Northern light in paint and dye

Norwegian Flowers resist stamped and over dyed fabric

This summer I have been to Norway, right up in the north near Tromso on the edge of the tundra. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, the light so very clear, the mountains and the sea meet with the sky and the blues merge with the greys in the softest of colours and then it is all reflected in the water.....just poetry....

Tronso habour

As the mist lifted each day the view cleared and we climbed to the tundra to pick blueberries.... I had no idea they grew there so prolifically, we had blue stained trousers from sitting on them because there were so many...

Artic tundra in summer

On one day we drove along the fiord, the mist stayed, wrapping the landscape in a mysterious atmosphere 

sea urchin

the tangles of seaweed reminded me of the west coast of Scotland

and we walked on a silent and still beach...

Back in the forest, this was my first red squirrel ever and I was so pleased to see him

and wild reindeer, in pictures, 

in car parks, 

outside shops.... this chap stood very still....

There is the long history of Artic exploration, of whaling and fishing, of the huge sea mammals of legend and fireside story, of women waiting for boats and men to return...  

 I saw this quilt hanging in a cafe situated above the tundra line

quilt made of seal skins

Above the city the cable car took us up the mountain and someone had left their love a padlock, just like the bridge in Paris....

Paris of the North

Traditional knitting was everywhere...

This was my favourite statue, in the centre of Tromso. On the last night we saw the Northern lights move across the sky and  I was stunned by the beauty and magic of the colours shifting and dancing as if to music unheard by us....

Back at home in Lincolnshire, I have been on a course with Hilary Beattie, a textile and paper artist who prints her own fabrics and paper. This is her book and you can see her website here:

These are some of the papers and fabrics I printed on the course, with a mixture of dyes,  waterproof crayons and fabric paints. I was inspired by my trip to Norway, so kept a palette of blues, greens and greys...

fabric printed with dye and paint

printed stencilled paper

The light I had seen fascinated me and I tried to reproduce it

fabric stamped and overdyed

We cut stamps from sticky backed foam and mount board so the mountain shapes could be printed

stamped paper

It was lovely to make fabrics and papers with such a personal theme, without worrying about how to use them

stamped and dyed paper over stamped with a natural sponge

We used stencils to dye fabric with letters and written prose, I have always wanted to know how this was done...

fabric stencilled and dyed over fabric painted washes

So this is my final piece and I don't know what I shall make with it yet, but it is the product of a special holiday and a fantastic workshop with Hilary. 

fabric dyed, stamped with fabric paint and coloured with waterproof crayons

If you get a chance to read Hilary's book or go to one of her workshops you will come away inspired. Now I am back in the sewing room completing a Christmas quilt for a customer with a reindeer and Father Christmas theme, so I am still thinking about the north pole...

I hope you have all had lovely holidays too and maybe will be inspired to play with fabric paints and stencils,

Kind regards,

Domesticity and what women do

Tom's memory quilt by Green Star Quilts

I have just finished reading a book about domesticity, you may have read it too. It is about life lived in the home, about making things that are useful, lovely to look at, about cake making and gardening, quilts and knitting. The photos are beautiful, reminding the reader to take pleasure in the small things of daily life, the artistic arrangement of balls of wool, the placing of fairy cakes on a cooling rack, the enjoyment of snuggling under a quilt on a chilly evening.... A lovely book, easy to read, but it started me thinking about what we all do that could also be called Domesticity, not just the easy on the eye things, but the things that seem very real to me...So this is what I am thinking about, all the skills I have learnt and practice at home, some on a daily basis. 


First of all there is frugal cooking.  Cooking when there is no time or extra money to go shopping, using what's in the cupboard with flare and imagination....Yesterday I made a salad from things at the bottom of the fridge, half a packet of olives, and tiny tomatoes grown in the green house ( each one must cost about £1 with all the compost, special feed and daily hands on care of these pampered plants). It was a case of using what we had, I put it in a lovely bowl and it looked much better....

make do salad

Leftovers are produced again regularly, very little food is thrown away, most things can be given a new life as a kind of lasagne....

leftover lasgane

Energy economy is high on my list of skills, light bulbs are turned off, I admired a friend who cooked a leg of lamb in his log burner stove and am desperate to try it too. I turn off the solid plates on the cooker and finish off cooking on the residual heat just as my mother did and I turn off the iron to press the delicate things as it cools down.

Blackberry jam

 Fruit from the garden is turned into crumbles until my family beg for a change of pudding and the blackbirds are left to eat the windfalls over the winter. Blackberries are picked and turned into jam and we have had some rather exciting attempts at wine making in the past .

fruit in bowl bought from charity shop

Maybe I do these things through choice now, as a family we are more financially stable, but in the past I had to make the choice between buying a glossy magazine or a bag of oranges. I have waited for goverment child allowance payments before new school shoes could be bought, I sold a table so a morning dress suit for husband could be hired and we could go to a wedding suitable clothed. We still sit on the dining table chairs bought from a charity shop in the 1980's and painted red by me. The seats of these chairs have been recovered so many times... 

unravelled woolly jumper

My mother stitched the sides of sheets to the middle when they were worn and unravelled handknit jumpers to be knit up again. Cut down dresses for little daughters, scrap fabric quilt making, the mending of a hole in a beloved teddy, patching rips in favourite jeans, restuffing cushions.... the list could go on and that's before I think of her skill in cooking a huge Christmas dinner for five on a tiny four ring cooker and keeping everything hot. 

