I can’t believe that more than six months have passed since my last entry. I think that being ‘rootless’ took a toll on my creativity, I spent four months in temporary accommodation and although there was plenty of space in which to stitch I couldn’t immerse myself in my work. I also had the excitement of being in a new environment where there was so much to do and discover, loads of inspiration and I took far too many photographs. I have ideas brewing in my head for future work but just need time to settle down and plan it!

I finally moved into my permanent home in mid August but it wasn’t until mid September that I had more than a week at home, which meant unpacking my boxes, I had meant to do it slowly but I kept wondering where things were and had to hunt them out. In October and November I had a fair amount of English teaching, I can get on with work in progress at such times but to get the creativity going I need empty space in my head. I now have a workroom in which I am really comfortable and a design wall for the first time so I can step back and ponder. I have a plumber coming to look at installing a sink which I can use for dirty stuff so I am not in the kitchen sink with dye stuffs. I am amazed that, when they have space, people don’t have ‘dirty’ sinks but I suppose that with washing machines people don’t wash things any more, or I was conditioned that way as a child ! While I was renting I had no washing machine and did everything by hand and due to the lack of a ‘dirty’ sink I landed up washing everything in the bath. My garage won’t be used as such but is perfect as a wet room, on the chilly side during the winter but not impossible, a great space for cooking up potions…

I really don’t seem to have achieved much work since I last wrote, my 2018 journal quilts are finished and I am up to date with Fifteen by Fifteen with my ideas for the next year’s projects forming in my head. I have almost cut the two thousand plus squares for my nephew’s wedding quilt, I just need to get stitching, and I have been stitching a larger version of a small 7 inch square that I did. I have so many photos and ideas from various travels and the change in location has changed my view on how I work.

My journal quilts this year were pairs of positive and negative images.

These two were inspired by the ebb and flow of the tide and the pols of water which come and go.

I photographed this stone carving and transformed it using two parts of the pattern to create the positive and negative images.

My Fifteen by Fifteen pieces had a series of 3 pieces which I based on a poem and wrote about previously, this is the last in the series which had to be using complementary colours.

The final two pieces for the year were Squares followed by Rearranged, I chose to work the two as a mini series using fabrics I had dyed in indigo and which came from India. I continue to be interested in the the idea of jali screens and used stitching to add the ‘jalis’ to both pieces.

The minus side of the move is the internet connection, or the lack of it, I am on a 4G and I am battling to keep my usage down so that I have full strength connection for the full month otherwise I seem to spend the last week of each month with a speed which is almost in reverse. The result is that I connect for the minimum amount of time and don’t tend to stay on the computer very long so that there is no temptation to go online and read… the result is that I forget to do the important things like up dating this !

I will attempt to do better in 2019 even if they threaten me with a delay of 6 months for installing a line to the house so that I can have a normal connection.

In August I went to the festival of quilts for 3 days, I stewarded a couple of days I enjoy doing this as it actually makes me stop and look at work I wouldn’t otherwise look at. I often hear people being surprised that a quilt hasn’t achieved recognition but they often don’t look carefully, the idea or impact may be very strong but when one looks carefully it becomes obvious why it wasn’t a winner, then again it could be that it wasn’t entered in to the right category so it can’t be a winner, I really think that there should be someway of marking a quilt that is in the wrong category as a lesson to others. Then a month later I was at Ste Marie, I had a quilt exhibited as a result of the masterclass I had attended in 2018 with Denise Labadie.

I also taught for two days, the first class was not full the second more than full which was very pleasing. It was however interesting to be criticised for giving a hand stitch class when more than half of the students thought it would be using a machine, I was worried that I had written the wrong information but when I checked afterwards it would seem that very few of the students had read the information to the end because it was clearly stated to be hand stitch. They did however all go away happy !

 

As I write I am preparing to exhibit and give workshops in January at Marsac and Cholet both of which are relatively near home.