Inspired by Sir Isaac Newton…..

August 17, 2017August 17, 2017 / Karen Lane / Leave a comment

One of the textile groups I belong to is LINQS (Lincolnshire Quilters) and each year we respond to a challenge to make an art quilt based on the life or works of a particular person. Our latest challenge was inspired by Sir Isaac Newton and the work will be on display over the coming bank holiday weekend at Waltham Windmill. The exhibition is free and we will be having a sales table and demonstration area. There will be lots of other things going on at the working Mill with shops, cafes, picnic area, miniature train rides and a model engineers marquee, etc so a great venue for a family day out!

The exhibition is open from 10am – 4 pm on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Here are just a few examples of what we have on show…..

Gravitree by Jean Proud

Inspired by the life and work of Sir Isaac Newton by Karen Lane

The Mind of a Genius by Mary Jackson

Woolsthorpe Manor by Pat Cave

Inspired by Sir Isaac Newton…..

July 11, 2017 / Karen Lane / Leave a comment

via Inspired by Sir Isaac Newton….. — Lincolnshire Quilters

Inspired by Sir Isaac Newton…..

May 14, 2017 / 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!

Sir Isaac Newton…..

April 15, 2017 / Karen Lane / 2 Comments

The handover date for the latest LINQS challenge, to produce an art quilt inspired by any aspect of the life or works of Sir Isaac Newton, is fast approaching and I’ve still got a lot to do! When I began my research I was surprised to learn that Newton had been an Alchemist (obvious really given the age he lived in) and spent a lot of his time and effort in pursuit of the Philosophers Stone. I used this fact as my starting point and designed my quilt along the lines of an Alchemy illustration using a limited colour palette. Materials used so far include oil pastels and transfer foils on cotton fabrics and pelmet vilene. As I said, still a lot to do so back to the sewing machine!

My Sir Isaac Newton inspired art quilt is still work in progress

LINQS Inspired by Hockney…..

June 2, 2016June 4, 2016 / Karen Lane / Leave a comment

Tomorrow Molly and I are going down to the Springfield Quilt Show at Spalding for the day to see the LINQS (Lincolnshire Quilters) display of Hockney inspired quilts. It seems like forever since we signed up to do the LINQS challenge, neither of us having made a quilt previously, so it will be great to see them hanging on show. I was flattered to see that My Three Tall Trees was chosen to feature on the flyer advertising this weekends event.

Springfield’s Flyer

We also got a mention in this months edition of Lincolnshire Life magazine after their reporter visited our Hockney Handover event.

Everyone breaths a sigh of relief now the challenge is finally over!

Everyone breathes a sigh of relief now the challenge is finally over!

We had a show and tell session in Horncastle and everyone agreed the standard of work was terrific! The following photos show just a tiny number of the LINQS quilts which will be embarking on a national tour with Grosvenor Shows starting tomorrow.

Molly proudly shows off her quilt at the show and tell session.

Molly proudly shows off her quilt at the Hockney Handover session.

“Out and Onto the Canvas” is the title of the quilt made through a process of collaboration by the seven members of Textile Lincs.

The Three Trees by Wendy Skinner

Hockney’s 18th VN by Jacky Hopkin

Three Green Waves by Sandra Goldsbrough.

It’s not all Black & White by Pat Sperr

After 1954, my quilt based on Hockney’s mixed media self-portrait.

David Hockney In Stitches…..

March 15, 2015September 9, 2015 / Karen Lane / 2 Comments

Yesterday afternoon saw the 3rd meeting of LINQS, the Lincolnshire Quilters group, which was formed last year with the aim of creating “inspired” quilts to form the basis of a travelling exhibition. Our first “inspirational” theme is the work of David Hockney. The brief is to take influence from his work however you want to do it, whether that be colour, shape, subject matter, etc. it’s up to the individual. Gill set herself the task of reproducing, as accurately as possible, a specific Hockney painting using textiles, threads, beads and found materials. The finished quilt is shown below with a photo of Hockney’s 18th VN painting. Isn’t it beautiful?

Click here for more photos and info about LINQS.

The Finished Quilt…..

February 8, 2015February 8, 2015 / Karen Lane / 6 Comments

My Riverside Trees art quilt is now finished and just needs to be edged. This 30cm x 40cm quilt was done as trial ahead of making a larger version at 30″ x 40″ for the David Hockney Challenge. It’s just as well I had the dummy run as there are a few things I have learnt while doing this project.

Firstly, I must start using a sketchbook…..I tend to launch straight into something and make it up as I go along. The sky would have been different, and I would have been happier with it, if I had planned it before I started.

Secondly, I naively thought that using iron-on Vilene would mean I didn’t have to sew the trees in place…….yeah, right! The more I handled the quilt the looser the trees became so they all had to stitched down. This leads me on to the third thing I learnt which is “remember to breath” while free machine stitching!

The fourth thing I found was that organza and net, although looking very effective when layered, can also be problematic as loose fibres sometimes migrate between the layers and are very fiddly to remove. My fabrics were simply laid in place, pinned and stitched, I’m guessing that if I had ironed them onto Bondaweb before stitching I could have avoided this happening.

The finished quilt

Riverside Trees…..

February 4, 2015October 12, 2015 / Karen Lane / 2 Comments

I’ve finished sewing the smaller branches and twigs onto my David Hockney inspired quilt and have been giving some thought to the reflections on the water. The simplest way would be to create a mirror image of the riverbank, but my original photograph didn’t show the trees like that. The tree trunks were distorted by the ripples on the water, which I am finding harder to replicate.

I’ve tried roughly sketching a few wiggly tree trunks onto paper and layering them with organza and netting. The intention is to draw directly onto the top fabric and cover this with strips of sheers. If it’s a failure, which I half expect it to be, it won’t matter as I’ve left the wadding and backing loose at the bottom in case I need to patch it in with a second attempt.

Riverside Trees update….

February 1, 2015February 1, 2015 / Karen Lane / 7 Comments

The trees are now painted and ironed in place on the riverside. As I thought, there was too much of the darker blue in the sky so some of it has been removed. There are lots of smaller branches/twigs to embroider and I still have to figure out how to create the water and reflections but that can all wait till next week.

Riverside Trees…..

February 1, 2015February 1, 2015 / Karen Lane / 2 Comments

Having damaged my toe on Friday I’ve had the perfect excuse to shut myself away in my workroom and start on a new project. I wanted to create an art quilt based on trees and reflections so last week, while out walking my dog, I took a series of photographs along the riverbank. The aim is to make a 30 x 40 cm quilt as a prototype for a larger version as part of the David Hockney Challenge. The thought of doing one 30″ x 40″ straight off was a bit too daunting! The finished design isn’t intended to look like a Hockney but the influence is still there i.e. trees and reflections in water.

I particularly liked this image but decided to simplify the layout for my quilt and position the riverbank “straight on”.

Yesterday I painted a wash of colour on my background fabric, layered it with organza and netting and machine quilted it to create the sky. I’m not sure if I did the right thing by making it this colourful….I wanted a bit of drama behind the trees but might have gone a bit too strong with the blues! We’ll see when the trees get added.

For the riverbank I remembered I had an old scarf which was the ideal colour so this was cut up and distressed using a heat gun before being sewn in place.

The background is ready for the trees to be added.

I figured an easy way to create the trees would be to draw them onto iron-on Vilene and cut them out using a craft knife. With the branches criss crossing it enabled me to cut it as one piece rather than fiddling about with several individual trees. I like using Vilene as it gives a crisp edge, it accepts paint really well and using the iron-on type means there’s no need for Bondaweb or spray adhesive.