There's nothing like a deadline!

Guess what - five days to go and still no finished pieces!
I'm happily stitching away and making good progress as you can see here.

I'm positive that all three pieces will be complete by Wednesday when Catherine and I deliver the work to Forge Mill, although it could be that there are a few late nights ( or early mornings!) before then.
Look forward to seeing lots of you at the exhibition on Saturday 8th September when all will be revealed!
Off to do more stitching now.
Edwina

I was going to add an image of completed Oriental Pot 3 - but I have to confess I can't find it right now ... no doubt buried in a pile of images from Festival of Quilts! But I did find a couple of details, and here they are:

This one is called 'Black Orchid' and at the moment is my favourite ... but that may well change. Anyway - with the opening of the first exhibition rapidly approaching, we have been writing up artist statements and pricing up work we want to sell .... and I have to say, I much prefer making them! Hope to see lots of you at the Meet the artist session on September 8th - Hilary x

Getting Together

This post is really for the benefit of Annabel as much as anyone else - Annabel we missed you at the meeting this week, here are a few photos to show you what we got up to. Looking forward to everyone getting together at some stage, but of course it's tough to pin down eight busy women on the same day! Of course it was the first meeting without Marie too.

We met at Ineke's barn and boy am I jealous of that fabulous studio space. Ever since I've been scouring the internet for a derelict barn ripe for similar renovation near to me, but can I find one? No! If any of you out there don't know about Ineke's barn and the workshops that she runs there do check out her blog.

It's such a vibrant space with every spare bit of wall filled with colour and inspiration.

The meeting kicked off in true SiX fashion with no agenda, no minutes, but plenty of coffee, flapjacks and brownies.

Now followers of this blog will know there's an exhibition deadline looming for us. If you think that all the work must be done and dusted by now then you'd be wrong, very wrong! We're all so busy and what with teaching, events like Festival of Quilts and all of the other things that have to be done in life, rarely have the luxury of time to work in an uninterrupted way on our things. Needless to say we all seized the opportunity to get in a bit of hand stitching on the pieces that still need attention.

Of course not everything is so last minute. Hilary's completed three stunning pieces already. Here are two of them.

It was fun to see what everyone else has been working on. Here's Edwina showing us some of the applique shapes that'll be added to her quilts inspired by sushi.

The exhibition is shaping up to be a diverse collection of work with everyone drawing inspiration from different 'oriental' sources. We hope lots of you will be able to come. You'll find the details in the side bar. Please help spread the word to all your friends!

Marie Roper 1945-2012

When the organisers of Festival of Quilts, Europe's largest quilt exhibition heard the terrible news about Marie they immediately offered the opportunity of space to stage a tribute exhibition. Thank you to Marie's family for kindly loaning the work and to her friends who did a wonderful job of displaying it all so beautifully. We've heard from many visitors that seeing the exhibit was the highlight of their visit. For those of you who weren't able to come here are a few photos. Enjoy.

Life 5 - cushion and tablecloth

Making a cushion to kneel on.

And a tablecloth to put the cakes on.

Life 5 - Shall I be Mother?

There's been a bit of a delay in things quilty at chez Rainbow because of visitors, and gardening, and the countless little hiccups that make up my days. This just won't do! I have quilts to make.

However, I had some time to myself today and decided to get cracking on another piece for the Orientation exhibition.  Now, you have to look carefully, but you can just see the outline of my model. (That outstretched hand will have a teapot in it.)

And here's a close up of the face.  Still doing the hair.  I haven't decided whether to make it messy or to give it a bit of a Japanese look with perfectly manicured perfection and lots of combs and pretty things in it.  Perhaps I will put some chopsticks through the bun at the back (my DD's used to use chopsticks to hold their hair in place when they were younger - it was a bit of a thing - that and knitting needles)

Pot 3 - at last

Having finally finished and delivered my quilts for FOQ, I am now able to get on to my third piece for the first Orientation exhibition - a third pot. This will hang with the other two as a triptych although each could stand alone as a wallhanging. So here is my initial collage - again a mish-mash of fabrics that feel oriental to me

Obviously a bit too bright, as my planned pot of flowers need to have a chance to show. This pot will hold black orchids, so the background can be quite dramatic, but this needed toning down and some more structural lines adding ... result below 

Here's the pot which will hold the orchids - it actually belongs to my Mother in Law and I took the photos months ago, just after I had first been invited to contribute - gorgeous pot

I knew I wanted somethiong else to sit behind the flowers - in much the same way as the moon sits behind the Bonsai tree in Pot 2. But I didn't really want to repeat the moon and was still pondering what to use when I looked up the full name of my chosen orchid and discovered it is known as the moth orchid - perfect .... a big moth would do just the job I wanted. I planned to create him out of painted bondaweb and foil, as with my moon. Here is the paper cut out - trying for size.

And you may struggle to see these next two - but here he is, bondawebbed and foiled

I do only want him to be faint, but he does show better than I can show in the photos - he is silvery and catches the light - perhaps a side view will help ...

And it also shows exactly why I always block my pieces ... imagine how wavy this will be when I have quilted it ... and it's on to that tomorrow - Hilary x