News on the radio today mentioned Samantha Davies trying to get to one of the skippers who broke his leg in the Vendee Globe single handed round the world sailing race. This event has inspired me for the last few years. In November we saw the boats getting ready at Sable d’Olonne in France and this first pictures is Sam in her boat Roxy leaving the harbour. The previous day, in much more pleasant weather I took the picture below.
I love all the angles, the flags, the sun behind the beam and can you see the guy hanging in the ropes in the middle fixing something?
I printed out the picture in black and white and made it into a thermofax screen. I first printed on some painted pages in my sketchbook, on the right, with white and black ink.
I’m a member of the Contemporary Quilt group – which is part of the Quilters Guild in the UK – and we made a 12″ quilt every month this year. For the November quilt I stitched two strips together, a narrow one for the base in bright sunshiny colour and a wide indigo dyed strip for the sky. I quilted the piece with angular lines with a few little flags, then printed over the top with the thermofax screen in the same way as I did in my sketchbook. It’s good to sample first. Finally I painted in the little flags with some Lumiere fabric paints (see ‘The Painted Quilt’ by Linda and Laura Kemshall). If I’m not back before Christmas I wish everybody a very happy time and an inspirational 2009!