We Apologise for the Loss of Normal Service

The HelloWorldReadMe blog would like to apologise for the loss of pictures you are currently experiencing. For the time being, we will continue in sound only.

No word from the nice people at Blogger yet. I am going back to real life for the time being.

Here are some of the pictures you would have got:

closeups of the old blue quilt to illustrate my comments

another quilt inspired by it

acrylic paintings & techniques

prints

etc etc

Textiles: Lessons from an old Blue Quilt - Part 2

What I remember from using this quilt as a child was noticing several things in the design.

1. There weren't many picture fabrics, but I used to look at these tiny animals.

2. The maker had used the same fabric for several hexagon rosettes, but she'd picked out a different colour from the patterned fabric to use in the centre, and she'd chosen different areas of the design to maximise the amount of the chosen colour.

*** Blogger is back to its old tricks. I've had 3 goes at putting up pictures, and this is the only one it will actually upload. I will try to finish off this entry when I've got the time and the patience. This is enough for tonight. Grrrr. ***

3. She'd sometimes had to mix her fabrics within a rosette.

4. Where she'd used striped or checked fabric, she'd made it into a pattern in the rosette.

5. And I just remember the joy of seeing how she'd used a plain colour to harmonise with a patterned fabric.

When I made my own patchwork 15 years later, these things informed my choices and my designs. I'm hoping to do the same for the little girl who will get the I-spy quilt. I want her to enjoy looking at the quilt and to learn about colour and design at the same time.

Textiles: Lessons from an old Blue Quilt - Part 1

When I stayed at my grandmother's house as a little girl, I slept under this quilt. It and another quilt were supposed to have been made by a woman in my family. They're both 'one-patch' quilts with a plain coloured border, i.e. they each use only one shape, here hexagons and in the other, oblongs. Neither of them has any wadding or quilting, so when I started to make patchwork in the days before it became fashionable again, I didn't quilt anything either! As there were unfinished quilt pieces lying around my grandmother's house, too, I copied my ancestor-quilter's method (which was English piecing) and made everything over papers - even log cabin, which was immensely boring and quite unsuccessful. Later on I found books, exhibitions and other quilters, but in the mid-seventies all I had for guidance was this poor old quilt, which had suffered when patchwork dropped out of fashion, being used as a dustsheet and collecting paint and varnish stains. I always imagined the woman who made it designed it herself and used scraps of her own fabric, but a couple of years ago I came across a very similar quilt in a charity sale: the same hexagon pattern with a central rosette, the same blue border, etc. That made me wonder if it was made from a kit, or copied from a design in a newspaper.

Horti/Photog: spring diary 2

Apologies for the quality of this photo, but it's taken through a window and without a flash, so as not to scare the beast! Hedgie arrived promptly at dusk last night and polished off the cat food. At the same time the bats reappeared. And although the birds aren't using the new blue bowl, we discovered the cat is drinking from it.

My partner cleared away the tall bamboo last week as the new, dark red shoots were coming through; he used the leaves to make a huge nest for the cat, which I found today also doubles as another 'sepia world' subject.

Horticulture: spring diary

This amelanchier was a recent gift from a friend. I've wanted one for years, as I loved the two that were in my grandmother's garden and remember playing with her cat underneath them in the springtime. Anyway, when I got it, all it had were tiny buds but over the past few weeks it's developed until it finally flowered this week. It's a mass of blossom.

I bought this little bowl as a gift for my partner, but really because I liked it. The birds (especially the robins, blackbirds and dunnocks) drink from and bathe in a wooden tub: we call it a pond but that's a bit of a joke. It's small and at the moment it's choked with plants, which is why they find it perfect to stand in. I thought they might use this, but they haven't so far.

These tulips have just come into flower: they're called 'Fusilier' and they're a stunning, glowing scarlet and multi-headed. I bought the bulbs last summer, put them in the garage and forgot about them. A few weeks ago we found they'd started to sprout, so I hastily planted them in fresh compost in an old plastic tub, and they flowered really quickly. I'm sure that's not the recommended method, but it worked. I did the same with some purply-black parrot tulips but they seem slower to get going.

