffin....

Yes, they're naff and tacky, but that's the fun of the chase. First find your puffin, then decide how to use it. Can I make a puffin work in a serious piece incorporating a saint? It's a challenge, and at this stage I wouldn't like to guess either way.

This design is by Timeless Treasures and comes, like so many of the fabrics I use, courtesy of  www.equilter.com, an amazing US supplier that has the vastest supply of fabrics I've come across.

I have piles of unsuitable fabrics I've bought hoping that they'll work, only to find that they don't. Like a painter, you need a wide palette. Unlike a painter, you can't just wash your mistakes down the sink. And even if I do decide that a three-inch kitsch puffin is exactly what I need, what do I do with the remaining half a yard of fabric and the dozens of other puffins contained thereon? I could wait an entire lifetime for another set of circumstances to arise in which the only proper response would be a three-inch kitsch puffin. (And if it did I would have thrown out the fabric the week before.)


Visit my website at www.valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk
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Handmade textiles for stylish interiors, off the shelf or to commission

email: valerie@valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk; 020 7515 0701 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 020 7515 0701 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting; 07518 885960

And another thing...

Just as I'm itching to get on with making more quilts, another distraction comes along that, while interesting and exciting, promises to consume a lot of my time. (Somewhere out there, someone is living my dream life that doesn't involve having to go to the supermarket, worry about moths in the cupboard or fret about getting into the garden before it all explodes in an orgy of growth.)

This time it's finishing my entry for the Prism exhibition at the Mall Gallery in London in May. http://www.prismtextiles.co.uk/


The theme is "Liminal". And no, I didn't either. But according to the Oxford English Dictionary it means "of or relating to a transitional stage; occupying a position on, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold." Which, when you think about it, I hope you agree is pretty intriguing. Consider the tideline where land and sea, oceans and continents meet; or the trembling moments when the sun sinks behind a bank of clouds.

And then I came across the term "hypnopompic". The Oxford dictionary doesn't even include it, but Collins defines it as "relating to the state existing between sleep and full waking, characterised by the persistence of dreamlike imagery". Which is where I've pitched my tent. I believe it is not done to reveal one's work ahead of an exhibition, but here's a sneak preview, above.

Visit my website at www.valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk
....................................................................................
Handmade textiles for stylish interiors, off the shelf or to commission

email: valerie@valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk; 020 7515 0701 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 020 7515 0701 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting; 07518 885960

The Feel of the Cloth of Gold

 

 

 

A new project to run alongside my other quiltmaking: a wallhanging in memory of an aunt, to be presented to the nuns at the care home where she was looked after so lovingly before she died last year. It will, we have decided, incorporate saints - probably St Benedict;  flowers - there must be a blue rose;  birds - including a puffin; and gold.

 

 

 

The rose has proved to be remarkably easy, thanks to a floral cotton print by Fabric Freedom. I duly ordered it, in blue, only to have it pointed out that the particular "Blue Moon" species of rose required is not really blue, more lilac with a mauve tint. No problem. I phoned up the ever-helpful Doughty's Fabrics http://www.doughtysonline.co.uk/ just in time to change the order to another colourway.

 

If only everything was that simple. I'm not sure yet how I'll use the fabric, but I feel better for having started to collect my "palette".

 

Then off to Berwick Street in Soho, the spiritual home of fashion students, dressmakers, theatrical costumiers and other miscellaneous fabric-lovers, in search of gold. If the streets of London are paved with the stuff, this short-to-middling thoroughfare must be a good place to start, lined as it is with numerous independent shops selling shimmering metallic silks and chiffons, lame and sequins. Everywhere the glint of gold. But as so often in London, there is simply too much choice. Some golds were too bright, too shiny, prone to fraying, delicate, thick, stretchy, expensive, floppy, stiff. Amid all this overload, I brought home just one sample which, at the time, seemed ideal. But alas, lovely and soft and tactile as it is, it is too pale. I will have to go back again.

 

 

 

 

And in the meantime, I have rummaged around in my "Silks etc" box and found a number of golds, none of them usable for various reasons - and some of them showing worrying signs of perishing in a nasty, sticky sort of way.

 

And I haven't even begun on the puffin.



Visit my website at www.valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk
....................................................................................
Handmade textiles for stylish interiors, off the shelf or to commission

email: valerie@valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk; 020 7515 0701 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 020 7515 0701 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting; 07518 885960

 

 

 

The Beast is back...

... and running round in circles.

My Avante long-armed quilter has returned from the Cotton Patch in Birmingham, http://www.cottonpatch.co.uk/, emerged from its box and is back at work after its annual service, snorting, pawing the ground and in tip-top condition. I don't know whether it was taken to the city's Bullring to run a few laps while it was there, but it has been happily cantering round in circles ever since.

Having tried out the "Groovy Board" technique for concentric circles and spirals on a couple of plain-fabric quilts from my Island collection http://www.valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk/island/, I decided to use circles on the group quilt I was asked to work on  - see my post of 15 March. Only this time I've combined them with squares.  

I like the contrast of curved and straight, but I wonder if it's still a bit geometric. I'm debating whether to put squiggly, flowery bits in the centre of each circle, or whether this would over-complicate what is already a very busy quilt. It has to be finished in a couple of days, so I'll have to decide soon. Hmmmm...

UPDATE, September 2015: Want to know where this quilt ended up - in The Guardian. Check out this link to see who owns it now!





Visit my website at www.valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk
....................................................................................
Handmade textiles for stylish interiors, off the shelf or to commission

email: valerie@valeriehugginsquilts.co.uk; 020 7515 0701 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 020 7515 0701 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting; 07518 885960