We are off to Kings Sutton near Banbury for World Textile Day Central
on Saturday 3rd June. This time we have a much bigger car than last
year, when we had to turn the Micra into a tardis! So we have a lot more
of this than last time...
I got one of Bob's baskets at the last WTD - wonder what I'll bring home this time?
We had a get together for some of the sashiko students from this year's and last year's Edinburgh courses on Sunday, to see how everyone is getting on. Catriona, Fiona and Jo brought their sampler blocks and we had fun trying out a few different arrangements, deciding on how to use the sashing and border fabrics etc. With tea and refreshments organised by Fiona too.
I have arranged next season's dates for our sashiko course at Edinburgh Patchwork. They are all Saturdays once again - 7th October 2017, 21st October, 18th November25th November (I've had to change this as the workroom is double booked for another class!), 9th December, 3rd February 2018, 3rd March, 24th March and 14th April. As we have done in previous years, the class will run from 10.30 a.m. to 4p.m. and the shop opens at 10. The course outline is staying the same -
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Session 1 - rice
stitch variations and woven stitches - small samples –on 4 1/2in squares, with
grids directly drawn on the fabrics.
Session 2-
persimmon flower stitch, coin stitch and variations - small samples and long
sampler, plus more variations on persimmon flower stitch - triple, igeta pattern, infinite - on 4 1/2in
squares.
Session 3 –
introduction to flower diamond pattern, fish scale stitch, diamond stitch,
abacus stitch - on 4 1/2in squares plus stitching on stripes and patterns in
circles.
Session 4 – fans
and kamon crests – marking and stitching corner fans and family crests – on 9in
squares, using paper templates for the fans and chaco transfer paper for the
crests.
Session 5 –
drawing larger patterns with straight lines – raimon (lightning spiral), masuzashi
(stacking boxes), asanoha (hemp leaf)
and elongated asanoha – all on 9in squares.
Session 6 –
moths/butterflies, grasses and bamboo patterns – patterns for all over
pictorial effects - on 4 1/2in squares
Session 7 –
drawing larger patterns with curved lines – shippou
(seven treasures – like wineglass), fundou
(balance weights – like applecore patchwork), nowaki (grasses in clamshell shapes), seigaiha (ocean waves, also clamshell shaped) and ganzezashi (sea urchin stitch, a
variation on shippou) – all on 9in squares.
Session 8 -–
sewing samples together into a patchwork sampler – with a brief look at some of
the denser hitomezashi patterns -
paving block, kasuri (ikat) check,
ground stitch, cedar stitch, facing butterfly, arrow stitch.It will be possible to do this session with
any combination of samples made in the previous sessions – 4 1/2in and 9in –
using 1in sashing strips.
The cost this year will be £40 per session, payable one session in advance. Please contact me via my website if you are interested in attending.
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This is Catriona's sampler in progress. She is going to make a wallhanging (all three samplers from Sunday will be wallhangings) and luckily is just about to move into a new flat with high ceilings! Apologies for the shadows in the photos. It was really sunny on Sunday and the room we were in had a logo on the window, and pillars on the facade.
Fiona with her sampler (and I'm trying to block the light a bit!) She is going to use the green/ochre/cream striped tsumugi cotton in the first photo for her sashing, playing with the stripes going in different directions. There are touches of green/autumn coloured shaded threads from Hida Sashiko here and there on the blocks too.
Jo's sampler will include a gorgeous hemp and cotton stencilled yukata along with striped tsumugi shading across blues and purples, and a two tone purple and black tsumugi for the sashing. Lovely effects possible with these fabrics and the sashiko blocks. Purple details in the blocks.
I tried another photo a bit further away from the window!
Sam and her mum Pamela from last year's group joined us. These are the panels they started in the extra December class we did last year, where we made marumon (circular designs) inspired by kamon crests and other Japanese designs, making kirikami papercuts for our templates. Sam's panel is above.
Jo also made a panel in that class and it is almost finished, inspired by a piece of antique Japanese embroidery.
I've been asked to run this class again - are people interested in it?
