It is only as I am packing up my quilts for exhibition in the Tarn that I realise that I have not updated these pages since January . The Tarn is a month long exhibition which while require two trips, one to set up and one to take down. The three days of lessons I planned were cancelled due to lack of participants but I am hanging around for a few days to teach a class on Saturday during the textile weekend. Typically the forecast is for stormy weather so I hope to get a lot of sewing done and hopefully discover the region between storms!

I seem to have been busy this year and there is always stitching on the go but I have also been out and about much more. January started with a week of snow shoeing and exhibiting at the Gallerie Arnaud in La Rochelle followed by the show at Cholet at the end of he month. February and March disappeared; what with spending at least two mornings a week volunteering, pilates on another morning and often walking twice a week my time stitching has been reduced, but I think being out of the house more is good for me. In April went on a 4 day coach trip to Amsterdam taking in La Piscine at Roubaix and Ghent en route, with a stop in Lille on the return. We were too early for the tulips but the hyacinths and narcissi were wonderful and the dahlias I purchased seem to be growing, lets hope summer isn’t too dry! Amongst other things we visited the Van Gogh museum and the Vermeer exhibition at the Rikjsmuseum. A week later I was visiting Portugal, staying just south of Lisbon where there were many good things to discover.

Above the Piscine, they have an “exceptional collection” of fabric samples only a few of which are on show.

Woman writing a Letter, with her maid 1670-1672; I really enjoyed the Vermeer exhibition far more than I thought I would, the clarity of the work and the light in the pieces were amazing.

Cathedral, Lille

Portugal was just so inspiring…

Mid-May there was a walking club weekend in the Anjou area where we had visits as well as good walks.

Chinon and Fontevraud

Then, finally last week I circumnavigated the Ile d’Oléron on foot with a couple of friends and I managed to take in the Festival d’Arts Actuel at the Citadelle of Chateau D’Oléron as we were staying nearby.

So much inspiration and so many vibrant colours

Stitching wise I am up to date for the moment with my journal quilts, this year we have to include text and I decided to create a series about leaves and trees, the first six are leaves complete with the name of the tree, its scientific name its order and family. I have tried to construct each family of leaves with a different technique while keeping the text the same but again worked differently.

My first three Fifteen by Fifteen pieces have also been completed, this year we have to make three pairs of quilts under the heading of nature. I decided to use my holiday in the Bardenas, Spain, for my inspiration, the first two on rock structures and the second two will be birds birds, the first one of which is below.

The first quilt is of the landscape of ‘Los Aquarales de Valpalmas’. The Aquarales is like the Bardenas Reales but on a much smaller scale. Both areas have a characteristic morphology known as badlands and are formed by the erosion of the clay landscape, in the Bardenas the cliffs can reach a height of 150m but they are only a scant 20m in the Aquarales. The landscape of multiple columns and pinnacles of differing forms and sizes a third of the size of those 50km away in the Bardenas. Hand painted silk noile, appliquéd and machine stitched.

 In stark contrast to the crumbly rocks of the Bardenas, the Mallos de Riglos which is well known area in the climbing world because its conglomerate formations which are well suited to climbers. They rise high and relatively straight out of a truly wild landscape full of plants and bird life with well marked walking routes. The photograph I worked from shows the sunlight shining through a narrow space between the rocks and I loved the way the colour changed so radically between the light and shade. Painted, appliquéd and machine stitched.

We stopped to photograph a field full of storks on our way back to the hotel one evening, they were feeding in a mucky humid field. Hand dyed fabric bought in Canada and the birds appliquéd and hand stitched.

Most of my time was taken up on my tree project, some of the top stitching was machined but the main part was hand stitched and it took forever, the finished piece measures 150 x 200 cm. As yet I have no photograph of the finished quilt because I have nowhere to hang in good enough light to photograph, hopefully next week will remedy the problem! I really enjoyed making this mammoth piece, it was an idea which had been turning in my head for ages and involved using wood blocks that were made for me from my designs in India some years ago. I used different textured fabric to create effects.

Just a small sample of the whole.

As you can see there is no lack of inspiration just lack of application, there is so much I now want to explore…. watch this space.