Wishing everybody health, wealth and happiness for 2020.

With the festive season season I can look back over the last month and see that I have made progress. The holiday season is a quiet time for me and one which tends to be productive, the somewhat uncertain weather has helped.

A project which had been hanging over me all year was finally finished and sent, I was told it would take a week to arrive in the UK, it took three days, a true miracle and a great relief. It was a wedding present for my nephew and his wife who got married in 2018… a king size bed quilt which could be reversible according to their mood. Piecing took ages and then every other square was hand quilted, it actually was easier to sew than I had anticipated. The idea was to quilt throughout the autumn and finish around the time I finished with teaching English, and yes, I managed it!

Other work has also been in progress, I have started the journal quilts for the Contemporary group, this year nine inch squares using recycled/found objects. I have opted for the subject of Out and About as my title and the first was made using a piece of very old table cloth which was coloured with with fabric paints. The old square is mounted on some snow dyed cotton reflecting the muddy estuary…

I have also photographed all my 2019 quilts together, the first column being India, the second Israel and the third Russia.

On Christmas day I went for a walk around the town of Saintes, a little south from here. It was a perfect day for a visit, the sun was shining and there were very few people around, easy to park and the churches were all open to visit. The Charente river was in flood and there were some streets under water, the reflections were stunning.

One of the joys was finding a whole series of ,at what were at first glance, woven tapestries but in fact were hand stitched wool embroideries. As far as I can work out they were designed by Jean-François Favre and stitched by the Christian Community of the Abbaye aux Dames.

It was really lovely to be able to look at them really closely even if the presence of a piercing fire alarm ringing in the church meant that I didn’t linger too long.

As well as making new pieces for the forthcoming shows, Cholet at the end of the month, BIAT in April and St Jean d’Angely in June, I am doing an on-line class with Sue Stone in an attempt to improve the way I work with images of people and I am also doing a 30 day sketch-book challenge, the later is making me realise that maybe I am best to stick with fabric….

These are two images that I have reproduced in the first part of the Sue Stone course;

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Other work, I have finished or which is progress, will be revealed here when it has first been shown in public. I am finding the challenge of doing a course alongside my own creating very rewarding, it means that there is always something to hand stitch in the evenings….