CLAIRE PASSMORE blog

A big 'thank you' to Moonraker Quilters

15/9/2015

 

Moonraker Quilters' Area day, Bromham: 12th September 2014

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One of my favourite things to do; have a good chat about my other favourite thing...... quilting.

On Saturday I had the great pleasure of spending the day with a group of very talented ladies. Thanks to the great organisation of Jan and Sue (and lots of others I am sure) from Moonraker Quilters, the Quilter's Guild Region 3 Area day was a tremendous success.

Despite the rain, over 70 people attended and we all had a wonderful time. Thank you to all who made this day possible.





In the morning we all enjoyed a fabulously entertaining talk by Gail Lawther, who brought all her quilts from her fabulous 'Glimpses of Great Britain' series. There was plenty of time to look closely at Gail's work and also a chance to see and buy her new book 'Stained Glass Patchwork Techniques: Birds'. Gail was extremely generous and gave me a signed copy, and I have enjoyed reading it very much. 
Click here to visit Gail's website.
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My favourite quilt from Gail's 'Glimpses of great Britain' series
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The White Horse at Hackpen - created to celebrate the coronation of Queen Victoria


After a break for lunch I gave my talk about my 'Wiltshire's White Horses' series. As we were sitting in the heart of white horse country, not 5 miles from the White horse on Roundway Hill in Devizes, it could not have been more fitting.



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The 8 quilts from my 'Wiltshire's White Hosrse' series


After my talk we were then treated to the excitement of the raffle draw and a great 'show & tell' session with a fabulous variety of quilts. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I did. Unfortunately I was not able to write down the names of the makers, so I give my apologies.




After all that excitement there was time for tea and delicious homemade cake (you probably know how I feel about cake) before we all said farewell.  

My wholehearted congratulations to everyone at Moonraker Quilters for hosting such a great day.

 
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Liz graciously sat next to me to make me look tall.




I also need to thank Liz Norris and Sue Rawlings for all the great photos they took for me, some of which I used in this blog.
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The flower bowls were very popular with today's guests
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I have no idea!
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'Sardine Run'
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A selection of my sketchbooks were also on display
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2 quilts inspired by the summer visitors to the vlei near my old home

Moonraker Quilters
Meeting Day: 3rd Wednesday of every month, 2pm-4.30pm
Venue: Southbroom Parish Rooms, Devizes
Contact: Sue Daniels
Email: tony.daniels1941@gmail.com
Phone: 01380 729721

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Thanks for reading.

Your invitation to my exhibition,  May 2015

13/4/2015

 
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I am delighted to extend a personal invitation to you 

to attend my first solo UK exhibition 

'Here and Far'
at Midsomer Quilting
 Opens 1st May until 11th May 2015



10 am until 4 pm daily (Sunday 10.30am)

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I very much look forward to meeting you if you are able to visit.



 I shall be at Midsomer Quilting every day from 10 am until 4 pm 
 1st May until 11th May 2015.



I will have over 30 quilts hanging on display as well as a selection of smaller works for sale. The majority of the work is from my two most recent series - my South African 'Destination' series and my UK 'Wiltshire's White Horses' series. 


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I will also be launching my newly published book 'Quilting Originals', which aims to help quilters make the move to designing and creating their own original work. Please feel free to browse through it if you are able to visit. I will be delighted to sign copies should you wish to buy one. 


Today I left the first copies of the book at Midsomer Quilting if you would like to browse through it.
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As you can probably imagine, my sewing machine is busy busy busy! Time is flying and the 1st of May is rapidly approaching. Hanging sleeves and labels are all over the place - I keep asking myself why I leave these jobs to the end! 

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If you are not familiar with Midsomer Quilting it is a fabulous shop in the small village of Chilcompton in Somerset run by three lovely people, De, Chris and Birgitta. It is located in the grounds of Norton Green Garden Centre and has lots of free parking and easy access for wheelchairs. The shop is incredibly well stocked and has comfortable seating and endless free tea and coffee for those who wish to take a break from shopping, enjoy a chat or for those accompanying hardcore shoppers. The map below will help you find the shop; zoom in for more detail.


Midsomer Quilting, Norton Green Garden Centre, Chilcompton. BA3 4RR

Thank you for reading. I very much hope to see you soon!

Please feel free to share my website or blog with your friends by using the buttons to the right. If you would like to receive an e mail each time I post a new blog, please click here. I promise to never send you junk or give your address to anybody else.

4 New Quilts: Wiltshire's White Horses                                               27 October 2014

27/10/2014

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Westbury Horse© 2014 Claire Passmore
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Cherhill Horse© 2014 Claire Passmore
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Devizes Horse© 2014 Claire Passmore
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Alton Barnes Horse© 2014 Claire Passmore

Here they are at last - a long time coming, but for me, a cause for celebration. The first 4 of the 8 'Wiltshire's White Horses'.
I have really enjoyed researching the horses, discovering their stories, walking to them and making the quilts. 

