Hello everyone, a warm welcome to our newsletter. It’s Laura here and I’m going to take you back today to our visit to Festival of Quilts, and share with you some of my favourite pieces I saw there. But first, can I just tell you about some new items in our shop?
I’ve been making some tiny paintings and drawings for sale. These are all ACEOs, tiny art that measures 2.5” x 3.5”. ACEOs are ‘Art Cards, Editions and Originals’. Mine aren’t printed reproductions, they are all original mini artworks that I've handmade. You might have come across ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) - they are the same format, but ATCs are traded or gifted, whereas ACEOs are sold.
ACEOs are a great way to collect and decorate your home with original art but at a fraction of the cost of larger works. I’m starting the prices on these at £4 each. You can do what you like with them, but I think they’d look great mounted and then framed. You can get inexpensive frames from places like Ikea which would be perfect.
So I hope you’ll enjoy these tiny paintings and give them a new home. Posting physical things is as always a pain in the neck. Our shop is set to ship items to the UK only, but if you are shopping from outside the UK please get in touch and we can work it out.
While I’m doing my best efforts as sales assistant, can I also direct you to our greetings cards. I’ve listed some cards at a special sale price of £1 each which is a real bargain.
And don’t forget, every order also receives a free pack of ten postcards worth £5.
Thank you in advance for any orders you place. They really do make a difference to our small business. I’ve been on the verge of making the decision to get a proper job, so each and every sale matters to us. I’m not sure I’m employable so I really do need to be able to keep going as an artist. 😊
So I just skimmed through the camera roll on my phone to see which photos from Festival to share with you and spotted a bit of a theme. Let me show you the photos and see if you can spot it too…
Above: Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom, detail, Sachiko Yoshida
Maybe you’re surprised I picked this one out because it’s so different to my own work, but I really liked it. I loved the colours, the intricacy of the piecing and the applique, and also how the artist had combined those two techniques, but in such a way that they were really interchangeable in terms of design and impact. This is how the whole quilt looked, beautiful, despite the poor lighting in this spot at the NEC.
I’m a big fan of that kaleidoscope style piecing. You might have seen my workshop Millefiori Patchwork. If you haven’t do check it out…here’s a link.
Above: Echoes of Colour, Michiko Obuchi. This must have taken some planning! Really interesting colour again and I liked the way the rings appeared to float in front of the background.
Above: Popping Marbles, detail, Masako Nishimura. I showed you this one last week, but here’s a fantastic detail. Loved these appliqué circles. I think I need to do some. But maybe just one would actually be enough to get that out of my system! I like the way they are connected with stitch lines don’t you?
Above: Swayed by the Breeze, detail, Sachiko Yoshida. Similar idea here from a different maker. These appliqué circles are cut from patterned Japanese silk fabrics. The way they fragment the pattern and provide little flashes of red is nice isn’t it?
Above: The Watcher, detail, Hannah Blackburn. Well this one is a bit odd which I like, and has lots of eyes on it, which you know I also like.
Above: Umbra, detail, Geoff Kerrins. I always talk about how important thread colour is when you do a lot of quilting and this one is a perfect illustration of that philosophy!
Above: Colour Play on Circles 1, Sachiko Yoshida
If you haven’t already guessed, this last one probably gave it away - lots of circles! Simple, yes, but always so effective.
Before I go, have you got time to just look at a few photos from Cornwall?
I’ll show you just a few from the New Craftsman Gallery which is located on Fore Street in St Ives. Here’s their website.
They have a lovely space arranged in several rooms over two floors.
These pots are ceramic but they also had some huge turned wooden vessels which were fantastic.
This was a very nice painting, but tricky to photograph because of the glare on the surface from the lights. It’s called Lobster and Penzance Pebbles and is by Robert Pittam.
This one, with a detail shown below, is by Leigh Davis and is called Breaking Sea. I thought it had something of the style of the Cornish Masters such as Sir Terry Frost like we had a quick look at last week.
With Cornwall still in mind I’ve been working in my sketchbook from photos I took on the trip. In this week’s live Art Club session I worked on a couple of pages…
As you can see, I’m loving the Cornish stripes! If you have a stash of photos in a drawer I hope I gave you some ideas for how you might incorporate them in the process of developing thoughts in your book.
If you’re a paid subscriber and missed the session live don’t worry, the recording is here to catch up on at your convenience….
Our live studio sessions are a big part of what we do and we would love for you to join in. You have access to them via a subscription to our Substack page which is £6 a month. For that you can then join every weekly live session, plus you also have access to all the recordings. Your subscription will also allow you full access to all our writing. This week Linda wrote about her love of the traditional Pineapple quilt block design. If you missed that one, take a look here…
I Love A Pineapple Quilt!
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Aug 9
Laura, Amelie and I made a last minute visit to this year’s Festival of Quilts at the National Exhibition Centre this week. This is the first year since the show began that we were there simply as vi…
Thanks for reading our news this week, great to have your company. Don’t forget to have a look at our online shop for tiny paintings, greetings cards, and of course our online workshops.
And if you’d like to take advantage of the live Art Club sessions you can sign up for a subscription here. Your paid subscription will give you access to all of our archived posts - there are many!
We’ll be back again with more news next week, but in the meantime if you’d like to talk to us please don’t hesitate to email or drop us a comment below.
Bye for now,
Linda and Laura x
Thank you for creating with us. For more please visit our online video workshops.
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