Quilting

Towards the Wolds…..

/ Karen Lane / 20 Comments

This is my latest commissioned piece entitled Towards the Wolds. It’s based on one of my favourite views looking east down Shearmans Wath, towards West Ashby and the rolling hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds.

Shearman’s Wath is the site of a late Neolithic Henge. According to Historic England…..”the buried remains are situated 330m north of Thimbleby Mill on the glacial sands and gravels of the flood plain edge, some 150m east of the River Bain. The monument, which has been reduced by ploughing, can no longer be seen on the ground. It is, however, clearly visible from the air, and has been recorded on aerial photographs since 1970.”

The Wallhanging is approximately 42cm x 64 cm, created from 23 micron Merino fibres, Wet Felted, and embellished with hand and machine stitch. I’ve enjoyed working on this piece and very much looking forward to seeing it hanging in it’s new home!

Paint, Layer & Stitch…..

/ Karen Lane / 7 Comments

Today I was invited down to North Kilworth, Leicestershire to work with fourteen ladies from the textile group “Textend”. We spent the day painting fabric, layering with sheers and tulle and stitching to create our tree themed landscapes. Some ladies worked from imagination while others took inspiration from photos or cards. Although there is still work to be done, as you can see, the pieces are looking great. Many thanks to Ruth for inviting me and look forward to seeing some of you again next week.

Lutradur Forest Workshop…..

/ Karen Lane / 8 Comments

Day two of the Lutradur Forest Workshop saw the ladies layering and stitching their Forest designs to their base fabric.

As often happens in a workshop, although all of the ladies worked constantly over the two day’s and the quilts are looking terrific, everyone has some finishing off to do at home.

Clare is adding clumps of bluebells to her Forest floor, hand embroidering them with Colonial knots

Janet’s design featured trees in leaf as well as these wonderful old gnarly tree stumps

Sue created lots of depth with her shading

Clair based her design on a photo she took while visiting a Canadian lake in the Fall

Janice is making lots of individual leaves which will be added to the foreground on the right of her design

Patricia has created a very strong contrast with her dark foreground tree and the lighter grey trunks in the background

Lyn will add stitched detail the her ferns to create interest in the foreground

Thanks to Nicola at the Simply Stitch Studio for being a wonderful host and to all the ladies for their enthusiasm and hard work.  I will look forward to receiving photos of your finished quilts.

Escape…..

/ Karen Lane / 15 Comments

My latest art quilt has been made in response to the Cranwell Contemporary Group challenge titled Escape.  When the theme was announced my first thought was of “escaping” to the Scottish Highlands……this area has to be my absolute favourite away from it all destination in the UK.

Art Quilt with the theme “Escape”

Escape

I worked from memory, rather than looking back at photographs, as I wanted this piece to suggest a mood and a feeling of being in this area and not a specific, identifiable place.   The colours are very neutral and muted, built up using Inktense paint, layered fabrics, Mulberry bark and silk cocoon strippings to create a textural surface.  The finished quilt is 28” wide x 40” high.

Tall Trees – The Finished Work…..

/ Karen Lane / 10 Comments

It’s been a terrific two days at Simply Stitch and I’ve been blown away by the standard of work that the ladies have produced!

We were joined on day two by a new lady, Jen – the pressure was on for her to catch up with what she missed on Wednesday and she did a great job of it!

Here are a few more “work in progress” photos featuring Ruth, Janet, Jen and Carole…..

and the fabulous finished (or almost!) pieces…..

Once again, thank you to Nicola for inviting me back to Simply Stitch and being such a great host!  Also a huge thank you to all the ladies who took part in the workshop for their enthusiasm and hard work over the two days.  It will be great to see you all again at our next class in the New Year.

Tall Trees Workshop….

/ Karen Lane / 4 Comments

We’ve just come to the end of day one of my “Tall Trees” art quilt workshop at Simply Stitch near Wetherby.  There are thirteen ladies taking part, over two days, working with paint and stitch, layering sheer fabrics and netting to create beautiful backgrounds for their painted Vilene trees.   We have some fabulous quilts taking shape, this is how they are doing so far…….

Even our host, Nicola, is making time to join in with this workshop!

Inspired by Sir Isaac Newton…..

/ Karen Lane / 2 Comments

LINQS (Lincolnshire Quilters) will be exhibiting their latest body of work, 22 art quilts inspired by Sir Isaac Newton, at the end of this month.  Our first venue will be the beautiful Alford Manor House.  Built in 1611 it is thought to be the largest thatched manor house in the country.

