My first scroll-book
Published

My first scroll-book

This year, I’ve decided to participate in Ineke Berlyn’s Art Textile books online. I like her workshops, I’ve learnt so much from them. So I have just finished my first scroll-book.

 It is made of bits and pieces from my stash, sewn mostly with silk embrodery thread and embellished with lace and beads.
The outside is from my first ever try of dying in plastic bags, overdyed later with indigo, stencilled and thermofax printed:

And the inside is a mixture of hand dyed and comercial fabric scraps, and some of them were also stencilled and printed:

then I put on some old bits of lace:

 and plenty of beads

Thanks for visiting.

Happy New Year!
Published

Happy New Year!

2015 is already more than a week old, I’ve used this first week to finish some Journalquilts from 2014:
First November, inspired by the art of Michael Morgan:

The colours were chosen because November can be rather dark and wet here in Bergen. Some close-ups:

December was made by a photo I took at Skarvhamran, Skjerstad, last summer. I made it in black and white, to give it a wintery look:

 And some close-ups:

I am not satisfied with the edge of the hillside in the foreground, maybe I have to put on some Markal shadings there as well.

I have not made any resolutions for 2015, and working full time in NRK as well, I will just try to be   as creative as posssible with the little time I have. But I have signed up for Ineke Berlyn’s Art textile books online. I love her online courses, they give me a chance to try something new

For Galskapen heng i det grøne, og Eplet er raudt utan synd
Published

For Galskapen heng i det grøne, og Eplet er raudt utan synd

We have just had another challenge finished with Latitude Quilts. Our theme this time was LETTERING. When the challenge came, I thought this was just my thing. I love letters and writing, and often try to incorporate it in my work. So I looked through my sketchbooks for inspiration, and at once found my quote. It is from a poem by the Norwegian author Jon Fosse and in Norwegian it goes: «For galskapen heng i det grøne, og eplet er raudt utan synd». Translated to English it says something like: «For the madness is hanging in the green, and the apple is red without sinn». I had already a rough idea of how to interpret it, and for a long time, I had wanted to try to embroider lettering in the style of Lorina Bulwer. I had found somewhere on the internet a tutorial of how tom make letters like hers easy, and decided to use it this time.

What colours to use were easy to pick, I needle-turn appliqued  the apple, machine quilted the piece simple with free straight lines before I embroidered the lettering and finished it all with some simple hand-stitches. And framed it all with the colour of the apple.
Because the quote is Norwegian, as my native language is, I decided to keep both the text in the quilt and the title in Norwegian.

 And a close up:

Since last I’ve also finished another Journal Quilt. I used leaves from my garden, printed on rust-dyed cotton, with machine- and hand- quilting:
 And a close up:

Lettering and Bookmaking
Published

Lettering and Bookmaking

I was thrilled when I saw our new challenge: Lettering. This, because I am sofascinated by the shapes of letters, from the earliest Cuneinform and Hieroglyphs, up till our time with thousand different fonts.
And comming from Norway, I am so fascinated by the exotic elegance of Arabic and Asian writing.
I have used lettering many times in my quilts, like here in our challenge: Every single day, where I used the Chinese sign for Tea:
But, the earliest form of lettering in Scandinavia, Runer, are just as fascinating. I used them in one of my quilts about our Viking-ships, here is a picture of my Design-board, where I’m trying out different texts.
And this brings me to my second topic, bookmaking. 800-1000 years ago, at the time of the Runes, there were no books in Scandinavia that we know of. Writing were done in Runes on stones or wooden sticks, Runepinner. A few of these have survived, one of the most fascinating is one tiny piece of wood, about 12-15 cm long, where the row of boats you see at the bottom was engraved. At the back of this piece of wood, were the text you see to the right. These dates to around 1250, while the text at the top left was found at the Oseberg ship and is from around 820.  

Bookmaking.
In 2010, Laura had a show in DMTV, where she talked about bookmaking, and this show opened a new world for me.  So I made my first sketchbook, filled with many kinds of paper. 


On the covers, I’ve used Silk paper I had made . On the front, I had laminated in a leaf from a plant from my garden,
and on the back, I tried to use some golden flakes:
Later, I’ve made this one, a concertina book

 The cover is lino print on cotton rag paper, and it is, as all of my books are, filled with decorated paper, photos, prints etc.
 The next is a long stitch binding, the cover is hand made paper with embedded leafs:
And this last one I made, with soft leather cover:

If you want to have a try, the videos from DMTV are in Archive Two (you have to subscribe to DMTV to get access). You can also find a few instructive pages here:
http://crafts.tutsplus.com/tutorials/bookbinding-fundamentals-long-stitch-leather-journal–craft-10754
http://www.ruthbleakley.com/blog/2011/09/mini-book-photo-tutorial/
http://www.philobiblon.com/tutorials.shtml
New reveal and a Journalquilt
Published

New reveal and a Journalquilt

On september we revealed our latest challenge with Latitude quilts, WILD, and my contribution is called Jokulsarlon.
This time I decided to go abstract, and to revisit a theme I have played with before. In Iceland, there is a lake  filled with floating mini-icebergs from the nearby glacier. It is called Jokulsarlon, which means «glacial river lagoon». The lines, colour and texture are really fascinating. I painted some fabric in this wonderful green-blue kind of colour of the glacier, cut it up and pieced it together again, and layered it with a polyester kind of fiber, usually used in scrapboking, some of which were manipulated with heat.
I quilted it all with parallell lines and framed it with a simple black binding.