 Sometimes it has been hysterically funny, like learning to clip the dog in order to save the dog grooming fee...... 

clipping the dog in my kitchen

This is becoming a long post, but I am really on a roll now..... so what about home nursing? Parents learn to nurse a feverish child, disinfect loo and door handles after family tummy upsets, wash cuts and soothe bruises, the magic effect of a plaster on a scraped knee... they cope with changing nappies, nurturing independence in toddlers and become experts in healthy diets for children and other family members. And who is it that remembers which vaccinations have been given and when a child  had chicken pox? 

Running a household, big or small is such a huge skill. Where would we be without the person who makes sure the loo roll is always there, replaces the coffee before it runs out, washes school clothing in time, decorates, manages the monthly finances, makes a note of the serial numbers of bikes so they can be claimed if stolen and found, listens to problems, comforts tears and congratulates on the triumphs of everyday family life....

And then there is the tidying... the endless tidying, the job of finder of all things lost, the person with the photographic memory for finding things put down for a minute and then Moved By Somebody ...

This is, for me, Real Domesticity, Domestic Science, as we were taught at school and at home. Relying on skills I have learnt to manage my household and care for my family. Most of us do all this and a job outside the home too. We often do it on limited budgets and difficult circumstances, in scraped together moments in a full to the brim day.

All over the world, we use our skills, education, talents and time to do this,  without realising that what we do is of immense value and it makes our family world go round peacefully and smoothly. For me, it's about making that patchwork quilt, arranging flowers and baking bread, but about seeing the bigger picture and being hugely proud of all our household management skills. 

I hope your households run on the smoothest of wheels this week,

Kind regards,

  

Baby quilts,a day at the farm and a visit from Canadians

Here in the Bomber County of Lincolnshire there has been lots of excitment this week as we have had a visit from the Canadian Lancaster aeroplane. We have our own Lancaster here too, but it is the first time these two planes have flown together for 50 years, since the second world war. So today there they were, flying around the local air base, over the cathedral and off to the south for another display. Lots of people were there to watch as Lincolnshire people are very proud of our local history, especially in this year of the centenary. Here is my plane from Howell's baby quilt, I will tell you more about that quilt in a minute...  

Plane from Howell's quilt

This week we have also had a visit from our little one and her mum. Being a Granny is my favourite job after quilt making. Now we are a bit more experienced, we can take her out for the day. It was nerve racking the first time, much more worrying than with our own children, I felt like a tiger granny! Do you know the feeling? So we went to our local country farm for children....

Well, this was hysterical to watch, small, very excited black and white piglets charging down the course and everyone clapping the winner...

Some people were so excited by the visitors, they climbed on the picnic table, in order to get a better view....

Goat at Rushmore Farm Park

The Kunekune pig, yes that is the right spelling, was quite a big chap... and so friendly... not too pretty, but a lovely smile....

Kunekune Pig

People made friends with their neighbours....

Ram and ducks

Others prefered to gaze over the fence...

or chat over the back door .....

Donkey at Rushmore Farm Park

Everyone seemed to eat the same food, goats, ducks, hens, horses except for the hawks, who only got out of bed for a classy bit of steak....

some people didn't get out of bed at all.... for anything..... anything at all....

cuddles were everywhere....

Locally made ice cream was eaten, the pony was ridden, the baby owlets were stroked and much, much more.... we had a lovely day down on the farm.... 

I have also made two quilts this week, hope you are impressed! The first one is for Howell and will be given to him at his Christening.

Quilt by Green Star Quilts

 His family is from Wales, so there are two flags with the Welsh dragon at the bottom. 

sheep by Green Star Quilts

The sheep is eating Welsh daffodils, the pig is in the leek plot and a plane flies over head as his daddy is in the Royal Air Force.

The second quilt is for Hamish, whose family is from Scotland:

Quilt by Green Star Quilts

Do you like the Highland cows in the Scottish thistles?

Highland cows by green Star Quilts

The backing fabric is a very soft brushed cotton of the Black Watch tartan

The camouflaged animal fabric is there because his dad is in the army.

chickens by Green Star Quilts

This week seems to have had a farming theme, or at least a countryside, outdoors sort of flavour, big on tractors, lots of animals, hands on feeding and stroking.... Is it idealised? Do you think children get a fairy tale view of farming today through books, visits like ours or even quilts like mine? It is very like my own childhood, but so much of that has vanished now, and yet I so want our little one to feel in touch with these animals, their food, our use of them and of the land. Do you have a view too?

 I hope you have a lovely weekend, it feels very autumnal here but we are hoping wildly for an Indian summer,

Kind regards,