This week

This is a little mosaic of my week...

Some time in the garden. Not enough. The weather wasn't that great.
A short trip to Brussels, mainly to buy some Japanese groceries.
Lots of time in the studio, experimenting with fabric, paper and paint...

No real plan in the next sample. Simply some layers of fabric, and free stitching. Excellent way to relax...

I also had a nice dyeing session. I needed some backing fabric for my "Orient" quilts.
This one is too good to use as a quilt back.

Next is a lovely drawing my granddaughter did a couple of weeks ago. Isn't it great?
(It's me and my hubby. :-) )

And look at this beautiful family! So cute!

March

Both my "Orient" quilt tops are ready. I haven't decided yet how I'm going to quilt them. The deadline is in June, so I still have plenty of time to think about this.
Easter Bunny brought us lots of chocolate eggs. My GDs helped me decorate the house with drawings and paper eggs. We also sewed a few patchwork hens together. (No picture, sorry.)
It is still cold here, but many plants are already growing. And my beautiful little sakura tree is blooming on the deck.
Life goes on.

Springtime, almost...

Here's a mosaic of some prints I did last week...

The weather has been cold and grey here, but there are some lovely hints of springtime in the garden...

The prints in the mosaic were all made on decorated paper, but today I also spent some time printing on fabric...

December

Mid-december? Really?
It's time to share a small mosaic of what I've been doing in the studio these last weeks...

Weaving cotton and paper yarns (with dyeing in mind), choosing some rusted fabrics for a new quilt, blocking crochet squares, making Christmas cards, and playing with sumi ink.
The shibori quilt is finished. Actually, I didn't really quilt it. I simply stitched it on a heavy fabric background.

Apart from this, I've been studying Japanese, of course.
Yesterday, we've decorated the Christmas tree, and today, I'm baking gingerbread biscuits. But there isn't any snow in sight yet.

More trees

I did more gelli prints, on fabric and paper. I chose four of the fabric prints and pinned them on my design board. I thought that they would look good together on a dark "vieux rose" hand dyed fabric.

Not bad... but finally I like them better with very narrow medium blue strips between the blocks. (Oops... sorry for the bad photo!)

I prepared the quilt sandwich yesterday night.

I'm ready to start quilting now.

And I've got three other fabric prints that I plan to use for a second quilt.

Yesterday was a lovely and sunny day. So, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of... trees...

In other news, I'm glad to report I finished the second unit of "Japanese for Busy People II" yesterday.

Gelli prints

These are my first experiments on paper using the Gelli plate.
The next two are my favourite prints.

I guess you can see that I'm into trees and cherry blossoms at the moment.

I find that the most difficult part is not to forget taking notes about which paint and medium I'm using. It's especially true when I get a nice texture effect I'd like to be able to reproduce.

The sakura quilt is still on my mind, but I got a bit carried away with all this monotype thing.
Next is a picture of the first Gelli prints I did on fabric.

I did many more prints on fabric using different kinds of acrylic and fabric paints. I'll try and take pictures tomorrow.

Hello 2014!

Here are some of the monotypes I did in the last days of 2013! Most of them were made on paper using a clear plastic folder as the printing plate. I also used a glass plate for a few of them.
The next two are my absolute favourites...

A few days ago, I got myself a gel printing plate, from Gelli Arts. So many possibilities,... and so much to learn. It works really well for printing on paper and fabric. I once tried to make a gelatine plate, but I didn't like it. Too messy, and anyway I don't use gelatine in cooking, so I didn't feel like using it for my art. Anyway, I spent several hours using the gelli plate and I had lots of fun. Pictures tomorrow, maybe.

A small quilt

This is a quilt I made last month with fabric scraps from my Twelve by Twelve projects. I dyed so much fabric, especially for the Colorplay series...

I'll try and use those fabrics for a new project that I can't show on the blog yet. I think I'm almost ready to start working on larger quilts again.
In the meantime, and when I'm not studying my Japanese vocabulary, I've been playing a lot in my sketchbooks, experimenting with watercolours and acrylics.

I also dug out some old sketchbooks that I had forgotten about...

Not sure I'm going to keep all this.... Maybe just cut out what I feel is usable... What do you think?

More autumn colours

The weather here has been so incredibly sunny and mild for the season that I can't resist posting another autumn photo.
Last summer, I enjoyed reading Tammy's blog, especially her posts about ICaD, and I played along a little bit, in my own corner. I didn't feel like showing my index cards here and didn't post about them, but the other day, I found Tammy's blog again, with this post here, and I just couldn't resist making a little mess too...
This print is my favourite...
especially this close-up...
and this is what happened to the sheet of paper that what protecting my desk...
The watercolour marks under the paint splotches come from sketches I did for a new quilt. Here's a little peek at one of the sketches...
The quilt is well underway, but I can't post about it yet.

Japanese paper

The other day, I played with the washi paper I brought back from Kyoto. I started by making a few little books. I bought these sheets of paper at Suzuki Shofudo, a nice shop on Yanagi no-banba (close to Shijo and Karasuma dori).
Another lovely paper shop in the same neighbourhood is Kyukyodo, on Teramachi. Among other things, they sell beautiful stationary items and calligraphy supplies.
The indigo fabric pieces in the picture above are cotton shawls I found at the Chion-ji Temple craft market. They are from Wataya workshop in Himeji. The little white things on top are lace ribbons. They were cute and cheap and I just couldn't resist buying them.

Painted paper

Some close-up pictures of painted and printed paper...
I like this one, printed with bubble wrap...
The next one is not paper. It's a digital image I created from a photo of tree foliage, but I think it goes very well with the previous picture...

Back to pink

The Christmas decorations are back in their boxes. It seems that I put them away earlier each year. Or maybe it's just that the school holidays were over very early this year...
Anyway, I've noted down that I need to buy a new light set next year and perhaps make some more silvery and red decorations. Then, I went back to the studio and found out that my pink fabrics were still exactly where I had left them about ten days ago...
Now, I am working again on this second pink quilt I started before Christmas.
I think that these printed fabrics are not easy to work with, at least on a somewhat larger scale.
In order to relax and, maybe, find new ideas, I've pasted some of my fabric scraps in a sketchbook. I first painted the pages in the same colour scheme I had used for my 12x12 pink quilt.
This year, no big resolutions... ( I never keep them ). But I want to draw and paint more, as I used to do in a former life. And I hope to make a few "larger" quilts and maybe exhibit them.