As well as stitching lots and lots of lines over the last couple of weeks I have also spent a few hours doing 'wet work' inspired by calm and tranquility. I was fairly pleased with the pieces I had printed over the August bank holiday but this time around all I seem to have made is a bunch of ugly ducklings! Using the Dunure colour family I made some more pieces by monoprinting off glassine and by using breakdown printing. I also did some scraping with thickened dye and some dry brushing. Usually I can predicate, and somewhat control, the outcome when I layer up colours from within a colour family. This time most of the pieces came out rather dirty brown or dull looking. I think I have lost my mojo!

But I like a challenge so I sat and studied the pieces. I used paper 'L' frames to isolate sections of each cloth. This helped me decide which pieces needed more of the same - for example adding more bands of colour by monoprinting off glassine. And which pieces needed the addition of a layer of something different - for example adding fine lines using a soya wax screen on top of scrapped fabric. I also hung some of the really ugly pieces side by side to see if there were any 'sparks' between them. I now have separate piles to work through over the coming days and weeks. Let's hope I can find my mojo again!

Not everybody would find pleasure in stitching so many metres of straight lines but, thankfully, I do. With an average speed of 20 metres per hour it has taken over 22 hours to complete the background quilting on this large Ruins piece. Keeping the lines straight and equally spaced requires just enough concentration to stop this being a mindless task. Instead I have found it to be mindful. Whilst stitching my mind stops racing, stops worrying, stops trying to solve all the problems in my life.

I've hinted at some 'life' issues in previous posts. For the last few months my husband and I have been providing 24 hour care for our eldest son who has been in a very dark and troubled state of mind. It has been a distressing and exhausting time. Although we have had great support from our family, friends and from my 'day job' I don't think I could have coped without having my studio and my art to take refuge in. Working in series has meant that there has always been something to work on. From stitching straight lines on days when my mind needed calming to composing new pieces on days when I have felt stronger. There is a simple joy in stepping into a studio full of colour, in working with cloth, in stitching straight lines!

Over the last few weeks I have also pieced together another large scale Ruins piece. The composition of the background is quite different from the earlier works and it took me a long time to audition all the 'bricks' into a something that I was happy with. Tiredness probably played a part as I'm usually much more confident when I am working on composition. The piece is 275cm wide by 140cm high and has 'light', 'medium' and 'dark' bands. Over the coming weeks I will stitch using many, many more parallel lines. Some would find the prospect boring or maybe even intimidating - me, if find it joyful.

One of the Etcetera group members, Helen Conway, has written a great article about our first exhibition. Spread over three pages it has lots of photos of all our works and explains how we formed as a group. It is widely available in the UK if you fancy a look!

Not content to bask in the glory of our first exhibition I have been busily constructing another piece in my Ruins series. I wanted to create something 'panoramic' that references abandoned cities. Something that completely fills the viewers field of vision as they draw close. Unfortunately my biggest design wall is only 2m wide so I had to 'compose' the background on my large print bench. As with the previous pieces I have cut all my printed fabrics into individual 'bricks' that I then use to build a 'wall'. The finished background contains over 300 bricks and is approximately 3m wide by 1m high. It is currently in two pieces to make the background quilting a little easier. Each piece will be quilted with 1/4 inch spaced parallel lines across the width - approximately 500m of stitching. They will then be joined together before I add the stitched 'buildings'. A mammoth task that reminds me of a saying; how do you eat an elephant? one slice at a time!

Please visit our website for more information on all seven Etcetera members. The exhibition will end on Saturday 26th September. If you do get to visit I would love to hear what you think!

Transitions - the first exhibition by Etcetera - opens tomorrow at the Platform Gallery in Clitheroe and is on until Saturday 26th September.

The gallery is open Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm and Saturday 10am to 4.30pm. The address is Station Road, Clitheroe, BB7 2JT.

The exhibition features 6 pieces from my Hidden Message series as well as wonderful work by my fellow Etcetera members Linda Bilsborrow, Julie Bunter, Helen Conway, Isobel Holland, Magie Relph and Sandra Wyman. You can find out more about us at Etcetera

I've been playing with thickened dyes on glassine in order to create some more textures that embody stillness and tranquillity.  I'm not sure how successful my experiments were but I thought I would share.

Glassine is a super shiny plastic with a static surface that causes liquids to pull together - think droplets of water on a water proof finish. The thickness of the liquid and how much you put on influence the patterns this forms. I took a large piece of glassine and painted on bands of colour from my Dunure colour family. I blended the colours a bit and tried to introduce some linear movement. With the help of a friend (thanks Ruth!) I carefully laid on top a piece of dry soda soaked fabric. We then used our hands to press the fabric onto the glassine creating the monoprint.

I had stuck lengths of masking tape across the fabric before using it and these acted as a resist. I let the monoprint dry and removed the tape. I used more tape to mask off a new set of bands across the fabric covering some of the original printed area but not all.

I then added more thickened dye to the glassine and repeated the printing process. I tried to use less dye for the second print to avoid some large blotchy areas. I also used more colours from the pale part of the colour family.

Having created this second layer I let the fabric batch overnight before washing out. There are some interesting areas within the print but mostly it looks like a multi-coloured spotty animal skin. Which would be fantastic if I had wanted multi-coloured spotty animal skin! Maybe I need to play some more.

I used two other techniques to try to capture stillness or tranquillity. Both used thickness dyes in pales shades from my 'Dunure' colour family.

The first used a breakdown printing technique that I have been using in my Ruins series but this time with vertical elements rather than horizontal. I used different thicknesses of masking tape to create a random barcode effect on the back of my screen. I then applied a very thin coat of thickened dye over the top. Once dry I removed the tape and printed off the screen. I had to remake the screen several times to build up layers of line and texture on the printed cloth. I like the results although it was a slow process. But then there is a certain tranquillity in slow and repetitive processes.

The beach at Dunure, Scotland has provided the inspiration for my new colour family and forms part of the inspiration for what I hope will build into a new series. I'm not interested in creating art that represent the rocks, pebbles or rolling waves as nature is itself has limited appeal to me. Instead I want to create fabrics and finished works that embody the calmness, the stillness and the tranquility I felt when I sat on Dunure beach. I grew up near the sea and whilst I couldn't imagine living anywhere other than in a city there are moments when I long to hear nothing but the sea. But what does 'stillness' look like? I think it is linear. And soft. It fades in and out.

It has been several weeks since I last blogged and I have a confession! I have been lamenting all the things that 'LIFE' has stopped me doing recently instead of focusing on what I have actually achieved during what has been a very difficult couple of months. That needs to change. So here is a list of what I have been doing (in no particular order):

1. I have developed a new colour family based on the colours of the rocks and pebbles on the beach at Dunure.
2. I have completed Ruins 4 and entered it into Contemporary Quilt Group exhibition being curated by Kate Findlay.
3. I have built and installed a third design wall in my studio.
4. I have built shelves to store my threads.
5. I visited Festival of Quilts and saw my first Ruins quilt beautifully hung next to the wonderful quilt by Susie Koren that won Fine Art Quilt Masters.
6. I've printed some extra fabrics for the ongoing Ruins series and started to put together Ruins 5 on the design wall.
7. And I've given myself a mental 'kick up the backside'!