Quilterscloth

I just had to share this with you because it is far, far to good to keep to myself. A couple of days ago I was a-hankering after some more cloth for a quilting project I have in mind. I looked at a couple of the websites I usually visit and saw a few possibilities, but nothing that really screamed "pick me, pick me!". So I googled it as you do and fell over the most wonderful site ... and I am smitten, I am in love. Quilters Cloth is a shop based in Cambridge - I have no idea how lovely the shop is but the website is utterly beguiling. The fabrics and the fabric packs on offer are beautiful and the range of stock is substantial, but it is also the design and usability of the website that are particularly impressive. It really is user friendly and so well planned and organised, everything tucked away in neat little drawers with proper labels - as it were. And I love the way you get three views of each piece of fabric - close-up, mid and distant. How sensible and useful is that?

Well, I placed my order just after lunch on Friday - and by Saturday morning I had my parcel. This is the gorgeous confection I found inside:

You know you are a bit obsessed when...

How do you know when you have become totally obsessed with craft, and making things? There might be a top ten list of symptoms to look out for, but which one is most important? The appearance of which one indicates the point of no return?

I have three that I would like to offer up at least as contenders to join the list:

• Just like a toddler, you're more interested in the wrapping paper and its many possibilities than the present inside.
• You see you daughter's new t-shirt covered with lots of funky buttons and already you are working out how long it will be before she's grown out of it so you can harvest those buttons...
• Rather than admiring the awe-inspiring view you're focussing your camera on an odd shaped stone on the path.

Photoshop alternatives - for free!

This is a fantastic list! It is a list of 10 free and functioning photo editors, yes that's right free! So if you are pining away without Photoshop then pine no more! All of these will do the important stuff Photoshop does, and I would figure that with 10 to choose from at least one will have the tools you would use the most. I haven't explored them all in depth but I have opened each one, and uploaded one of my photos. All programmes opened fine and all looked very good and very professional from a first glance. A couple of them required Adobe Flashplayer which I didn't have time to download, but it looks like all 10 work easily enough, and work very quickly from a standing start. Within a couple of clicks all were open. The one I think looks most fun is no.9 Fotoflexer (although you wouldn't necessarily think so from his description - makes it sound very dull). Within a couple of clicks I had applied some great effects to one of my pictures. So yet again ... go play!! (Some have free photo storage space too).

10 free photo editors

Further design development work

First of all I tried some samples from the firmest of the fabrics I used for the stitched samples, to test if the bags could retain their shape if constructed directly from cotton fabric. They collapse gently so I need to find something to help them keep their shape.

I backed the fabric stitched samples with felt and this works. Thinking things through this is going to be the only way to do this if I use textured pieces. I won't be able to sew the felt and fabric at the same time, as one piece of fabric nor will I be able to quilt the fabric - both would affect the outcome of the textures and detract from the effect I am aiming for.















I tried sewing some of the textured pieces to other flatter fabric samples. Making the textured pieces is time consuming (the best and most interesting results come from hand stitching), and as each piece is drawn together at the end to achieve the texture, each piece ends up a lot smaller. So I think their use will have to be restricted to feature panels or even to use as part of an outward facing seam (extreme 3-d effect!!).













I drew some test patterns for the bag side panels:










Finally I started to add some tonal patterns to some of them to begin the process of finding the right final design. I need to spend more time experimenting here, maybe doing some more samples, especially for areas where I wll end up with several small pieces.

Are you left brained or right brained?

Try this out - it's fun! Most people see it very clearly spinning one way or the other and its very hard to "make" it go the other way. I do know one person who claims she sees it changing direction... hmmm.

The spinning woman

"Craft: transforming traditional crafts" - the review

Well, of course I could not actually resist buying myself a copy of "Craft:transforming traditional crafts" (issue 8) - see earlier post on 17th October. And I am pleased to report that it's really quite impressive. They have packed a lot into a compact size - it's following the trend of some magazines here to downsize so its about 2/3 the usual (although frustratingly its a matter of millimeters too deep and wide to qualify as a "letter" rather than a "large letter" by the Royal Mail).

