I recently posted that I can't created in chaos. And that messy in my studio is when there are snippets of thread and fabric on the floor. Well I got really, really messy (for me) over the long weekend we have just enjoyed in the UK. I also got sore feet from standing for hours. And my rotary cutter needed a long lie down in a dark room afterwards. But look what I got in return - trays of cut 'bricks' and bondaweb backed 'brickettes' ready to build backgrounds in my Ruins and my View series.

I love printing and it is so tempting to just keep on printing, especially on sunny days when breakdown screens dry quickly. But it is only by cutting up the fabrics that I can see if I have the right balance of colour and pattern. I can see that I have enough fabric to start making backgrounds. I use the bricks to piece backgrounds for my large quilts and I use the brickettes to fuse backgrounds for smaller works. But I can also see that I will need more of the darker fabrics in both series to complete the work I am planning for the rest of this year. Which means more printing. Happy days!

The 20th bienniel Quilt National opens today at the Dairy Barn Arts Centre in Ohio, US. And I am incredibly proud that one of my quilts - Ruins 7 - is amongst the 85 quilts selected this year.

Ruins 7 is part of my series that explores what happens to buildings when we stop using them, when we leave them behind. We stop using buildings for many reasons. This piece references buildings and cities destroyed by war.

It is the first time I have entered Quilt National and really didn't think I stood a chance so never even considered making the journey to the US for the opening. Which is a shame because I hadn't realised just how many activities are organised for the selected artists; opportunities to see behind the scenes, to meet fellow artists, to give workshops and to sell other works through the Dairy Barn shop. So there is my challenge for future Quilt National - get selected again AND find the time / money to attend the opening!

It's a wet morning here in Dunure so time to stitch sleeves onto quilts, time to drink coffee and read the newspaper, and time to think. To think about the work I need to create for my exhibitions next year. And time to think about how I work.

One of the reasons that I've chosen to partner with Helen Conway is that we share the same professional, 'get it done' attitude to making our art and exhibiting our art. We plan our time and know that we will fill the galleries. We share out the administrative stuff and trust each others decisions. We will compromise where we need to.

But we are very different in the way we actually create. Helen is like a sponge - she sees inspiration pretty much everywhere and is constantly spinning new ideas. Not just about the subject of her work but also about the materials she uses. I know that she uses journaling to provide some order to her thoughts but mostly she goes into her studio and just starts. She works in a mess of materials, tools and books. To me it looks like chaos but to Helen it is where she finds creativity.

I am the opposite. The world is full of inspiration but I knew that I would not develop as an artist if I continued to hop from one idea to the next. Or if I continued to take workshops on different techniques. So I have chosen to work in series and to limit the number of techniques / materials I use. And I am very disciplined about it. The old me would have been busy trying to create something based on the beautiful sunsets here in Dunure but the current me enjoys the sunset then continues to stitch sleeves on quilts. I do most of my 'designing' in my head. I don't just go into the studio and start. I occasionally write ideas down but mostly I let them brew and filter as I work in the studio. Yes I will spend lots of time getting the exact colours and textures I want but the experimenting and sampling is really just fine tuning the decisions I have already made in my head. And I can't work in chaos. 'Messy' in my studio is when there are snippets of thread and fabric on the floor. I wash up and tidy as I go. I typically plan my activities for the week and go into the studio knowing exactly what to do first (even if that is to sweep the floor). I'm not at all good at spontaneity.

But I recognise my strengths and weaknesses and have chosen, for now at least, to work with a media - breakdown printing - that cannot be 100% controlled, that introduces unintentional marks into my work. Marks that will hopefully resonate with Helen's work when we exhibit together in 2018.

Inspiration is a very personal thing. My inspirations are nearly all urban. I love industrial landscapes although it is getting harder to distinguish between pale grey corrugated metal retail parks and pale grey corrugated metal factories. Some would say that both are factories.

But occasionally there is a flash of colour, a wonderful shape or an interesting interplay of lines breaking up the sky. The Pilkington Glass site on Canal Street, St Helens is fabulous. It has the usual grey boxes, pipes and conveyors running between buildings. It also has towers and shapes that are quite unique and, hopefully, still recognisable as I try to use them in an abstract form in the work I'm creating for my joint exhibition with Helen Conway in St Helens next year.

