Back to blogging... Journal Quilts Q1

Sorry that it has been a while since I posted anything here. I've not had much time for creative activities this year. One thing I have just about managed to keep up with has been my Journal Quilts or JQs.

I only started these in January and decided to base all this year's on a photograph I took in Manchester. This shows the Wheel of Manchester reflected in Urbis and the distorted image provides lots of interesting shapes and textures to interpret in a range of media.


Here is the photograph and following are my first three JQs.


I went to two workshops in the first quarter of the year, so this first JQ uses one of the things I learnt - silk painting. The design is painted onto fine silk which I backed with a piece of white felt before machine stitching the diagonal lines. After layering with wadding and a backing, I machine quilted around the shapes and finally bound the edges with strips of silk.

Then in March I did a felt-making workshop, so the March JQ is made of felt. The backing is white needle-punch felt and the top layer is a fine silk. The design is formed of different colour prefelts and threads in turquoise and blue. After wet felting, details have been picked out in machine stitching.

And finally, I had a go at making one only using paper. Yes, it is based on the same photograph, but looking at the less recognisable shapes where the struts are reflected and distorted. I wasn't really happy about the outcome, but didn't have time to make a replacement so am having to learn to live with it.