Well the festive season is approaching which, hopefully, means that I will have time to play textiles, I am not one for seasonal festivities and there is no snow worth talking about!

I finished playing pomegranates and am happy with the results I achieved; I made a journal quilt so I could test the colours and stitch types:

The fabric is dyed with pomegranates then printed as per my previous post; I stitched outlines behind and shaded them and hand stitched the seeds.

I then produced the challenge piece, I slightly misconstrued the subject which was kernels and pips by producing seeds and failed to add any of the former to my work, but I am happy with the result!

On Sunday I went to the Indian fabric exhibition at the V & A which I loved, there were some very old fabrics and items of clothing; I hesitated about buying the catalogue but at £30 and weighing a lot I decided to forego it and will have to make do with my cryptic notes and basic sketches. I also went to the wrought iron section which I have never knowingly visited before and found some lovely patterns there. Now I just need to spend time putting all these ideas in to practice!

To finish off the year by making my Christmas cards I went very seasonal and took contemporary route with my design, using paint sticks and a stencil. Not the best idea when there are two different colours and more than 70 cards to make, but I got three and took the design one step further by using it to make my final journal quilt of 2015. I stencilled the design three times, machine stitched the background with sparkly white thread and then simply applied one line of hand stitch to each motif. The idea was holly and snow flakes….