Two days ago our hedgehog reappeared! This is great news as we weren't sure he/she would survive the winter. We'd never had one before that stayed in the garden, only ones that passed through. It loved cat food: it would appear promptly each night and look for the bowl, then stand in it and clear every scrap. One night I experimented with leftover pasta, sauce and cheese - the hedgehog loved that too. I'm sure this is the same hedgie, because it cleared the bowl on each of the last two nights. The cat isn't too keen on it, though.

She's very good about sharing her food with the birds: the funny thing is, the cat will eat the jelly and leave the meaty chunks, while birds do it the other way round. The blackbirds and robins are especially partial to cat food, and now turn up as soon as I feed her, waiting for her to finish so they can have their turn. She also (inadvertently) feeds the rooks and magpies. She'll bring mice and shrews home and then abandon them, dead, on the lawn, where they make a snack for the birds.

Textiles: I-Spy Alphabet Quilt

This is my current project: it's an i-spy quilt for a child. 'i-spy' is the name given to a quilt that incorporates lots of picture fabrics, so that you can play games spotting or matching up items in it, e.g. fish or dogs. This is a great excuse to buy some lovely, fun fabrics like this one with butterflies on it, which I got at Hansons in Dorset this week.

Lots of the i-spy quilts I've seen in exhibitions have seemed chaotic to me because their makers used only picture fabrics, so the whole thing was very busy. As with a painting, you need 'quiet' areas where the eye can rest. So I decided to include plain and nearly-plain fabrics too, like these which I bought as two packs from Hobbycraft some time ago. Just the sight of these colours made me want to start work!

I've started making nine-patch blocks (2" squares joined to make a 6" block) which I'll alternate with 6" picture fabric patches. I hope this will give an interesting structure to the whole quilt, while being relatively quick and easy to make. It's interesting to see which fabric designs work well in 6" and 2" pieces, and it's fun picking out different areas of a design. I'm using the quick nine-patch method where possible (joining strips and cutting them apart), but some picture fabrics require individual 2" squares to be cut out. This quilt design should also be flexible, as I don't yet know the required finished size. I'll just make lots of blocks, play around with them and use the leftovers in something else.

The other element in the quilt is this alphabet panel fabric, which also came from Hobbycraft. The size of the individual squares was awkward with the 6" blocks, so I think I'm going to cut it into four horizontal strips and separate them with the other blocks.

Photography: repeating designs

I moved the camera when I took a picture of some fairy lights outside last Christmas. This was a small section of that photograph.

Then I reflected and repeated it to produce this. I used to do this a lot with images I created from scratch on DPaint, and always wondered if anyone has produced software to do this many times with one keystroke. I guess everybody tries this when they get a paint program so I'm not doing anything spectacular, but I'd be interested to know if there are any tessellation programs you'd recommend to speed things up.

Textiles: Tai Chi Sword Bag Images 2

diagram - see instructions
I guess I could've done it on the computer but life's too short. It's taken me nearly 3 hours to get this far!




the opening top pockets and fastenings



oops! the iron was a bit too hot...

Textiles: Tai Chi Sword Bag Images 1

Bag open, showing weapons


Fold first section in half, to first quilt/fold line


Fold over to next quilt/ fold line


Fold over to next quilt/ fold line


Fold over to edge of bag


Bag closed, ready to put strap over end of bag

Textiles: Tai Chi Sword Bag Instructions

See 'Disclaimer & Terms of Use'

These instructions are for a simplified version of the sword bag shown in these photographs: simpler in that you won’t get the plain bands which appear on the red brocade bag. I used a gorgeous synthetic brocade with dragons and phoenixes on it, but it was difficult to work with as it was floppy and the threads pulled if I caught the fabric on a pin or on my machine’s feed dogs, or if I looked at it in a funny way. This delicacy necessitated the use of bands of the inner fabric (a tough, red cotton) to protect the brocade from being rubbed when the bag was used. The brocade also melted at a much lower temperature than the cotton, something I forgot when I was halfway through making it. Thanks to Fabricland for tracking down a roll of the red brocade to its Poole branch for me, so I could buy some more and start again! If I was making it again I’d use cotton for the outside and inside, so that’s what these instructions assume. I’ve written this for competent quilters; if that’s not you, then ask a friendly quilter or look in a quilt book or magazine for advice. One photograph shows the weapons this was designed to hold: if yours are different sizes, then adjust the measurements to fit.

