New Year in Mousehole

We decided to do something a little different this year and spend New Year down in Cornwall.  Instead of going to St Ives we chose Mousehole (pronounced Mowzal) where they make Christmas and New Year a bit special by putting up illuminations.  The Mousehole Harbour Lights are run by a group of volunteers and draw thousands of people to the small fishing village every year. 

We stayed in a fabulous apartment in a house right at the top of the village with views right across the village and out to sea.

 Looking down on the harbour at sunrise.

 The lounge was very comfortable and had lots of quirky art pieces all around.

 The apartment is in the house above all the others, on the left.

Looking out to Mounts Bay.

The dining table at the double-aspect window was a great place to play.

I sat here every morning to watch the sun come up too.

Not quite as sunny on New Year's Day but still lovely.


We were treated to a couple of beautiful sunsets too.

The view across the village at night was beautiful too.

We had a wander round the harbour at dusk to photograph the lights and reflections.

Not to be outdone, Mousehole staged its own firework display at midnight on New Year's Eve and my DH took miilions of images which I'll spare you.  Here are just two.

At the risk of making this post a mammoth one we did venture out of Mousehole courtesy of the very lovely and special Carolyn who took us to Morvah, which was shut so we talked to the cows and they slobbered everywhere.

We were also treated to a short visit to St Ives but alas no beachcombing this time.

 Approaching the town through the grounds of the Treloyhan Manor Hotel.

 The sandbank is still there in the mouth of the harbour.  It was interesting to see the muted colours in the clothing of the people on the beach, very different from the summer colourscape.

I'll be back with part two, not so long as part one, soon.  I need to go to bed and nurse the cold the old year left me with :-)

Playtime!

You may be aware if you are a friend on Facebook that we've been away again!  This time to beautiful Scotland but I'll come back to that in a future post.

I think it's time I included something creative on here so I'll share with you what we did on our once-a-month play day yesterday.  Four of us have just started getting together to share techniques, ideas and inspirations and so far have explored discharge printing and printing with Inktense bars and pencils.

Using a home made screen (from a picture frame and voile) I laid the screen down onto a sheet of freezer paper (not the waxy side) and sketched with the oilbars keeping the idea of the sea in mind.

When I picked the screen up, as expected, loose colour from the bars had dropped through.  I sprayed these with water to dissolve the pigment and took a direct monoprint.

This is the print on cotton, it is a little stronger in real life.  What I particularly liked was the subtle specks of colour from the waterspray on the edges.

Turning to the silkscreen I pulled the first print onto Evolon with a layer of organza on the top and with a stencil between the screen and the organza.  Initially we used printpaste to pull the print but by the time we had washed that out it left a very pale print.  Evidently the paste puts the pigment into suspension instead of releasing it into the fabric fully.  I decided not to rinse my prints out as these early prints will probably go into my sketchbook for future reference.

This above is the organza print and below is the print on evolon

 If I had taken more time and care I could have masked out the hard outlines but the prints in themselves are exciting.  We were thinking of other ways of getting this effect of colour gradations with printing and couldn't think how else it could be achieved.

Just a belated word of warning, Inktense bars will stain your screen so don't use your best one! 

I made this print over earlier prints that I had made with Dionne Swift. I used a stencil based on the London streetplan by ArtistCellar Stencils.

And of course, I also had the positive print from the map stencil.

As I said earlier I havn't washed my prints out as I would expect to lose too much colour.  Apparently you can use Aloe Gel or even sanitising gel to pull the prints so I will have another try with one of these and see how the colours hold up.  It will be interesting to experiment with other watersoluble media too.

As well as having a play day I have been busy making a baby quilt for a friend who is expecting later this year.

I am really pleased with this quilt and as it is made from a panel it went together relatively quickly.  I added a border to square it up (not that it is very even) and patched together a backing.

The panel is by Hoffman fabrics but I can't remember where I got it from or what it's called.

I've also done a workshop recently and made a sewing roll, although the method could be adapted to a roll for any number of purposes,

Well, that's enough for one post. See you soon!

Festival of Quilts

Despite intentions to the contrary I am only just starting to get to grips with making a quilt, or maybe two, for this year's Festival of Quilts.  As well as entering for the main Festival I am thinking of joining in with a display of quilts by Contemporary Quilt Group members on a theme of 'Horizon', assuming my effort is accepted.  The Horizon quilts will be displayed in the food court area so will have a large audience.

Horizon can be interpreted in many ways, from the literal horizon to geological strata.  At the moment I am toying with a particular idea and am revisiting a previous challenge for inspiration.  Do you remember this?

My thoughts are running along the lines of layered sheers to make a very light piece.  I am going to be constrained by the requirement to have a minimum of two layers held together with stitch but I am hoping to find a way to keep everything floaty.  

Today I have been playing with some monoprinting and stamping on some of the fabric I intend to use:

I should really have been working outside in my studio but it's in a state of disarray so I took over the kitchen.  

Not long after it looked like this

The piece of styrofoam at the top of the picture is my favourite toy.  I picked it up on the seafront where seagulls had been pecking at ti and had wonderfully distressed the surface.

These silicon pastry brushes made some wonderful marks and I can see them becoming a popular tool too.

So far I've worked in black and white but there will soon be colour.  Some of the photos above have the drop cloth underneath showing through and that is going to become some lovely pages for my sketchbook.  

I am aiming to work in the style of Pojagi when I assemble the quilt so I just hope I have time to get it all done.  I have another idea for my entry for the FOQ itself and will need to get cracking with that very soon too.  Maybe I should give up sleeping........