I started sampling ideas for my new series using a selection of dyed fabrics pulled from my stash. Early outcomes did not exactly grab me so I also tried using stencils to take colour out (discharge) and to add colour. Interesting but still not right. I added back colour. And got rather depressed until I decided to change the scale and to add stitch. Bingo!

The sample above is definitely a step in the right direction. However looking at it I realised that the colours of the appliqued strips were not really 'me'. Being dyed fabric, they lacked the texture I usually work with. Pieces from this new series will be shown alongside pieces from my Ruins series in the exhibition I am doing with Helen Conway at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery in Autumn 2018. So I pulled out my colour diary and compared my little sample with the colour family used in Ruins. The background for the new series uses a colour family made from black and petrol green. In my Ruins series I use petrol green and a colour family made from rust and black. Doh ... it seems so obvious now!

In my last post I talked about how creativity tends to creep up on me when I am immersed in process. I follow a set process when developing a new series ... I work on the colours first - pinning them on my design wall for assessment. Then I do the printing and pin pieces up until my design wall is covered. I discard fabric that doesn't 'fit' without thinking too hard about why. I then sample different types of construction. In my Hidden Message series this resulted in several pieces going in the bin before I was happy. With my Ruins series (and the series I am developing now) building a background made of bricks felt 'right'. Having stitched some small sample backgrounds I turn to my design wall again. I don't do sketchbooks - I do pinning things to a design wall until something 'clicks'.

Today I pinned up my two sample backgrounds. I rummaged through my boxes of dyed fabric and pinned up a selection of colours. I am not going to decide yet if the foreground will consist of dyed fabric or printed fabric or stitch yet. They are just up there. I added a couple of photos I took last summer of an old gasworks.

Then I used one of my favourite 'tools' - I cropped and enlarged small sections from the photo and pinned the results up. And I got that wonderful tingly feeling! I don't know what size the finished pieces will be or how I will apply the foreground but I do know what I'm going to be spending the next few months doing.

In between wrapping presents last week I did manage to prepare and pull some breakdown screens. I got some really promising marks by using a screen made with torn strips of freezer paper gently ironed onto the screen before rollering on a very thin layer of black thickened dye. I also made a screen using strips of torn masking tape. I wanted the marks to be delicate so pulled through with lots of print paste. And replaced the paste if it got tinted with colour.

However those lovely marks only appeared from the first and sometimes second pull. After that everything went 'blobby' and not at all what I wanted.

I have found before that I get the best marks and the most 'pulls' when I dry breakdown screens outside on warm sunny days. Drying out screens quickly and thoroughly is not easy in the winter. I have tried drying this batch of screens next to and above radiators and I still only get one good pull. Trying to develop a new palette of textiles based on this low success rate could be really frustrating! Luckily I am not working to a deadline so, although Plan B looks to be a good one I am putting it on hold until spring. I wonder if Santa can bring me an early spring?

After multiple attempts I am now happy with my new colour family. I am calling it 'traces' as I'm hoping to use it to create a new body of work based on iconic industrial buildings that no longer exist. I spent my childhood summers staying with my grandparents in a small village north of Nottingham. The area was criss-crossed with coal seams and every journey took us past pit heads. These buildings don't exist anymore but I bet most people my age who spent time in the north of England know exactly what I am thinking off.

I used magenta dye as one of the starting colours as an ironic reference to the way we tend to look at the past through 'rose tinted glasses'. Although many people mourned the loss of community when the coal industry declined I don't think anybody could remember working conditions in the pits or the polution in the surrounding areas through rose tinted glasses hence I have blended the magenta with black to the point where the colour just tips over from pink to purple. I particularly like the paler colours in the family.

Now that the colour family is fixed I've started work on creating the palette of fabrics. This could take several months as my ideas tend to evolve gradually as I work at the bench. However the way I used breakdown printing in my Still / Storm series gave results that were similar to what I have in mind for this new series. So this is where I'm starting.

