The Endeavourers #15, A quilt inspired by a newspaper headline - "B****y Covid"

This is my quilt for the latest quarterly challenge from  The Endeavourers.   Our challenge was to make a quilt inspired by a newspaper headline.

My quilt doesn't need much explanation - it represents the majority of headlines at the moment, and pretty much sums up my feelings!

As the current situation drags on we're probably all getting a bit fed up so I had wanted some way of adding a small bit of hope to my quilt.  When I dug this newspaper print out of the drawer it seemed perfect because it is actually full of positive thoughts.  I'm not always keen on fabric like this but I thought that the message 'be gentle with yourself' and references to the good things in life - beauty, friendship, family, home and garden, etc, - were a good reminder that although Covid sometimes occupies centre stage, as it does in my quilt,  the things that make life worthwhile are still there.

My 'headline' is painted with fabric paint and I quilted in black round the letters, which are based on a font called Impact.   There is a double layer of batting under the white 'paper' which is stipple quilted.  The background newsprint is quilted in random geometric shapes inspired by the print.  I liked the way that the asterisks look vaguely like the Covid virus under the microscope!

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling uninspired to be creative recently, and it was very good to have this challenge! As usual I'm looking forward to seeing what has inspired the other members of the Endeavourers.  You can check them out on the group blog where you can also find links to each individual member.

The Endeavourers No 3, Spiral,

Today is the reveal of quilts made for the third quarterly challenge of The Endeavourers quilt group.  You can find all our quilts displayed on The Endeavourers blog, and there are links to each individual member.

Our challenge for this quarter was 'Spiral'.

The path of a point in a plane moving around a central point while continuously receding from or approaching it.  A three-dimensional curve (such as a helix) with one or more turns about an axis.
(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary)

When Mr Random Number Generator picked this theme from our hat I was momentarily stumped but I got completely fascinated by it.

There seems to be something which is universally satisfying about the shape of spirals and they have featured for thousands of years in art and decoration from the neolithic period onwards; for example  there are spirals in neolithic rock art in Scotland.  In some cultures the spiral represents the sun, and by association the passage of time.  It has been used to decorate early tombs and so is associated with the cycle of life and death, and it is found on stone carvings of the mother goddess as a symbol representing the cycles of fertility, creation and birth and cosmic forces.

Spirals feature in nature - from DNA to spiral galaxies, in the arrangement of leaves on a plant, and in the growth of cones, horns and shells,   Mathematicians are interested in the properties of spirals, and engineers and architects make use of them.

As usual my thoughts went off in a number of directions and gradually came back together in a plan towards the end of the quarter when I was on holiday in Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire coast.  

My quilt is all about spirals in nature, as represented in a view of Robin Hood's Bay.  The quilt shows a view of the cliffs on that coast, as glimpsed through some of the local plants.  A convolvulus or bindweed climbs up a stem, in a spiral helix, and its buds furl and unfurl in spiral form.  There are two snails with their spiral shells, and and an ammonite from the cliffs - a long extinct fossil sea creature also with a spiral shell.    Robin Hood's Bay is an area with a dynamic geological history, so it also really encapsulated for me the forces of creation and the passage of time which have come to be symbolised by the spiral.

Just after I'd made a plan I read that the spiral is a symbol of the pantheist movement, which celebrates the power, beauty and mystery of nature and the Universe.  This made me happy!

I wanted to take a painterly approach to the quilt so as well as applique, hand and machine embroidery, I used watercolour paints to add a wash to the silk used to make the sea, to add details to the shells and ammonite and to add colour to some of the quilted pebbles.  Binding is faced, with the bottom edge being cut in a curve.

The Endeavourers #2, Change/Transformation - Cycles

Today is the day that The Endeavourers art quilt group reveal our second quilts.  This quarter's theme was Change or Transformation.

As usual it was a very thought-provoking theme!  The fact that it was thrown into the hat by four of our group was interesting in itself.  I guess that this subject has a lot of personal resonance.  So  my first thought was about change from the point of view of an individual human.  I also thought about the way that as we get older we become more layered - it would have been interesting to represent that in quilting.

Then I thought about change, especially transformation, in nature.  The transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly for example, or from seed to plant - which is always on my mind as I sometimes work as a gardener.

