July and August Journal Quilts

July Journal Quilt

Here is the statement for this month:

I did a mindmap on the word ‘cocoon’, stencilled green silk dupioni with Markal paintsticks and machined the words of the mindmap around the layers. I decided to back it with hand made felt to add to the feeling of warmth and safety. I quilted around the cocoon shapes with invisible thread - not satisfied. Whilst walking I thought of trimming away the wadding of the outer shell of the cocoon to give a trapunto effect and adding quilting lines with dark green thread to the inner shape to made it recede as if into a hole and bright metallic threads round the outside to represent the lightness of the outside world. I handstitched the edges of the felt to the front as binding.

Here are my rough notes for it:

Started one based on cocoon mindmap - used ‘sky’ fabric and wrote mindmap words on it in free machine sewing. Rolled brown paint over with sponge roller/elastic band wrapped round. Not too sure about this. Intend to couch some wool over it into cocoon shape, or to mirror the spiral. Not sure how to proceed here.

Worked on the cocoon piece again. I drew a new design and stencilled it with Markal (Shiva) paintsticks. On green silk dupioni. I liked the way it looked but then left it for about a month! Decided to back it with hand made felt to add to the feeling of warmth and safety. I put a layer of thin wadding between the silk and felt and quilted around the cocoon shapes with invisible thread, but didn’t like the effect. Walking to school helped distance me from it and the idea suddenly came to me of trimming away the wadding around the outer shell of the cocoon to give a trapunto effect and adding quilting lines with dark green thread to the inner shape to made it recede as if into a hole and bright metallic threads round the outside to denote the lightness of the outside world. I agonised for quite a time over how to bind it. I wanted the edges of the felt to extend to the front so I decided to hand stitch them down. I like the effect I ended up with, and like the back as much as the front!

I haven't taken a photo of the back and can't now because it is not here, but it is some felt which I made with green, maroon and yellow wool fibre. There are words in gold metallic thread embroidered around the cocoon - you can't see them very well in the photo. Words like 'dark', 'security', 'safety'... This is my favourite of all the journal quilts.

This is the statement for August:

To highlight the issues surrounding the G8 summit regarding Africa, I painted satin ribbon with the flags of the 8 G8 countries and wove them together then layered and cut back an outline of Africa to reveal the woven flags underneath. I sewed on relevant newspaper cuttings treated with dilute PVA. Backed with felt and bounded with strips of ripped African fabrics. After London bombings added paper beads torn from newspaper clippings about the effect they had on the summit.

I started this first as an aid to prayer for the issues surrounding the G8 summit regarding Africa. I painted 8 pieces of satin ribbon with the flags of the 8 G8 countries and wove them together then layered them with some orange fabric to represent the colour I always associate with Africa, sewed an outline of Africa and cut back inside it to reveal the woven flags underneath. I collected newspaper headlines and articles about the summit and issues of debt and trade and painted them with dilute PVA. Backed with felt and bounded with strips of ripped African fabrics. I finished this on the morning of the London bombings with tears and added paper beads torn from newspaper clippings.