Filed under: home | Tags: abstract expressionist, abstract Robert Rauschenberg, tractor troubles
The wonderfully anarchic work of Robert Rauschenberg
I spent a good chunk of last night panicking about yesterday’s blog post – about exploring the form and colour of a harebell. I mean WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME! Where is my inner anarchist, where is the wild, gregarious abstractor, the foot thumper, the twister and turner of ideas. Obviously nowhere to be seen last night! However I am sensing some devilish, naughty little creations peeping over my creative wall so – watch out!
Not exactly the Brad Pitt of Tractors...but we love him anyway.
However, today we have been mending tractors amongst other things. Fred,Frodo, Trevor (see mammoth facebook discussion regarding his name) decided to rumble to a halt. It’s at times like this that I thank utterly everything that I have a man about who isn’t phased by cylinders covered in diesel treacle and fuel filters gunged up with something that looks like cat vomit. I like to stand by as a nurse might in surgery…predicting what tool might be needed next and handing it to the surgeon with attentive, quiet confidence and wishing I had spent more time listening in Physics and less time impersonating our very small teacher. It’s when Yorick asks me for an opinion that my mask of knowing is whipped from my being like the unveiling of a scooby doo villain. It goes a bit like this.
Yorick: Could you undo the fuel cap Sarah?
Me: Yeaaah sure! I wander quietly around the tractor tentatively tugging at anything resembling a knob until my eyes spot a likely looking thing that I can turn. I turn and turn and then the whole front bonnet thing falls off. Ooops! Wrong knob.
Fortunately we can address this imbalance in technical ability with my prowess when it comes to household administrative duties so I don’t feel totally useless in this duet of life and I do get to huff and puff occasionally and make Yorick feel incompetent. However tonight, with Trevor Tractor. I DID.
Filed under: in my studio | Tags: applique, bespoke blinds, commissions, diferent blinds, machine embroidery, made to measure blinds, one off blinds, roman blinds, unique blinds
Phew. I finally start to settle back into some sort of routine after the summer session where I felt a little like a ping pong ball in play – batted to and fro from A to B. In some ways great to camp a bit, festival a bit, explore a bit. However I increasingly started to feel the need to settle – a lot, and how better to ground myself than with the study of bluebells (harebells if you’re English) for a Roman Blind.
Sketching flowers from various angles for applique
Included with the blind was a complimentary lampshade made from the sample piece used to try out different techniques prior to making.
Tangle of stems and a flower head.
and the blind itself was much appreciated by a delightful client.
Harebell Roman blind set into the dormer window.
Next project…Sloe berry blinds x 2 and a set of curtains. So far so good.
Filed under: in my studio | Tags: applique, embroidery, old table lines, patches, quilting, Wedding quilt
Can you remember these quilt patches from some time ago? The ones with the small birds and flowers. (see Post Tweedle Dee Dee) Well they have now been incorporated into a quilt…or at the very least, the start of one.
cuckoo and Maples
The patches were intended for my Dad, to be part of an 80th birthday quilt, but he is now 82 and announced last month that he and his partner Lois were going to get married. After some discussion among sisters we decided that the intended birthday quilt would be adapted to become a wedding quilt which could be pieced and layered here and quilted by their friends in Canada where they spend half the year.
Patch details
Each patch was cut from old table linens found in a number of charity shops. Incidentally this turned out to be apt given that Lois adores a good charity shop and has familiarised herself with just about every “Help the Aged” this side of Hadrian’s wall.
I had already introduced the Scottish connection with embroideries of local flora and fauna but I needed to introduce Canada in some way: Maple leaves was bonded to some patches and they would later be quilted at a Bee in Canada.
Maple leaves in Blues, greens and salmon.
the third verse of words of Kahlil Gibran’s wise wise words on Marriage were embroidered around the central square:
“Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the Oak tree and the Cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
Letters from the back
Strips of scrap fabrics in stoney hues were pieced around the text. In my mind they, to a certain extent, represent the stone pillars of the temple.
As ever, I find the back almost more enticing.
The top layer is not quite finished. I still want to add a border with the tunes that my sister wrote for Lois’s mum and Dad – Jean and Sherman Yelland.
So a wee bit more work and then layering up. We’ll probably have a quilting or two here before the quilt crosses to the other side of the world for the attention and stitching of friends further afield.
Central square before the stoney strips were set around it.
So this has all got me thinking about setting up a series of quilting workshops here on the island, perhaps with a bit of song thrown in. What do you reckon to that idea?
