Hello to Jason Isaacs

As we are well underway, I thought I'd print a picture of my offering to the project Quilts 4 London, with which I was involved.  The project was set up to get people of all ages and abilities to make pennants using a craft technique (mainly quilting, and sewing, although there were a few papercrafts and knitted ones) to give as a gift to the visiting athletes during the Olympics.  The organisation has done a fantastic job in promoting new skills to people who would otherwise not have got involved.

My efforts were as follows:

For anyone that listens to the Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode Film Review Podcast on Radio 5, the Hello to Jason Isaacs phenomenon will be familiar to them.  They have said hello to the quite gorgeous Mr Isaacs for some years now on every show, and the phenomenon has gone viral, with people all over the world including their own hellos in increasingly outlandish ways.  The electronic banner in Leicester Square, one in LA for the Jay Leno Show, radio shows around the world are just some of the places to say Hello.

So I thought I would do my own little homage to Mr Isaacs and get involved with the Olympics for myself.  I spent a pleasant afternoon googling pictures (there had to be one of him without a shirt on from the recent Case Histories TV series), and put it all together. 

The pennant was on display at The View Tube Gallery, along with lots of other pennants.  The View Tube overlooks the Olympic Park, and until it was closed to the public in May, it was the closest view you could get to the Stadium.

Pennants hanging.  Can you spot Jason Isaacs?

Display at You Tube Gallery

I spy Jason again

It was a bit rainy (funny that)

Olympic Park view in April

Anish Kapoor's Orbit

The Aquatic Centre

I put a label on the back explaining the reasoning behind the pennant so whoever gets it should have some context for a pennant with lots of pictures of a handsome man...

Go Team GB!

We went to see the Ladies Football on Tuesday at Wembley, which was an amazing experience for us all (though we were all suffering with a touch of vertigo as we were so near to the roof).

So with a bit of patriotism, I'm posting a piccie I took of a cafe in Dorset a while ago (probably while the Jubilee was in full flow).  It's paper cups and I love it!

Paula's birthday

For my good friend's (Paula Watkins) birthday this year, I did a mini quilt to reflect everything Paula.

Quilt for Paula

I used cotton fabric as a base and did some simple piecing around the centre piece, which was text printed onto cotton on my printer.  First I had sprayed with a walnut ink wash, then painted over with Magical Mica pots.  These little pots of powder produce amazing colours when they are wet - you dip your brush into the pot before wetting.  For this I used Autumn Maple, Tibetan Poppy, Ponderosa Pine and Red Hot Poker. Because of the walnut ink, they look a little muted but they can be incredibly vibrant.

For the text, I thought of everything that Paula loves.  Anyone who knows Paula knows that there wasn't enough space for everything, so I needed to be choosy.  But I made sure that some of the essentials were there - woolfelt and her Sizzix particularly!

I hand stitched on the centre panel, but found that there wasn't a lot of space to stitch without covering the writing, which was a shame, because I think it could have done with quilting.  As the outside edges were securely machined, the centre piece puffed up a bit and creased. 

The outer panels were stencilled with some lime green paint and machine stitched to quilt.  I used pelmet vilene to create labels.  I used tissuetex to cover the labels and  TAP (Transfer Artist Paper) to put the images of the scissors on (using copyright-free images from the internet), and then I managed (after much blood, sweat and tears) to put eyelets in and hand-stitch the labels to the quilt.

copyright free images of vintage scissors were used

My label - nade with my wonderful Sizzix Wordplay die

 

I think she liked it!!!!  It was the mention of woolfelt that clinched it....