Transformation suggests a transition into something completely new, which would have been an interesting line of thought to follow, but then I started to think about change as cyclical.  Change and transformation can be positive or negative, but some change is just part of the ebb and flow of life, neither good nor bad.

Anyway...this takes me to the background to my quilt.    When we were lucky enough to travel in New Zealand a while back we went to visit the Kauri forest in North Island.  The trees there are almost inconceivably old and huge, and convey a sense of stillness (like columns in a cathedral) that fills you with awe, while life goes on about them. In contrast to this stillness tiny humans scurry around, and other vegetation moves in the breeze, like speeded up events in a time-lapse film. Some of these trees may be over 2000 years old, and they have just quietly stood there while many many changes have taken place in the world.

Closer to home and on a very much smaller scale, trees live through the cycle of the seasons.  This cyclical change was what I chose to represent in my little quilt.  This change is neither good nor bad, it's just part of the flow.

"Cycles"

As the seasons pass, the sun moves across the sky and sinks lower in the horizon.   The leaves on the trees change colour and finally blow away, turning into birds who fly away in winter, only to return in the spring and begin the cycle of change again.

As the sun moves across the quilt it follows (nearly) a sine wave - I think there's something aesthetically pleasing about this shape and in the quilt it is there to reinforce the idea of a repeating pattern.

My trees are birches, which I think are very beautiful and textural.  (You can see my other quilt about birch trees here.)  I didn't want to fill the quilt with leaves as there is already a lot going on, and so I suggested the leaves with triangles, trying to capture the fractured and angular patterns of light you get when you look up through their rather sparse canopies.

The background is made using curved piecing which is densely quilted, leaves and birds are fused applique and the trees and suns are hand-sewn turned applique.  I added hand embroidery in thick perle cotton round the suns.  Materials are almost entirely shot cotton, with silk for the trees.

You can see all our quilts 'exhibited' together on our blog The Endeavourers, where you'll also find links to each individual member.  Please do have a look!

"Cycles"
Shot cotton, silk
Curved piecing with dense quilting
Fused and hand-sewn turned applique
Hand and machine embroidery
17 x 22.5 inches

The Endeavourers - #1, Nature

Today is the first ever quarterly reveal for quilts made by The Endeavourers.  You can find all the quilts gathered together on our joint blog, together with WIP posts and thoughts about the theme, which, this quarter, is nature.

What a great theme to get started with!

"All the animals, plants, rocks, etc in the world and all the features, forces and processes that happen or exist independently of people, such as the weather, the sea, mountains, the production of young animals or plants and growth..."   Cambridge Dictionary

I liked the idea of the drama of forces of nature, and I thought of the phrase "Nature, red in tooth and claw" which would have lent itself to something interesting but possibly rather gory!   But nature to me a source of happiness and interest, so I abandoned those lines of thought and I'd been mulling over various ideas when I looked out of my dining room window and saw a beautiful male blackbird sitting in a very healthy Cotoneaster bush, covered with red berries, which is in the garden below.   I live in the city, and I love that even among all the buildings and industry nature is all around!

So that, right there, was my inspiration and here is my blackbird sitting in its cotoneaster on a winter day, representing the natural world.

I decided to make the most of the wintery sky which is made using curved piecing, heavily quilted, and the blackbird and branches are raw-edge applique, which was then free-motion embroidered to add detail and fix it in place.  Apart from the winter sun which is pieced with gold silk, I used shot cottons from Oakshott which are ideal for works like this because the different warp and weft give subtle variations in colour rather than being solid, and this quality is perfect for anything from the natural world.  The centre of the blackbird's eye is a small black bead sewn on with white wool thread to make the eye sparkle.

I wanted my image to be stylized rather than hyper-realistic so I have not filled in the fine detail in the image but have left it so that you can mentally join the dots.  In the past I have done a fair bit of printing and I'm drawn to more graphic images.

There are no 'new-to-me' techniques in this quilt so it wasn't very adventurous, but my quilts have more often than not been abstract so it's been good to make something pictorial!

Please do visit The Endeavourers - you should be able to find all our works together by the end of today, and from each post be able to visit each participant's own blog for more detail.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what inspired everyone, and how they interpreted the theme.