Ooops - Lost a couple of galleries!!

Well - it was predictable, wasn't it?? I got things a bit wrong - and not just my spelling. So, I forgot to link up the last couple of galleries: Silhouettes and Tulip Mania. The latter is my newest exhibition, and so the gallery is ready to go, but basically still empty. But Silhouettes contains some of my very first art textile pieces, including 'Waiting for the Post (above) and 'Fritillaria' (below)

Fritillaria was, in fact, the first art textile and first painted quilt I made. It's quite large: 60" x 30" and was inspired by a visit to some fields full of fritillaries in Oxfordshire. I'd already made this little journal quilt for the contemporary quilts groups journal quilt group.

and really liked the pattern and flower silhouette. This one is only 8" x 10" but its rather lovely. Its needle felted on my embellisher and then quilted using a patterned chequerboard machine stitch. Both the background pattern and my stitch choice were inspired by the patterns found on fritillary flowers. The silhouette was added in black fabric and again machine stitched.

I really liked this little quilt, and decided to make the larger one as one of my final City and Guild pieces. To needle felt a large quilt background was going to take a very long time, so I experimented with other ways to get this lovely pattern effect. And came up with quilting the piece first and then painting over the quilting stitches, in layers of colour, to create the effect I wanted

It looks effective, doesn't it? I also remember I was so nervous about free machine quilting, that I stitched all the way around all the silhouettes with a presser foot on!! I blame the 'quilt police' for that ... they made it seem such a big deal. Luckily, I've got over their rules now, and happily free machine - to excess at times ... like this piece ...

So for any of you out there who also feel nervous about free machine stitching .. take heart and just go for it. Art is about getting whats in your head and soul out there, not the number of stitches per inch!!

I was really lucky that Fritillaria was chosen to be exhibited as part of a Region 10 (QGBI) exhibition in the Cathedral. It gave me such a boost of confidence right when I was just getting going.

'Waiting for the Post' was completely different, and inspired by my beautiful lurcher Dixter, who would sit for hours on the chair by the window, waiting to woof at the postman (who he loved to bit sin fact!!) I loved the vibrant commercial fabrics that were around at the time, and really enjoyed making this piece, and the following 2. 'By the River is my older dog, Nigel, standing gazing at the river by our old house. And 'No Fishing' is the naughty but beautiful herons on the local nature reserve. They chose this spot, right by the no fishing sign on purpose, I think. I really enjoyed the challenges thrown up by using a very noisy palette of materials (a love that still stands today) and just the sheer fun of making these. They are also mounted on board - double mounted in this case. The top layer is the 'quilt' - but I wanted to get way from always using hanging sleeves. I'd been used to mounting my embroideries to display, so decided I would do the same with quilts. It was a new idea at the time, and I made the mounting boards very much part of the piece. My feeling was) and still is), that it makes them much easier to hang, and easier for potential purchasers to understand them as art. And at this size, I feel they look better like this, than o hanging sleeve. I still mount all my work on canvas or board, or in frames, unless there is a really good reason for me to want a soft hanging.

Iver made lots more silhouettes, in a few different styles - so do have a look at the gallery (its visible now) Just looking at these makes me want to do some more!! I hope it's been interesting to hear a little bit about the backgrounds of some of these pieces - and I'll finish with a couple more silhouettes, that I made as Christmas pieces. Another one of my hounds, and one of my lovely cat ... she was complaining!!

Thank you for visiting - talk again soon - Hilary xx