There's a number of well written articles including the now compulsory contribution to the debate about the uneasy/unholy alliances between "fine art" and "craft" and whether the two terms can ever be used together for the same piece (personally I say yes and stuff all the snobbery, but that would make a short and dull article).

I don't know whether it is just conincidence but there are two separate articles about craft mixing with technology for some fascinating results. The most intersting of the two was about knitting yarn that is coated with infrared ink. As the knitter knits they can stop at various points to record videos, photos or sounds. Once the piece is complete they do some technological voodoo and you can then use an infrared camera to locate specific points on the garment that link to the recording made at that time. One person was knitting a scarf for her brother and various points along the scarf were linked to a series of videos and pictures of her baking some cookies. Another person recorded moments of resolving technical challenges in the piece (could be ever so useful for Distant Stitch!). Another article included someone who had woven a piece out of audiotape and "when you touch it, your skin completes a circuit and it generates a series of clicks".

Some things seemed ridiculously ambitious, for example the piece explaining how to create your own stained glass "over just a weekend". I wonder if that includes for time spent in the emergency department or not? Or how about making your own stilts? There was the article on making a bedcover out of vintage scarves - I had to scream "no", because it seemed infintely preferable to keep them as scarves to me.

Other items that were great and I can't wait to ty them out include build your own lap loom, make your own googlemap of places of interest in your area, create your own digital handwriting typeface on www.fontifier.com , and weaving a rug from old sweaters. Although I haven't had time yet to try out any of these and test just how robust the instructions are, they do look well written and logical and are set out in numbered steps.

My conclusion is, certainly worth buying specific copies, although a monthly subscription at £9 a time is maybe a bit steep. I'd be quite happy to start it off on a postal trip around any Distant Stitchers who are interested ( if you give me a week or so to enjoy it first). A quick calculation on the Royal Mail site gives a postage cost of 90p second class, so if you're interested just let me know.

Easyart and Photobox - a poster is not just for Christmas

Here's an idea for promoting your textile art. Take a photo of your work, perhaps the piece you are most proud of and turn it into a piece of canvas art for someone's wall. Or maybe take various shots of your stitching and create a calendar ... or a mug or a jigsaw. Christmas is looming after all and every year it gets harder to find something unique. If you've "got it, baby" why not flaunt it for the world to see? And maybe you're a great photographer on the side too and have some fantastic photos people would love to hang on their walls.

1. Great idea no.1 - You can go to the Easyart site, scroll down to the bottom third of the home screen and look for "sell your art". There's a one off charge here, depending on how many pictures you upload at once, but after that they can stay there indefinitely and if they are good people may buy them - and you, the "artiste", will get 20% of the retail price. Could be a nice little earner for Distant Stitchers .... perhaps make enough to be able to afford Summer School without loading the credit card? Over the years I've bought quite few different pictures and posters and they've always turned up quickly and been good quality, so I feel very happy to suggest them to you.

Oh and while you are at Easyart, do check out the paintings of Susie Lipman (just type her name into the search box at the top of the site home page). Susie is the partner of my nephew and she is a really talented artist with a gallery selling lots of fantastic art in Burnham (the gallery is Oberon Arts).

2. Great idea no.2 - Or you could turn your "piece de resistance" into a mug or a jigsaw or a calendar. If you go to PhotoBox you can do all of these things in less time than it would take to thread up your sewing machine, or unpick that last row of knitting. I've used Photobox for several years and they are a very fast and reliable site, and I think the colours and quality of their pictures etc are really good. Its also a great place to store your photos safely (its also one good way of backing up some of your most treasured photos in case your home computer blows a gasket or sets fire to the whole house). And they can do lots of funky things like turning your once in a lifetime holiday photos into a smart little book - much easier than fighting with those gummed photo corners.