Carnival

Art time yesterday was spent stitching on the appliqué wall hanging I’m doing for City and Guilds. I think I’ve posted enough ‘in progress’ pics of that – the hand stitching is taking a long time, but I want it to be finished next time you see it!

In the evening we went down to the Kendal Torchlight Carnival, a procession of marching bands, Caribbean carnival bands, heavy horses, steam engines and decorated floats. I haven’t quite mastered the art of night-time photography but a few pics did come out OK. I love seeing the dramatic carnival costumes and the dancing and drumming is so exciting. The mosaic links to my Flickr.

Kendal Torchlight mosaic

a good dyeing day today

Actually, yesterday and today, since dyeing isn’t a process to be hurried. It always amazes me how the alchemy takes place and this…

dyed fabric in tray

becomes this…

dyed fabric drying

and then this…

ironed dyed fabrics

and then – who knows? could be a skirt… or a quilt…

though today was not a good quilting day. Suffice to say there was much too much unpicking of stitches involved. And tearing of hair.

Why is it that on a practice piece everything flows along without mishap but when it really matters (that would be my City and Guilds assessment) the opposite is true? I’m not being perfectionist about this, but I really don’t think I can hand in something that looks as if a demented ant did the quilting. OK, deep breath, good night’s sleep, try again tomorrow…

samples for hanging

I took advantage of the sunshine yesterday to make a felt sample outdoors, and spent most of this afternoon stitching it to sample ideas for my City and Guilds appliqué assessment – I wrote about the design in this post. I’ve changed my mind and gone down to two layers now and if I need a third (I’m not sure if this actually has to be technically a quilt), I’ll add it to the back – two layers on the front will obscure the felt layer more than I want. My roses have become more open as they just looked like blobs otherwise – not abstract roses – just blobs…

samples1.jpg

I’m expecting some silk gauze to arrive soon and hoping it may be a little more sheer than the silk in this sample, which is just some I had in roughly the right colours. I need to practise my machine stitching too as it’s ages since I’ve done any – I like freedom and a certain rawness – but only if it’s deliberate!