The Westbury Horse; famous for being the first of the Wiltshire horses, taking its nocturnal walk to the spring to drink.
The Cherhill Horse; having its glass eye made from upturned bottles stolen over and over again.
The Devizes Horse; a new horse for a new Millennium. Overlooking the site of several mysterious crop circles and a mirror image of an older local horse, known as the 'Snobs' Horse' now lost.
Alton Barnes Horse: the story goes £20 was paid for the horse to be cut, but the man absconded with the money before doing the work. A second payment was required to get the job done.

The complete series will be on show at my first British solo exhibition next year at Midsomer Quilting,  along with my Destination Series and Modition Series. 

'Here and Far' 1st - 15th May 2015 - Midsomer Quilting, Chilcompton, BA3 4RR

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White Horses and Derwent Inktense pencils                                    15 October 2014

14/10/2014

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Inktense Pencils by Derwent
If you have not come across this product let me leave you in no doubt, I love these water soluble pencils!

In fact, I pretty much love every Derwent product I have tried. I started with the small tin of 12 pencils and liked them so much I bought the tin of 24. I then got tired of carrying them back and forth on the plane, so bought the tin of 72. Now I have pencils everywhere. I also invested (my husband does not agree with my definition of the term 'invested') in a small tin of Intense blocks. I like them, but not as much as the pencils. And recently I bought a small tin of Graphitint pencils - which are also lovely! If I promise to be good do you think Santa might bring me a tin of metallics?


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Yet to be fully explored... the blocks
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My favourite - the full set!
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My new Graphitint pencils
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Dear Santa, These look really cool!

Why are they so great?

  • They are clean and simple to use. You can sharpen them to a fine point for detailed work
  • They can be used on paper, card, fabric, bark, suede...
  • You can use them on dry or wet media
  • They blend well with water or textile medium to give lovely translucent effects
  • When moistened they reveal their intense ink pigment that becomes completely permanent when dry
  • You can draw onto rubber or lino cut stamps, then spitz with water and print
  • Use them for rubbings, stencils, drawing, shading, adding shadows or highlights.....
  • Collect the shavings and use the 'dust' to add colour
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Samples of the brown pencils from the full set of inktense pencils

So this is how I used them on the White Horse quilts; very simply with a freezer paper stencil.
It isn't very sophisticated, but it gave me a perfect, clean edge to the grid reference numbers I wanted beneath the name of each horse. Using the pencils allowed me to carefully apply colour exactly where I wanted it. 
I used the following colours; shiraz, poppy red, chestnut and saddle brown. I applied the color onto the dry fabric and then simply brushed over with a gel textile medium. I chose textile medium as I did not want any colour to bleed under the edges of the freezer paper stencil - otherwise water would have been fine. The pictures below show my process.

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The great thing is that once dry, the ink stain on the fabric is permanent and it can be further worked on and the colours will not mix or blend. 

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A new season, a new series                                                                      6 October 2014 

6/10/2014

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The White Horses of Wiltshire

So autumn is here at last. Happily it took a long time to arrive, but the nights are starting to draw in and I thought about putting the heating on last night!

So, whilst I was sat in front of my sewing machine yesterday, busy quilting a mountain, (more on that in another post) I started to think in earnest about a series I have wanted to make for a long time. The White Horses of Wiltshire. 
I started my research for this series in the spring, when I went in search of a few of the horses.


White Horse at Cherhill
The White Horse at Cherhill
White Horse at Westbury
The spectacular view from the White Horse at Westbury of the chalk downs and clay valley below
White Horse at Pewsey
The White Horse at Pewsey

Being a mostly rural county of England with lots of beautiful countryside, Wiltshire is characterised by its high chalk downland and wide clay covered valleys. Salisbury Plain is famous as the location of the Stonehenge and to the north you can find Avebury stone circles and other ancient landmarks. Personally, I find these ancient monuments fascinating, but I am presently even more interested in some not-so ancient marks made on the earth that seem curiously overlooked - the 8 visible white horses scratched into the chalk hillsides.

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As a child I remember looking out of the car windows, keeping an eye out for the sight of a white horse on a hillside. I remember being very puzzled by them - they made no sense to me, but they were huge and interesting, and sometimes we even stopped the car and walked the hills to sit on the horse's nose. 
Many years on it is still fun, although the steepness of the slope and the slippery chalk is much more of a challenge than it used to be. I was sliding down the nose like crazy in this picture!



Over the next few days I intend to work in my sketchbook, developing my ideas for the series. If the weather is good I also hope to go and walk the hills to a few of them and take some nice photographs to use too. 

There is a fantastic website with lots of great information about these hill figures;
http://www.wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk/ , but apart from that there seems to be very little else. I must say I am rather puzzled. They are even poorly marked with regard to road signs - I think Wiltshire is missing a trick here, as I am sure I can't be the only person who thinks these horses are worth a visit! 

So - over the next few days I will post some of my sketchbook pages and share the development of this series as it unfolds. Hopefully I will convince others of the beauty of these curious creatures!
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