When I started my 100 (week) day challenge 40 days / 8 weeks ago I really didn't expect it to be as productive as it has been. I am well ahead of where I need to be in making small art for next years exhibition at World of Glass. And I am pretty confident that I'll be able to make sufficient small art for the exhibition at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery. So I have decided to take a 2 week break. After all it is a challenge I set myself - I made the rules so I can break the rules!

The reason for taking a break now? Two fold. Firstly I have a lot of family stuff on this week and it is Festival of Quilts next week so I know I will not be able to get into the studio. But mostly I am taking a break to clear a bit of a log jam in my studio. Even though I have a ridiculously large space I found myself unable to work on a large Ruins piece at the weekend because I had nowhere to spread it out properly. My big print bench is covered in part printed, wet stuff. My second print table has breakdown screens drying on it (which I need to pull in the next day or two), trays of pre-cut fabric stacked on it and 20 small Canal Street pieces at various stages of stretching over canvas piled on it. My big sewing table has more small art at various stages of completeness on it, along with the large Ruins piece folded waiting for access to the big print bench.

And I need space to finish preparations for Festival - I will be demonstrating breakdown printing in the Creative Studio on Friday morning. (Not panicking at all. Yet)

And I need time to work on a new project - but more of that later!

I like having multiple things on the go because it means I am never sat waiting .... and mostly I am pretty good at planning ahead. But not this time. So there will be a pause in my 100 day challenge. I wouldn't call it a holiday though.

When I visit a gallery I don't tend to read the artist's statement until after I have looked at their work. I like to savour my own responses to a piece first. But I do read the title because it provides a starting place for my response. So naming my own work is important to me and the subject of many hours contemplation. And the subject of regular discussion amongst fellow artists and on social media.

Naming a series is an even bigger decision because you have to live with it longer. I am not a sketchbook person. All my ideas have a long gestation period in my head before I let them loose on dye and cloth. The titles of my first two series, Hidden Messages and Ruins, became fixed right at the beginning of that process. In Hidden Messages I wanted to develop a series of works around censorship in modern day China. In Ruins I wanted to develop a series of works around abandoned and ruined buildings. The titles were obvious to me and still feel just right. And in both cases I was happy to number the works rather than give each piece it's own subtitle.

I gave my third series a working title of Storm / Still as that seemed appropriate to the emotional rollercoaster I was on at the time. Although I numbered the early works they were either 'Storm' or they were 'Still' and each piece required it's own subtitle. The series name became fixed when I added a page to my website. Strangely I named the colour family that I developed for this series 'Dunure' (after my favourite place in the whole world after my studio). And even named a few small pieces Dunure. But I never thought to call the whole series Dunure and with hindsight I wish I had. Storm / Still feels clumsy to me now and may be one of the reasons that I don't think I will produce more in this series.

So to today. For my exhibitions next year I am working on three series each focussed on industrial and urban landscapes. One part will be more pieces in my Ruins series. Another part will be on buildings and structures still in use today that shape our landscape but are invisible to most. This series has had the working title View. The inidividual pieces will all need their own subtitles as there are site specific. So far I have made one large piece (above) and am in the process of making a series of small works called Canal Street 1, 2, 3 etc. The working title of View is no longer working for me. Instead I am officially naming the series Structures. Yes it has been used by many, many artists but it is the perfect title for what has inspired my work.

The other series is inspired by industries and iconic structures that no longer exist. I already know the subtitle of the large scale piece that is gestating in my head but I'm stuck on titles for the series of small works I am currently making based in the Bold Colliery near St Helens. And I am definitely stuck on a title for the series. I have had a working series title of Gone but that doesn't even work as a working title. I have been puzzling over this all week. I almost settled on Relics. But then I had a 'duh' moment.

The title of the exhibition in St Helens is TRACES. My inspiration is those structures that have left TRACES in our memory. No brainer! This new series is now officially called Traces.

The title of the exhibition in Stockport is FRAGMENTS. The small works are just that - they are small FRAGMENTS of a much bigger series. The series of small works is now officially called Fragments.