I'm working on another version of my Masu quilt, which was designed for kimono width fabrics (although it also works with fat quarters). This time, half the fabrics are chusen stencil-dyed cotton yukata and half woven stripes from Nukumori Koubou. I'm using one metre pieces and only twelve fabrics, unlike the original (below) which had eighteen different silk and wool kimono fabrics. Because the yukata designs are very large and there is a lot of variety in the strips cut from one fabric, I wanted to see how well the pattern would work with fewer fabrics. It is taking a little more planning to keep them really well mixed up!
This time, I'm going to use a narrower border too, so the finished quilt will be slightly smaller, at approx 69 inches square.
Instead of alternating between light and dark fabrics in my blocks, I'm alternating between striped and stenciled, whether they are dark or light. The amount of plain background in most of the yukata prints means that I've managed to get plain and patterned pieces from the same fabric.
Some of the stripes are very colourful. I'm using the sixth (blue) stripe from the top in the photo above, and the one just below it, which is a pretty pastel stripe, also on the top in the photo below. The yellow stripe is also in the blocks.
I have a printed pattern available for this quilt and will also be making some kits of the yukata and stripe versions - the colourful one I'm making, a greens/purple/yellow version and a blue/white/red/bright colours one. Photos once I've got the blocks finished and the top made.
Thanks to Tarja Burlison for the photo of my talk for the Quilters' Guild's Region 16 Regional Day in Perth last Saturday. We had a very enjoyable day, including presentations from some of the Guild's specialist groups (Contemporary, Modern, Miniature and Traditional - I'm a member of the last two) and a lecture by Professor Malcolm Lochhead about Keeping Glasgow in Stitches, the community mixed media textile project he designed in 1990 (there is also a book about the banners available and you can see photos on his website on the link above). If you get a chance to hear his talk about the banners, he is an excellent speaker and also very amusing with the stories about the imagery and creation of each piece.
The quilt on the table to my right is the beautiful Edwardian Welsh silk patchwork quilt I bought eighteen months ago from the Antique Textiles Company. I am planning to make a new version of it soon and will be offering the pattern to Today's Quilter. One of the members on Saturday thought this part of the border looked like beach huts - what do you think?
I'm the main afternoon speaker at Region 16's Regional Day in Perth on Saturday 20th May. My talk is 'Samplers and Settings', which is quite a new one and hasn't been heard very often. All booking info is here. Maybe see you there?
My second workshop last week was with Chichester Quilters, where members got started on sashiko kinchaku bag panels. I don't have any photos of the workshop in progress, as Glyn took the camera into Chichester while I was teaching and enjoyed a mooch around some of the local architectural gems.
He spotted this piece of Roman mosaic in the cathedral, with a swastika twist pattern that later traveled along the Silk Route to China and later to Japan.
He thought the background on this embroidery looked just like free motion machine quilting!
We started our trip to Kent with an outing to see Hartley Morris Men dancing at The Windmill at Weald last week. Glyn joined in for the public dance at the end, Bonny Green Garters (Bampton) -
We stopped briefly in Steyning on our way to set up for World Textile Day at Wickham, which is where I spotted the wonderfully sabi side of this old building -
At World Textile Day. I have packed some kits for the Fanoe quilt (behind Glyn in the photo) now I've got lots of vintage blue and white yukata cottons in stock.
A rare quiet moment at WTD, during the morning lecture.
Our theme this year is 'Colour', so I showed a furisode karinui (tacked fabric) and a man's dance yukata.
Here's Glyn at Toad Rock near Tunbridge Wells on Sunday. It is kind of traditional for us to have a family photo here. There's a photo of my mum at the rock about 60 years ago.
On our way over to New Milton yesterday, we had to stop off at Arundel and have a short exploration. The town looks so lovely when seen from the A27, with the cathedral and castle looking majestic and fascinating. The rest of the town didn't disappoint, with lots of antique shops and galleries, and an interesting bath shop (closed on Monday - probably just as well!)
I spotted this lovely Japanese Imari ceramic cat, about 13in (33cm) long, so he's coming home with us.
After a fun evening with New Forest Quilters showing them (some of!) my UFOs, we had an Introduction to Shonai Sashiko workshop today, and they all have a few extra UFOs now. Tomorrow's sashiko workshop is with Chichester quilters, so I'll get some photos from that too.
We saw this amazing orange washing machine and tumble drier as we were leaving New Milton. If I was going to be looking at a machine in my workroom, I'd want one of these...
They would go only too well with my Frister Rossman Cub 3!
