HAPPY KITTY BUNNY PONY

I remember at the start of this project, I was worried about target audience. I was talking to Kate about thinking that there wouldn't really be a target audience that were into the things that i was "into", but Kate said "well, people buy that Happy Kitty Bunny Pony book.... and i said "Oh yeah!" I do like it, it's full of the kinds of things I collect, it's a bit sickly though, yack yack yack, but it's got bit's of funny writing in it making fun of the stuff that's in it, so it's all a bit tongue in cheek! TEE HEE HEE

LIKE A MONKEY WITH A MINIATURE CYMBAL

This book is great. It's full of patterns and amazing illustrations. Anything to get you in the mood to sit down for a few hours & get all messy with some Berols'!

Olle Eksell

Olle Eksell is another new favourite! I'm a fan of Swedish Folk art & Swedish design in general. I think the best aspect of his work is the simplicity and subtle black & white detail combined with blocks of bold colour.

COLOUR KITTENS

This is a book i bought from Amazon purely because it recommended I did so...! Plus it was dirt cheap. I bought it at the same time I bought a book by Mary Blair I love her! I really like the style of the Alice & Martin Provensen, they select and apply colour really nicely. I also like the themes and layout of the pages. With all childrens books, the imagery tells a story on it's own and is visually engaging.

WALT PREOGORY

I tend to forget about how much I like the work of Walt Pregory. I forget because I see the top image every day as my phone background & the background on my laptop. These images were probably used in some of his animation from around the 1950's to 60's. The detail and colour in this image is something I will apply to my textiles and the simplicity of the shapes will also make some kind of appearence using offcuts from fabric to create tree's possibly???

I LIKE IT A LOT.

MAXINE SUTTON

I found this artist in a embroidery magazine in college. I really like the mixed material and composition. I think i'll probably have a bit more of a sense of a story with the piece that i will make. I'm not going to produce a patchwork quilt, just oging to apply the idea of patchwork and quilt seperately to create more of a comfort blanket with imagery inspired by my collections.

I LIKE YOUR STYLE BOB GUIDI

THE ART & FLAIR OF MARY BLAIR

Mary Blair (1911 - 1978) is probably best known for her Alice & Wonderland work for Walt Disney as she was honoured as a Disney Legend in 1991. My favourite of her work is from the 1950's, old childrens books like "I can fly" and the work I have selected below...

FLICKR

I've been selecting some of my favourite photos on FLICKR dot com. They're really relevent for the direction my project is going in and really interesting. It's such an easy way of getting thumbnails of inspiration together to have a look at colours, composition and subject matter. I've also used FLICKR to put my own photographs of COLLECTIONS .

BEING FRANK

Sewing is cool...Honest! Frankie Magazine says so! This magazine is an Australian version of a mag like Lula. It's got a lot of baking, sewing, knitting, making your own this n that, all the girly 'shit' that I shamelessly obsess over.











LOOK! It's even got a Cheerleading Nana! WHAT THE HELL?

PATCHWORK # 4

This book is by far the best yet...if not ever. It is probably the best book I've seen for ages. It's called 'Creative Patchwork' by June Field. Oh June!



Not only is it from the 1970's, it's also absolutely full of amazing and funny imagery, tips, colour photos galore! There really aren't words for how up my street this is. I've got to buy it.

Unfortunately, a lot of photos are in black & white but they're still brilliant. There are even ideas for patchwork clothes, umbrella's, cushions. One photo looks like her whole kitchen is covered in patchwork... that's a bit hardcore for a novice like me.



The whole idea of the book is to give patchwork a new dimension. This is exactly what I hope to do.

"It will appeal both to the enthusiastic beginner, and to the skilled worker looking for new ideas."

Brilliant.



^ These designs look to be fairly easy to have a go at myself.



The image above had me laughing for ages. It still does now actually. I stopped to look at this page because I saw the dolls made of patchwork and they looked to have really sweet faces. But the longer I looked the more sinister it became. I'm not sure whether this is intentional or not but the expressions on the faces of each of the dolls looks as though they're going to 'do that clown in'

LOOK!



I have included the next image in my research as I feel it's strongly influenced by some of the work i've already looked at in Samplers. It's nice to see indirect aspects of imagery repeated from early centuries in the same area of work. HERE is the exmaple of the old samplers. The use of houses was a strong theme for textile based craft work in the Victorian era.



The image below is the mark of a turning point in my project. It's a piece from the mid 19th century. I love it. The collaged imagery of animals and inanimate objects with different textures and sizes has influenced me to maybe try something like this rather than the panelled idea i'd previously come up with. I like the idea of different fabric being used. It's given me a little bit of an idea for a screenprinting method I have used in a workshop a few weeks back. I could produce a mixed media fabric based piece included small areas where there is print combinded with texture in embroidery or different fabrics. I feel patchwork has a Swiss folk fabric feel to it and reminds me a little of the work of Swedish designer Olle Eksell.

Patchwork # 3

The 3rd book that caught my eye was this one, Japanese Quilt Art III (THREE!!!) By Setsuko Segawa. Although (like the others) the publication is pretty dated, I like the layout & size & style of the book... which is odd. The first double page spread has the really nice photo of who i'm assuming Setsuko Segawa. I like the composition and graininess of the image and i'm sure it was not intended to be such a large factor of why someone might be attracted to the publication as there is nothing else like it in the book.







I really like the first of the images below. I find it quite humourous and i'm really drawn in by it's childlike qualities. I'ts a really unusal and interesting image to base a quilt on. It's almost like the quilter was having a bit of a mess around with sewing lines on the machine when they came up with it. It really works though!... weirdly!

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The top two images are more reminiscent of the styles that spring to mind when I frst thought of Japanese designs in quilting. They're very elegant and involve traditional imagery and colours. They're beautiful and the age of them kind of makes them tacky at the same time. I say tacky because of the bits of shiny fabric that was probably really beautiful in the 80's but now is all a bit dated a twee. I can't help thinking of someone down the market shouting, "TWO PAAAAND(£2) FOR A METER'...TWO PAAAAND A METER!" I really like that about it though as it appeals to my junk collecting/hoarder side.