Materials:
2 pieces of fabric, each 38” x 56” (this gives a 1” seam allowance all round)
2oz wadding (batting), 38” x 56”
1” wide ribbon, 2¼ yards
Medium piping cord, approx 3 yards
Beads, buttons or toggles, 5
Thin cord, leather tubing, etc, to attach the above if necessary (approx 1 yard) and to make loops for them (approx 1 yard)

1. Mark seam and quilt lines on fabric (see diagram).
2. Sandwich wadding between inner and outer fabrics to produce an oblong ready to quilt. Because I wasn’t going to do decorative quilting, I used the ‘bag’ method, so by this stage all the edges were turned in and finished off. If you’re going to do heavy quilting on it, you may want to turn the edges under later.
3. Do decorative quilting if you want to.
4. Finish edges if necessary.
5. Top-stitch ¼-½” in from the edge all round.
6. Quilt 6” in from top and bottom (see diagram). These are the horizontal fold lines.
7. Turn up bottom 6”, ready for stitching.
8. Quilt the long lines, top to bottom (see diagram). Stitch at each side, too, over your top-stitching. This makes permanent pockets at the bottom, and gives vertical fold lines.
9. Turn the top 6” down to see where to place the fastenings. The top pockets can be opened, so put fastenings at each side and on each of the 3 long quilt/fold lines. I used wooden beads and braid loops.
10. Attach ribbon 14” up from the bottom edge and 14” above that, stitching at each edge and on each quilt/fold line. Allow a little ’give’ in each section: lay ribbon flat on fabric, then add about ½” before stitching.
11. If using a tassel, attach it near the top of the outside of the last section of the bag. (This tassel came off the Chinese sword.)
12. Tie ends of piping cord together. This is used as a removable strap for the bag.

Disclaimer & Terms of Use

Life may not be a rehearsal but it’s an experiment, and you should approach all my postings in that way. I’m presenting everything in this blog as a record of my work and thoughts, which I hope may entertain and inspire you. I am not responsible for what you do with any of this. I’ve tried to be accurate but it’s up to you to check and decide what you want to do. And don’t forget health and safety: let’s be careful out there, people. I’m happy for you to use my ideas for inspiration or to copy my designs for any non-commercial purpose; all I ask is that you credit this website if you do so. Enjoy!

Textiles - pin box

This box is my best recent find. It cost about a pound in a charity shop, and I originally bought it just because I liked the design: it's 60's-ish and perspex with a metal lid (and marked 'WMF' - does anybody know who that is?). I guess it was originally a cigarette box, as the inner base curves up to each side - but this makes it brilliant for sewing. I store my flat-flower-headed pins in it and they're easy to take out, whereas with a plain oblong box they used to hide in the corners.

I found just one on an auction site and it sold for £11, so this box is not going to make my fortune, but it's nice to have something that makes life easier!

Photography - Black & White World

Did anyone (else) ever say, "I thought this was a colour world photographed in black and white, then I realised it's a black and white world photographed in colour"? No? Must've been me, then.

Anyway, I've been experimenting with producing pictures which look as though they were taken as, or modified to be, sepia-toned, but which show the actual local colour. So here I've taken a close-up of some old pampas grass stems, and this is their real colour.

This picture also reminds me of carvings by Grinling Gibbons - those panels you get in dining rooms with a couple of dead ducks and some veg hanging up.

Photography - Fabulous Fabric

How beautiful are these? This is a recent photography project, using a wonderful piece of fabric and taking pictures of it under different lighting conditions.

I bought the fabric to use in a fancy dress costume and originally photographed it straight, to show the person I was making it for; then I realised its possibilities and spent the next two weeks investigating.

BTW, I haven't modified or even cropped these.

Textiles - Tai Chi Sword Bag

This is my latest project, finished this week. It was designed with the help of the Tai Chi enthusiast it was made for, and is based on an artist's brush roll. For anybody who'd like to make something similar, later on I'll post more photos, a diagram and instructions.