One of my goals for 2017 was to increase the number of blog posts by posting at least once a week. I've noticed that I get more 'traffic' when I put out posts close together. But I'm failing dismally. Why? Probably because I feel like my posts should have a proper subject, ideally something I've not covered before. It was easy last year when I was making and submitting lots of pieces. I could write about each piece, about my sucesses and my failures.

But this year is different. It is a 'making' year. With the exception of a piece for Fine Art Quilt Masters (submitted today, horray!) everything I am making is for the two exhibitions I have scheduled with Helen Conway in 2018. Because I have a long leadtime I'm working differently. I'm focussed right now on printing all the fabrics I am going to need. This will go on for another two to three months and whilst I can Instagram some nice images there is not a whole lot to write about that I haven't already covered. In between printing I am also developing some small works and some hand made books. I can, and will, write about these but have accepted that this is one goal I won't achieve.

Knowing that I have two major exhibitions with Helen Conway in 2018 is amazing. Although I've worked in series for the last few years this will be the first time that I get to create a cohesive body of work knowing the pieces will be hung together. And knowing the spaces where they will hang. Yes Helen and I need to make sure that our work will work together in each space but otherwise the sky is the limit!

And we have well over a year to prepare. We will have about 15m each of wall at World of Glass and a massive 30m each at Stockport Wall Memorial Art Gallery. And we only have just over a year to prepare!! Thank goodness Stockport will be in the autumn.

My hope is to create two completely separate bodies of work albeit both stemming from three parallel series inspired by the urban and industrial landscape in and around both venues. But I have to also be realistic. I had an amazingly productive year in 2016 but my output still fell short of what I need to achieve in the next year or so. I blame my very loud and bossy 'voice'. It wants to work big. It insists on piecing lots of small pieces of fabric. And then it absolutely throws a tantrum if I don't complete the work with hundreds and hundreds of parallel lines of stitch. And, much to Helen's amusement, it even demands that I sew in all my ends.

Something has to change. I have to find a way to make smaller (and more affordable) works that I, but more importantly, my 'voice' can be happy with. So I have set aside the month of April to try new things. Can I make art that can be framed? Can I print onto paper? What happens if I print onto rough linen? Can I fuse my brick walls? Time will tell.

If you heard a strange noise yesterday afternoon that was me, breathing one massive sigh of relief! Although I know that the way I develop new ideas has worked in the past there is always an element of uncertainty, a whispering voice of doubt. Combine that with a measure of performance anxiety (last year was too successful, what if I have already peaked etc, etc) and it is maybe not surprising that I have felt rather nervous and hestitant in the studio these last couple of months.

But yesterday everything came together and I made the first panel in what will be a five panel piece inspired by an old gas works in Salford. Creating something that 'works', that makes me smile, that I love is a wonderfully energising feeling. Of course it will be good if other people like it too but for now I am doing a happy dance!

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!

Wall building is getting a LOT of bad press right now but not all walls are a pathetic attempt to pander to a small misguided minority. (OK - political rant over). My walls are going to be things of beauty that invite people in for a closer look and, hopefully, make them smile!

I am in the middle of making my first, full scale wall / background for my new series. I have given the series the tentative title 'The View From Here' or View for short. The advantage of working in series is that once I get going I have idea after idea that I know will 'work'. And I can often create new pieces in the series in what is for me a relatively short period of time. The disadvantage is the hours and hours I put in up front and figuring out what that means when it comes to planning and pricing my work.

I have been tracking my total studio hours for a couple of years but as I started to work on View I decided to collect data on how those hours were spent. So here are the stats so far ....

• Printing = 50 hours (made approx 15 square metres of cloth which, based on experience, could convert to about 10 square metres of finished art. However I can already tell that I have too high a proportion of light pieces so will need to print more medium and dark fabrics to 'balance' my palette)
• Research and sampling = 17 hours (and still more questions than answers!)
• Cutting bricks = 7 hours (yes I cut all the printed fabric into pieces 2.5 x 6.5inches)
• Building my first wall = 11 hours (layout complete and about half way through joining the bricks into long strips)

So that is a total of 85 hours and still a long way from even knowing what the first piece will look like. I am making an investment in time (and money) doing something I love and I hope will give pleasure to others. Not building a wall on borrowed money that divides people and makes the world a scarier place. (Rant definitely over, sorry).