MCS ACCREDITATION

Using ragging as an alternative media transforms flat fabric into a whole new surface covering. Be it a consideration for a binding, or a textural point of interest, ragging is meaty fun, and a great way of bringing life and movement into a quilt.

Working on colour and composition for Autumn Tartan

Improv, pieced quilt top, yet to be quilted. I’m halfway through this and loving its journey. 

The fabrics are hand-dyed using breakdown screens to achieve my autumnal palette.

Inspired from a sunny autumns afternoon march in the woods

My schoolwork introduced me to stained glass quilting, and this was my first stab at it. This highlighted the importance of correct bias cutting, allowing our “leading” to be flexible.

I’ve always kept a sketchbook. My diary - a scrapbook, call it what you like, a place of reference, my catalog of day to day creations in my mind.

My sketchbook is a witness of what I experience - scribble things when they happen!

My coursework encourages me to think beyond the obvious and break the rules, which leads to corners undiscovered. 

Using anything from the inside of a tomato puree tube, plastic and piping, to wire and horse hair, I was delighted with this far eastern creation, a rich tapestry of mixed media and vibrant colour, that could embellish a piece or even edge it.

Quick and easy yet very effective, these Pandora style beads were created using tapered slices of varnish coated magazine strips, rolled onto a skewer, then glued and glazed. 

A perfect embellishment for a dimensional piece

These 4 came together quite by accident on my design wall. They were independent blocks that were born from a design module studying glass.

This was a fun practice piece which forms part of my prep-work for 'Autumn Tartan'

An experimental exercise using ragging to mimic the leafy forest floor, frayed fabrics and hessian to represent the crunching leaves and water soluble fabric with stitching to illustrate falling leaves.

It’s great to do sketchbook exercises like this, no pressure to produce a masterpiece, just an opportunity to mess around and have a go.

This was an entirely new concept that I was convinced would never work, but it does!

Water soluble fabric is made from fibers that dissolve in water. This leaves us with an almost lace effect edging that is continued on beyond the edge of our fabric, or indeed within it. This can also bring a more vintage, aged feel to a contemporary work.

Binding is usually our last consideration for our work, but ultimately one of the most important decisions, an opportunity to frame a piece, showcase it.

My coursework has unearthed so many different methods never thought of before, and also encouraged me to bring the outside edge inside the work.

Still working on embellishment and fabric manipulation, we revisited this traditional method of quilting which dates back to Victorian times.

A Suffolk Puff, or YoYo, is a ruched fabric rosette made of gathered fabric sewn in place to form a scrunched disc. Historically, many of these are made and sewn together on mass to form a large quilt.

This piece was inspired from researching Baltimore Album Quilts, a distinctive style of applique quilting that originated in the US. A template led pattern, this 3D piece lifts off the page with clever ruching, gathering and folding. The batiks used add to its oriental, far eastern promise.