Paper weaving.

The other set of artwork we did in November was paper weaving which I feel has thrown up some great ideas for quilts - particularly optical illusion quilts.
This first sample was weaving inside a shape which was based on one of the shapes from my 1960s plates. I really like the almost 3D effect that you get.

This one is weaving using curved pieces, the black strips are curvy and the coloured strips are straight.

This one is weaving a photo with plain strips.

This one is done using strips of varying widths.

I think that there are lots more ways that I could explore possible quilt designs using weaving as a basis. I have actually got a book on woven quilts coming from Santa and will be making some samples when I have had a good chance to study it.

Image Transfer

In November we had two topics in our Research for Design module. The first of these was Image Transfer including digital image manipulation.
I am going to share some of the artwork out of my folder.
As you will already be aware I love Andy Warhol art and this is my take on it using Jonathan's photo.

Below is the original photo. Details of the software I used are on my other blog.

More image manipulation - I liked the way this one squared up the details on the image which may be useful for patchwork design.

This one took away the colour and gave a pencil sketch effect. I have printed this onto a transfer paper which I am then going to recolour before transferring onto fabric.

The photo of this cat has been transferred onto fabric using white emulsion paint. You paint onto the fabric, place the photo onto it face down, smooth using a roller, allow to dry and then peel off the photo. Works surprisingly well!
I also tried to transfer images using acrylic wax instead of the paint - these were disasters!

A montage in the Andy Warhol style.

Images printed onto brown paper.

Images printed onto hand made paper.


Other methods I used were printing onto lightweight vilene, printing directly onto cotton, and using image transfer crayons. You will see the results of these in the samples I have made which I will show soon.

More photos for personal theme.

I was at college last weekend and have shown my work to my tutor. She is really happy with my personal theme but said I needed to show more examples before settling on my area of focus which will be pottery by J&G Meakin.
We have been cleaning today and when washing some of the plates I have on display in the house I decided to photograph them before doing some artwork based on them.


This plate is by Alfred Meakin and I just love the design - I would love to use that as a quilt design.

This photo is a closeup of a jug made by Wade. What I loved was the way the coloured stars have a hexagon as their centre. Again, more quilt inspiration here.

And how could I not include one of the most iconic 1960s pottery designs, Homemaker. This is one of my favourites.

I am hoping to use some of these designs as inspiration for artwork and even quilt samples.

I do have four samples completed that I have not shown yet so hope to get them photographed soon.

Collages and Montages!

Still not 100% sure what the difference is between a collage and a montage - but I think that the first two are montages because they contain whole images and the last one is a collage because a new image is made up from using different elements. Sounds impressive anyway!

This first one is my favourite - it is made up of images of my 1960s plates and some of my decorated papers.

In this one I tried to use the leaf shape to showcase the different decorated papers - monoprinting, sponging, using a roller, rubbings and sponge printing.

This is my collage which turned out better than I was expecting although I still can't decide which way up looks best! I coloured in the central rubbed sample to try to give the piece a focal point.

I am now working on my stitched samples which I hope to show soon.

More Artwork!

Just over a week to go until our next college weekend and I am happy to report that I have completed my artwork for assessment! Now, this is a big thing for me because usually I do my stitching homework and leave the artwork until the last minute.


This is a sponge print based on one of the plates from my personal theme. The pattern on the plate is called 'Aztec' and comes from 1966. I think it looks quite modern.

This is a drawing done with watercolour pencils based on the sugar bowl in the photo. I have also included a photo of the backstamp which I think is lovely. Ascot comes from 1964.

Artwork - scraffito and string prints.

The Research for Design module requires us to put together a portfolio of artwork based on our personal theme. My personal theme is 1960s pottery and so far I have used three pieces of pottery made by J & G Meakin.

The first piece of artwork is a string print of a leaf taken from one of my pieces. I printed it using acrylic paint and then coloured the leaves and the background with drawing ink.

The second sample is scraffito again based on a design on one of my pieces of pottery. The crosses were done in wax crayon and then I washed over the whole page with brown ink. Then I went over just the crosses in black ink. The crosses were then scratched back to reveal the wax crayon underneath.

Here are the photos of the two pieces of pottery used as inspiration.