Lots of people have asked how I am going to spend the £1000 award I received for winning the Art category at Festival of Quilts. Lots of encouragement to spend it on something for myself. Well I did spend £40 on a small piece of work by Rosie James but the rest of it is going into the studio 'pot'. Which definitely qualifies as something for myself! Although I treat my art just as seriously and (hopefully) as professionally as I do my day job the reality is that it does not pay. This is the first significant sum of money that has gone in the pot. And whilst I hope that it is not the last I do recognise that I am incredibly lucky that the money I earn in my day job allows me to work in the way that I want to and in the wonderful environment that is my studio. That said the unexpected income has 'allowed' me to order 60 metres of Cotton Poplin Delphina (from Whaleys of Bradford) rather than the usual 20 metres thus spreading the delivery charge out a bit. And it has 'allowed' me to invest in some new silkscreens. I typically buy one most years whilst I am at Festival of Quilts but, because I damage the occasional one, I only have 4 good screens at the moment. Which slows me down when I am breakdown printing as I only pull each screen a few times before cleaning it and remaking it. So I have invested in 10 new screens from Coated Screens Limited. Five at 14 x 20 inches and five rather large ones at 20 x 30 inches. Buying in bulk has reduced the cost considerably. Now I just need to figure out where to store them!

Breakdown printing is seriously addictive. When the sun is shining and screens are drying in a couple of hours it is really tempting to just keep on printing.

Especially when it is giving me such yummy results. But I've been here before and know that it is important to stop and take a moment. So today I have put all my newly printed fabrics through the washing machine (twice), dried them, ironed them and assessed them.

The piece of art that exists in my head will be mostly monochromatic and will be pale at the top and dark at the bottom. So I have cut into my fabrics and pinned the 'good' pieces on my design wall. Standing back I can see that I have lots of light and medium pieces but none that are really dark. I can also see that the inclusion of words is interesting but I only I have a couple of small pieces so far.

Not all pieces made the grade yet so I have a pile that I will soda soak again and print over either to include words or to make much darker or both. Although breakdown printing is not an 'exact' process it does become more predictable the more you do so hopefully the next round of printing will give me palette of fabrics I need to move on to the composition time. Lets hope the good weather lasts!

Cultivate a selection of beautiful breakdown printed fabrics in choosen colour family of rust and half-strength black with some added petrol green.

Cut into pieces each 2.5 x 6.5inches. Keep all scraps just because they are too nice to throw away (and I may want to make some more miniature pieces!)

Select and clear my biggest design wall. Put the football on the radio (optional).

And randomly add fabric pieces to the design wall. OK so not completely randomly. I want this piece to be approximately 70 inches wide by 100 inches high being pale at the top and dark at the bottom. The design wall is not big enough so I will have to do this in two halves. I select pieces semi-randomly from the piles then just put them up on the design wall going from left to right, row after row. Every 4 or 5 rows I stop and rearrange anything that looks really out of place but I try not to do too much of this. Carry on until design wall is covered.

Tweak a little then leave to 'marinate' overnight. I always make sure that I look at the composition in both daylight and under artificial light before I start stitching.

Unfortunately the design wall had it's own opinion of the composition and shed lots of pieces overnight. Darn!! (Probably my own fault as I had to slightly overlap the pieces so that I could fit 12 on each row).  Or maybe this is just another way to randomise the position of the pieces? Look on the bright side Leah.

I realised last night that I hadn't blogged for about 10 days despite promising myself that I would blog at least once a week. I told myself that I had a good excuse - the day job has been a little distracting but I have still managed to get about 13 hours a week in the studio. So why haven't I blogged? Maybe because it is not a fully formed, hard to break habit yet? The answer, for me at least, is to keep going, just in the same way that I keep going into my studio to work even when I'm tired or distracted. I turn up and do the work! So what have I done in the last 10 days. Well the good weather lasted longer than expected so I have about 12 square metres of gorgeous fabric to cut into 'bricks' ready to build more Ruins pieces.

And I worked on a miniature piece that, if I like it once finished, will be entered into the miniatures category at Festival of Quilts this summer. Stitching a piece that is only 30cm square is so much easier than working on my recent, mammoth, Ruins pieces!

There's a saying 'make hay while the sun shines' which would be a silly way for me to fill my weekend. I don't live on a farm and I'm already suffering with hayfever. I prefer 'make breakdown screens while the sun shines'. The weather is glorious and I've taken full advantage this weekend to make and print off multiple breakdown screens. In between, as the screens dry out, I have sat on my new garden furniture drinking good coffee and contemplating life. Only in the UK could that furniture have been covered in snow 2 weeks ago!

The contemplating hasn't been particularly productive but the breakdown printing has. Lots of lovely new fabrics for my Ruins series.