Archive for the ‘craftsmanship’ Category

Anatomy of a Commission – Day 2

Sunday, March 11th, 2007


I always have a bit of the blank page syndrome writers face, but on day 1 I actually managed to get started – just “cut and go” is the thing to do – it doesn’t look much but represents a lot of progress for the first day, and I stopped here. Took a photo and went off to do something completely different – but once this kind of thing gets under way, the brain takes over in between times of working on it.

The top portion survives in the final piece; there is part of the lower bit in the final piece but now that I was getting the hang of this again, overnight I decided to modify the lower bit before attaching it to the upper. (it’s been a while since I worked on a piece this way, and is totally different way of thinking to doing the leather on fabric pieces.)

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Craftmanship issues

Saturday, January 27th, 2007

A recent morning on the quiltart list there was discussion of techniques. The previous writer had issues with fusing of uneven cutting and fraying edges, and I posed the question whether readers could conceive a design in which frayed edges and uneven cut lines, with fusing technique, were appropriate.

Well some of the answers were interesting, but I then realised I had done such a design myself, not too long ago, in which the pieces were either fused (the hand dyed squares in this piece) and or frayed – the gold scrim squares are hand sewn onto the top of the larger squares, and despite beng cut on the cross this stuff does fray easily – witness the fraying doubled over edging that surrounds the quilt.

This small quilt uses a traditional pattern of a square within a square to explore particular techniques, but overall the design isn’t too crash hot in terms of vitality and excitement, and this is probably why I haven’t exhibited it anywhere yet. And yet it is one of those pieces that somehow become important on the way towards new developments.

An earlier version of this post had this and a detailed view but the buttons would not open to show the pics, although they had done so when first posted. This is the best I can do for the moment, however, and maybe I will learn something blindingly obvious to everyone but me on this new blogger program, or need to take another path after a while.

Antique cane baby carriage – what a beauty

Thursday, June 30th, 2005


In our wanderings last weekend we went in and out of the many antique shops on Av. Tristan Navaja, as usual finding many beautiful things to oooh and aaaah at. Montevideo is an antique collector’s paradise. It’s a shame that we don’t have the money or the housing space to buy some of the most appealing things, however DH and I both enjoy wandering and spotting outstanding pieces, and occasionally go to one of the local auctions. They say a thing beauty is a joy for ever, and here is a case in point . Now if I were to buy this I would somehow feel that I needed to put it to some purpose. And although the tally is not necessarily final, currently all our grandchildren are all well past this stage. So perhaps it could serve holding a large tub of maiden hair fern …. but any carelessness with the watering could damage the cane base. The same concerns arise using the pram as a very elegant, indeed capacious, drinks trolley, as condensation on the ice bucket would play havoc with the base in no time. It could be a perfect display unit for a doll collection if that were my thing …. fabric stash mobility in my work area might be improved, that’s one idea …. anyway feel free to make your suggestions.

Sunday, June 26th, 2005
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