And some close ups:

I also have a Journalquilt to show you. This is for September and is based on the one we made in July, but making it transparent. In this I’ve trapped painted newspaper, Lutradur and silk scraps:

Two more Journalquilts
Published

Two more Journalquilts

Just a short note to show you my last two Journal-quilts. The first, for July, is inspired by our road-trip this summer, and the pink – blue wild Lupins along the way:

I just love the texture you can get with a bit of stitching, it helps when I am not too pleased with my chose of fabric. Some Clos-ups:

The second, for August, is a map of my surroundings. 

Also here, the hand-stitching gives depth to the quilt: 

Under the surface – a long time ago
Published

Under the surface – a long time ago

We have had a new reveal at Latitude quilts. Our theme this time was «Under the surface». So, with this theme, I decided – literally – to go under the surface. When archeologists dig, they relate to the different layers the soil has, and can place the different artifacts according to these layers. In 1905, two archeologists started digging in the Oseberg burial mound at Slagen in Tunsberg, and found one of the finest finds to have survived the Viking age. 

This treasure has inspired me in so many ways, so this is my tribute to what our ancestors left us. The green grass-grown mound above the surface, and the burial-ship with all its beautiful content under.





Well, this was my contribution, do head over to Latitude quilts to see the rest of the quilts:
http://latitudequilts.blogspot.com



Collecting inspiration north of the Arctic Circle.
Published

Collecting inspiration north of the Arctic Circle.

I’m just home from a fantastic tour north of the Arctic Circle. To a familiar place just like so many years before. We spent 2 x 10 hours in car both over and under mountains:

all the way from Bergen to Skjerstad in Salten. A fantastic tour. Crossing the Arctic Circle we knew we were almost at our goal.

Outside the Arctic Circle Centre there is a beautiful pillar of local pink marble:

We spent some wonderful, WARM summer days at and around Skjerstad. This was the view from the car-window on the road to Bodø

and one of the bridges over Saltstraumen

Even on a gloomy day ther are beauty in an overgrown garden

And of course, I had to take the usual trip up at my favourite place, Skarvhamran, a very windy hill crest, where the pines grows very slow, gets crooked, old and dies eventually, just to stand as dried sculptures.

And at the top I found these three charming birches:

Well back in Bergen, I headed south to Løkken in Denmark, to celebrate my brothers 70thbithday. Here was a totally different landscape, no mountains but charming bathing huts at the beach

And turning around I was met by this wonderful blue sea

So many impressions to keep me busy through the winter, hopefully some of it will end in one of my quilts.

Just a tiny update
Published

Just a tiny update

This will just be a short update on my entries for Ineke Berlyn’s Journal Quilt Online Course. I have in an earlier post showed you my entries for January and February, here are for March:

 

April, the harbour of Bergen:

 

May, a windy beach in Tønsberg:

and June with spring/summer:

Four different landscapes, and four different techniques. I like this way to try different things on my path to finding my inner voice

My Space Your Space Our Space
Published

My Space Your Space Our Space

Latitudequilts have just revealed their latest challenge Space:



My first thought when I saw this theme, were of those wonderful pictures NASA and others have given us from the outer space. Just like some of our hand dyed fabrics, especially some of the ice and snow dyed ones. But of course I needed something more.
In April, my daughter and I had a weekend in London and Manchester. She wanted to go to the Backstreet Boys concert in Manchester, and I wanted to visit the Harry Potter experience at Leavesden.
Well, we went together on both places. And of course, there were a bit of shopping!
Walking in the streets of London, the idea suddenly came to me. This was her space, and mine, and we had them together, so this trip ended as our space.
I decided to use photos I had taken at the concert and during the studio-tour. Transferred them to fabric, cut the in strips and bonded them to some fusible wadding. Unfortunately, the photo transfers were not so bright as I wanted, so I put a piece of blue organza on top to give it a bit more colour. I then finished this part with some stitching on top, running stitches and french knots.
The background fabric I had chosen, emphasizes the colours of the photos. For the quilting, I went for machine-embroidered lettering, inspired by Laura Kemshall. Because of the size, 15″x15″, I could not use too bold letters, but I think I found a font that suits the size. And to give this background a bit more life, I put in some running stitches in some of the letters with the turquoise from the pictures.
Instead of bonding the photo-part to the background, I wanted it to have more depth, so I finished it with a blind fold and attached it loosely with stitches from the back:

Dette er mitt bidrag til siste utfordring fra Latitudequilts, Space. Min første tanke var alle disse vidunderlige bildene NASA og andre viser oss fra verdensrommet. Så lik noen av våre handfargede stoffer, især de som er is eller snøfarget. 
Men jeg trengte noe mer innhold, så jeg kom på weekend-turen til London og Manchester jeg hadde med min datter i april.  Hun ville på Backstreet konsert og jeg ville til Harry Potter studioet i Leavensden. Vel, vi dro sammen begge stedene. Så hennes SPACE og min ble til vår. 
Foto-transfer av bilder jeg tok, litt håndsøm, bakgrunnen er maskinbrodert med bokstaver, og så ble noen av disse forsterket med håndsøm. For å få mer dybde, festet jeg bildet løst med sting fra baksiden.