Reading

I've managed to do quite a bit of reading this summer at the cottage.  I'm somewhat hooked on Peter Robinson (no relation) mysteries and feel that I could land in parts of Yorkshire and start walking and I would know my way!  Another odd mystery was Lie To Me by Timothy Findlay.  But I enjoyed it.

While in Boston last weekend for the wedding of my nephew (and what a wonderful celebration that was!) I wandered into Borders bookstore only to find that they had just received the Canadian Kobo readers and were promoting them for a very nice price.  So I bought one.  I haven't used it a lot -in fact have only bought and downloaded one book.  But I think that it will be very useful for overseas travel.  It works outside, which I hear is a disadvantage to some of the others.  And I decided that it needed a little case to protect it.  So whipped one up with some more of my gelatin plate printed fabric.

August

It has been a slow month for sewing.  I'm in the middle of a hospice quilt - due soon.  Procrastination must be my middle name as I've had it long enough that I shouldn't be down to the wire!  And next will come a few other deadlines - least of which will be the 12 challenge of Reflections.

This is a little piece made for a group quilt.  What I like about it is the use of my gelatin plate printed fabric- I think it worked out rather well and certainly not the usual abstract use!

Summer has been good this year, and August has been especially so - the weather good, the corn delicious, bike rides to markets, and lots of time at the cottage.  Our daughter is back from the UK for a month and there have been birthday parties, and there are weddings to go to.  

It's also been a good time to reflect on my art and how to develop it.  Stay tuned!

Black & White and Red all over

The online group that I participate in had a challenge of producing a 12" square quilt on the theme of "Seeing Red".  This is my effort.

When I started to think about my quilt the Red Shirts were barricading themselves in Bangkok.  And trouble was brewing.  Red is my favourite colour - I think of it as a cheerful thing, lively, energetic, and full of promise.  But throughout our modern history it is a colour that is associated with violence, evil, and oppression.  Which got my goat a bit.  

I've used my fabric that I made during a Rayna Gillman workshop on gelatin plate printing, and the red is my own dyed fabric.  I've embroidered a variety of names such as red shirts, red brigade, khmer rouge, red guard, seeing red, red square, and then racking my brain for the last:  rackham le rouge.  A little humour never hurts.  

on a lighter note

This was also a good month for inspiration. I went to MQX in Rhode Island and saw some wonderful workmanship. Great quilting ideas on some of the quilts. Since they're not mine to show I won't upload pics that I took, but look for Claudia Pfeil - fantastic!

I also did some more gelatin plate printing, this time in a course with Rayna Gilman who taught me the valuable lesson of learning when to stop! These are a couple of pieces that I did. I'm very pleased with the process and the soft lines that were produced when using stamps. This blue piece was stamped with my art eraser stamps that I made many moons ago.

The other two pieces have very nicely covered up some ugly snow dyed fabric. In fact I have managed to cover a few metres of boring fabric from my snow dyeing efforts.