textile art

Another Quilt for Munich

| Chrisse Seager

I have now finished my second quilt to go to Munich with zero3, Study in Aubergine 1.  Well, it still needs a label but I have done the bindings and sleeve which I hate doing. Here it is finished and photographed for my artist statement:

Study in Aubergine 1 Christine Seager

For a change, I have faced this quilt as I felt my usual binding would complicate the edges.

On the social networking scene, I have had a number of Facebook friends requests which I have accepted. This means I should update my Facebook page and then start keeping it updated. My eldest son has just cycled from Alaska to Washing DC kept us up-to-date using Instagram so I also need to pay some attention to my Instagram account – so much to do and so little time.

Til next time

Chrisse

Experimenting and FOQ 2015

| Chrisse Seager

On my list of “things to do” is to be more experimental with my quilts. So yesterday, I sliced into a small quilt I had started and rearranged the bits. On the way, I learnt some lessons – need to work out the edges of the design better as they are not good enough. Just need to analyse what to do next time round.

I also changed the way I stitch the quilt and rather like the results.  Here it is on my design board – 12inches square. I used the fabrics I have been making with my Matthew Harris spring drawing tool that give such lovely marks when monoprinted on white cloth.

IMG_20150727_164334124_HDR

If you are going to Festival of Quilts, I have a quilt on the CQ Challenges stand called Fool’s Gold. We have goldfinches in the garden and really they are a beautiful yellow, not gold. The stand should be good – selection was apparently very through. And I am loving not being in the usual pre-FOQ panic as Margaret Pratt, Hilary Grayson and my friend Claire Passmore are in charge this year. I shall be there as I am doing a talk on the history of CQ Challenges with Hilary Gooding – no pressure.

Fool’s Gold looks like this:

ChristineSeager_ Fool's Gold

Enjoy the Festival if you are going – maybe see you there.

Chrisse

Alice – last day

| Chrisse Seager

We got sent out for a walk again. Then we came back to make books and do anything else we needed to finish off. So I made books with some of my papers and then soya waxed some of them. Here is one of mine. 

 
   And another. So I now have June’s book. Just need to finish April’s and start May’s!!

Then time to pack up and come home. A great workshop – so very glad I did it. 

Alice Fox -day 3

| Chrisse Seager

Well, Day 3 hit my weak spot – weaving. This is a skill for which I have very little patience and even less aptitude. 

It was a beautiful day so we went up to the meadow and sat around picnic style twisting grasses into threads. I was rubbish at it!! I had to do a section on weaving when I did my Open College of Arts Textile course. I only did one piece and took against weaving as a requisite skill. I did do a small piece – others all did a better job than me. Jackie kindly twisted a piece for me later in the day so I could stick it in my book. 

In the afternoon, we did proper weaving on a frame – except for yours truly. Everyone else used a frame and set up their warp in thread and wove in thread and grasses. Here is what I did on one of my pieces of wood collected on a walk.

  
It was much more satisfying for me. Jude did a fabulous piece which I have on my camera and will hopefully remember to download tomorrow.

Just in case you are wondering, this year’s book project is in a bad place. Less procrastination required.

More on Alice tomorrow.

Alice Fox – more

| Chrisse Seager

Day two – more walking and then we did monoprinting of the leaves and grasses we had collected. We also used a pasta machine as a press to print. Here are some of my prints:

  

I liked the grasses and some of the leaves but some I found too “it’s a leaf and so”! The grasses had movement and interest. But different things float different people’s boats and later in the week, Alice showed us a way of overcoming the “flat” print.

More tomorrow.

Matthew Harris workshop

| Chrisse Seager

Recently I went on a workshop run by Matthew Harris at Bobby Britnell’s Moor Hall Farmhouse studio. The studio is in the middle of nowhere – beautiful countryside and lots of sheep, mostly on the road. 

I am a great fan of Matthew’s work and was delighted to get a place on the course. I wasn’t quite prepared for what we did!! We had to take something with us that was no longer in use – suggestions were an old shoe, handbag or anything else that we could take apart. I took the head of a carpet cleaner we threw out some years ago – not sure why the head remained in the garage. So the rules were – we had to take the object apart completely. Then number all the different components. Using dice we had to select 3 bits to make a drawing tool. I ended up with a spring, a bolt and a small rod which I sort of wrapped together. Then we had to use it to draw the original object from memory – of course, I forgot to take a photo of the original!! There were some fabulous drawings from the real artists in the room. Here is mine at the top of the photo below.

  
In discussions with Matthew towards the end of the course, I hit an interesting problem. Matthew wanted to know where I planned to take what I had been doing into my work. He was concerned that I said that it was unlikely to be incorporated in the near future, except in my sketchbooks. I know that when I did a Denise Lach course four years ago, it took a long time for the concepts of her text as texture to be incorporate in any of my work. I need lots of time to mull over and play with it to make it my own. 

So yesterday, I tried to use the same tool to draw on fabric. I wanted to get a similar image discharged on black and miserably failed. The tool doesn’t work well with either formosol or discharge paste. It needed something stiffer and gooey so I switched to textile inks – still difficult but much better. I now have a pile of fabric like the bottom half of the photo above. Next step is to thickener up the formosol paste and see if that will work.

Better get on with it. Hope you are having a creative day.

Beware what you tick

| Chrisse Seager

I submitted a quilt for an exhibition at Olympia in London in March. On the form, we were asked if our image could be used for promotion. Fine by me – if my quilt is in the exhibition, I am very happy to have my quilt used to promote the show. There was no promotion for the exhibition stand at Olympia and my quilt came home as it was not selected for further shows.

Some of the quilts in the exhibition at Olympia were selected to be used in further shows. Not mine – it is sitting on my plan chest under a pile of other quilts. Image my surprise when I saw this flyer –

IMG_1959-0.PNG

My quilt is promoting a show in which it is not included and won’t be included. We did suggest to the exhibition organiser that it should be – the answer was no and no apologies for using my image.

I shall be more careful when I tick boxes on quilt exhibition forms!! Shame, Fractured Images is a much better name for the quilt than I gave it. Perhaps I’ll plagiarise that!

We move on ….