A Garden Party

I'm a newbie as far as Procreate is concerned but I decided to participate in Jehane's Twelve Days of Elements and hone my skills.

There were Twelve prompts.

The first was A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies.

The second : Proud Peacock.

I decided the Decimals brush would be the element common to all twelve illustrations.

Prompt 3 : Celebration Cake. It was the Queen's Jubilee Celebration weekend at the time.

Prompt 4 : Victorian Glasshouse.

Prompt 5: Picnic Blanket.

That's a traditional Indian rug called a jamakkalam. It's striped and brightly coloured, makes an ideal picnic blanket.

There are samosas and other Indian snacks in that brass tiffin carrier.

Prompt 6: English Flowers. I love the pictures of English meadows filled with wild flowers.

Prompt 7: Cherry Blossoms 

Prompt 8: Garden Birds.

These are Purple rumped sunbirds gathering nectar from the Thunbergia coccinea in my garden.

Prompt 9: Queen Bee. This Prompt made me think.

Three prompts in one: 10, 11 and 12.

Party bunting, Fanciful Topiary and Deck chairs.

At the end of Twelve days the surprise element to the challenge was to combine the Twelve Days prompts into one illustration - Garden Party which could be used to create a jigsaw puzzle of the same name.

It was great completing the challenge. My confidence in using procreate has increased in leaps and bounds, that's the best outcome of doing this challenge.

A Tribute Book

This tribute book is for my father who passed away on the 5th of February 2022. 

Made with the pages of the #buriedearthbookproject. 

The fabric pages of the book which was buried and unearthed after close to three months were quite fragile.

I thought it was fitting to make a book with the fragile fragments appliqued onto pages of unbleached cotton. 

The verse from 2 Timothy 4:7 was what we chose to have engraved on the headstone.

My sister wrote a beautiful tribute message which she read out at the memorial service. I had her handwrite the same in a little booklet which is put into a pocket.

A mild mannered person who loved the outdoors, animals and was always up for travel and adventure. He was a basketball player and watched cricket matches and tennis on television.He loved caramel custard and laddus. 

There was a laddu in each snack box which was given out at the memorial service.

A card distributed during the memorial service is there in two other pockets.

He is remembered very fondly and with deep respect by friends, family and the members of the church he belonged to.

Gold - An Artist's book

At the end of 2021 I saw the prompt - Gold for # creativevaccine_gold hosted by @jackravi , on Instagram and decided to give it a shot. 

I'm a hoarder of gold foil which chocolates come wrapped in. I have quite a stash.The cover is made of card paper wrapped with foil and decorated with squares of light gold foil and the whole thing is stitched which imparts a texture to the book cover.    

  The pages are strips of foil woven into the cream card.

Four pages with different woven patterns in gold foil and cream card paper.

Strips of a light gold foil are woven in at random like extra warp.

The back cover.

This was one of the last projects I did in 2021.

Very satisfying and it was great to be able to use my some of my stash of gold foil.

Fusion - Mini Quilt for the Modern meets Modern Challenge

In October 2020 The International Quilt Museum,Nebraska announced a mini quilt challenge, open to all. The challenge was to do with the Modern Meets Modern exhibition of  selected  Modern Quilt Movement quilts from the Museum's  collection representing the past 15+ years to be juxtaposed with groups of quilts made over 150 years ago. These antique quilts display cutting edge qualities for their time and can still look modern in the present day.

The museum chose four quilts to serve as catalysts for new work. I chose the four patch quilt as the catalyst for my  mini quilt which I called Fusion. It has elements of quilt making taken from the western tradition of quilt making such as the Engish Paper Piecing technique and the four patch block as well.

I then used techniques such as the Kantha technique of quilting ,the use of embroidery in the quilts made in India and like the quilts  made in India, the mini quilt was not bound but I used a faggoting stitch to hold the top of the quilt and the back of the quilt together.  

The tradition of making quilts was a thrift craft, whether in the east or the west. So all the fabric used to make the quilt top are garment off cuts. Layering two pieces of an old bed sheet made the batting for the quilt, inspiration for this came from the Kanthas of West Bengal which are made by stitching together layers of old cotton sarees.    

The kantha style of quilting which I did on the white patches give the surface a soft dimpled texture.    

The finished mini quilt - Fusion - 16 inches x 16 inches. Handmade and handquilted.

There were 116 entries for this challenge. Ten finalists which I didn't make it to, but it was an interesting challenge.

To see the ten finalists' quilts and all the mini quilts submitted click here.   

 

1 Year of Stitches 2018 no longer a UFO

Had to work on the UFO's and complete them. 1 Year of Stitches started in 2018 would be the simplest to get done so I set to work in October, adding a line every other day and I'm happy it's done.

I wanted to explore the creation of circular motifs using a single embroidery stitch or multiple stitches.

It's a sampler of sorts.

Texture and pattern that's possible with embroidery stitches.

If you would like to see how it all started click here and to see the slow progress I made before putting it aside, click here .

What I did with bullion stitch.

Do you have UFO's lurking in your cupboards and work baskets?
How do you go about completing them?

Upcycled origami bag

In my stash was bits and pieces of jeans. I had salvaged them from a bin at the fashion institiute I used to teach at in another lifetime. 

I found a pattern for an origami bag which I could hand sew and decided to use the bits of denim and make an applique and patchwork bag. 

Blanket stitch all around and a whip stitch for the parts which had to be joined. 

The pieces of denim have been appliqued onto part of the king size bed sheet which I still have pieces of .

It's a very large and roomy bag. 

I've appliqued some rust dyed circles onto the bag.

                                                   

I rediscovered sorbello stitch and couldn't stop doing rows of it as a form of embellishment all over the bag.

Will keep this bag for shopping. I need something smaller that will work like a handbag.