I’ve finally finished my Newton quilt.  It’s 30″ x 40″ and the design is based on the fact that Newton spent a lot of his time studying and practising alchemy.  It consists of appliqué commercial fabric, Tyvek and painted vilene applied to a background of tea stained cotton fabric.  Other materials used include oil pastels, Inktense, permanent marker pen and metallic foil.

Inspired by the life and works of Sir Isaac Newton

These are just a few of the other fantastic quilts that will be on show……

Gravitree by Jean Proud (30″ x 40″)

Gravitree detail

The Mind of a Genius by Mary Jackson (30″ x 40″)

Snapshots of Isaac by Joan Plummer (30cm x 40cm)

This next quilt Is called “Wordsearch” and there are thirty words to find, all relating to life of Isaac Newton.  An ingenious way of stopping visitors in their tracks and making them really scrutinise your work!

 

Louth Panorama Update…..

/ Karen Lane / 10 Comments

All the Louth Panorama quilts, being made by textile group Meridian, have now been handed over ready to be sewn onto a black background.

The individual quilts laid out prior to being sewn onto the black background.

Sheila had photographs of the two original canvases, painted by William Brown in the 1840’s, reduced in size and printed onto cotton fabric which she then quilted using free machine stitching.  These two panels will form the centre of our collaborative quilt with the rest of them being grouped as shown above.

 

Centre two panels free machined by Sheila

Click on each of the images to see the detail that has been put into the quilts, they really are beautiful pieces of work.

Quilt created by Pat Cave

Quilt created by Sue Jackson

Quilt created by Gill Lewis

Quilt created by Eileen MacKenzie

Quilt created by Gwen Harlow

Quilt created by Sandra Goldsborough

Quilt created by Margaret Fulwood

Quilt created by Karen Lane

 

 

 

The Louth Panorama…..

/ Karen Lane / 4 Comments

 

Art quilt based on a small section of the Louth Panorama

I’ve just finished working on my little section of a collaborative quilt with ‘Meridian’ a textile group who are based in the market town of Louth.   The overall quilt will be a tribute to the Louth Panorama, painted by William Brown, which is an all-round view of the town and district as seen from the top of the spire of St James’s parish church in Louth as on a summer’s day in the 1840s.  It depicts local life, the pattern of streets and the market place, with a roofscape little changed today. The painting consists of two canvases which have an interesting history and more information can be found on the Louth Museum website.

We each chose our favourite section of the painting to reproduce as a mini art quilt, either A4 or A3.  My choice was the graveyard which I’ve made in A3.  We were given free rein to use whatever techniques we wanted to use,  I’ve created mine as a whole cloth, painted with Inktense and then hand and machine embroidered.  I’ve used a bit of artistic licence to square up the layout and omitted the tiny figures.  You can see the original section below.

My chosen section of the Louth Panorama

I will add an update once we get all of the quilts joined together.

A Walk in the Forest…..

/ Karen Lane / 7 Comments

The latest quilt challenge for members of the Cranwell group is A Walk in the Forest and this is my interpretation.

A Walk in the Forest

A Walk in the Forest

With each challenge we are also given a particular technique to use somewhere within our work, for this particular piece we were asked to include painted Bondaweb.  This could be used over a large area or just included as a tiny piece, it was entirely at our discretion.  Those of you with a keen eye might be wondering where my Bondaweb is…….it’s so insignificant it’s not even worth me pointing it out!

When the subject was given out I immediately had this image in my mind of the trees and forest floor cut out of several pieces of Lutradur and stitched to create the illusion of depth.  I also knew that I wanted a shimmering backdrop to represent the daylight glistening at the edge of the woods.  After auditioning several fabrics, and not being happy with any of them, I decided to go with wallpaper for my background.  I had a sample of paper that was just large enough and created exactly the effect I was seeing in my mind.

The Lutradur trees were coloured from dark to light to suggest that the viewer is walking from inside the forest towards the light at the edge of the woods.  I figured the Bondaweb would be used fairly discretely to create shadow on the forest floor.  Unfortunately, as I had coloured the Lutradur with wax crayons, there was no way that the Bondaweb was going to bond!  Having said that, a tiny piece is clinging on, allowing me to say I have included Bondaweb in my work……..just not a lot of it!