And now I need a long lie down in a dark room ....

Two weeks in and my 100 (week) day challenge is working. I am a lot more enthusiastic about making small works and the ideas are really flowing. Kilns 2 is finished, albeit needs stretching over canvas. And, in between working at my print bench this weekend, I have completed the background stitching on a third piece. I thought that committing to finishing at least one piece each week would be a stretch but already I'm finding that I am quicker and more decisive when building backgrounds.

I didn't manage my goal of a steady 2 hours every evening this week because I had an evening out .... a fairly rare occurance as it has to be something special to drag me away from the studio. So here is my week:

• Day 6 - 2 hours 15 minutes
• Day 7 - 2 hours
• Day 8 - 1 hour (squeezed in between getting home from work and going to see The Oh Sees who were loud, brilliant and just what this (non-medical) doctor needed!)
• Day 9 - 2 hours 15 minutes
• Day 10 - 2 hours

I was just too tired on Friday to do the extra 30 minutes needed to hit my 10 hour goal but I am making good progess so decided to be kind to myself. Next week however I have no outings and no excuses!

I have completed the first week of my 100 (week) day challenge. My goal is a steady 2 hours every weekday evening focussed on making small art with a commitment to finish at least one piece each week.

So I got one part right albeit the piece still needs stretching over canvas. Kiln 1 is a small piece in my Ruins series. I want to make art that has some relation to my upcoming exhibition at The World of Glass in St Helens. The museum has a dramatic entrance through a really large renovated kiln and St Helens is dotted with the remains of kilns, both glass kilns and brick kilns. The current Pilkington Glass factory in St Helens has some interesting buildings but brick built kilns are a thing of the past ... which fits in nicely with my Ruins series.

My hours this week though were not exactly steady. I nearly delayed starting my challenge because I knew I had an overnight trip with my day job this week. But then I thought what the heck ... I am never going to get a 20 week period without interuption. I'll be lucky to get a two week period. The import thing is that I work around interuptions. So here is my week:

• Day 1 - 2 hours.
• Day 2 - 40 minutes (I actually got out of bed early to work in the studio before heading off on my trip! This is a first for me).
• Day 3 - 2 hours 20 minutes.
• Day 4 - 3 hours (keeping busy until the election coverage started)
• Day 5 - 2 hours

I'll admit to finding the 2 hours on Friday evening rather hard going as I had about three hours sleep before getting up for work at 6.30am. That coupled with the fact my husband joined me in the studio to carry one talking about the results meant that some of my stitched lines were not quite a uniform as I would like. Still I really like the result and am all fired up for next week!

I have long admired those artist who publicly take up '100 days' challenges or '52 week' challenges. Committing to do something, whether it is making a text collage (as per Kathleen Loomis), making a finished small work of art everyday (as per Lisa Call) or only wearing clothes you have made for a full year (as per Maria Shell) is rather brave. It is also a great way of motivating yourself. A bit like declaring to the world that you're going on a diet or going to run a marathan.

Now some people who know me would say that I am pretty motivated / committed to making art. I set myself a target of spending 20 hours each week in the studio based on spending 2 hours each week day evening and 10 hours spread over the weekend. But when I spent some time recently assessing what I had, and had not achieved, over the last six months I realised that I am slacking during the week. I also realised that I had only finished one large piece of work during that 6 months and that I needed to be more productive if I am going to complete everything I want to over the coming 12 - 18 months.

So after much thought I have decided to declare to everybody who reads this that I am going to do the following starting tomorrow:

• Spend a minimum of 2 hours in the studio every week day evening.
• Spend those evenings creating small works of art only.
• Complete at least one piece per week.
• Post a photo everyday.
• If the day job / family mean I miss an evening I will make up the hours within that week.
• Spend my weekends doing 'admin', printing cloth and working on large scale pieces.

Here goes ......

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.

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).

None of us arrive where we are fully formed. When our first child was born my husband and I barely knew how to change a nappy. We learnt how to be parents 'on the job'. Didn't always get it right (sorry kids!) but we had no choice but to keep 'practicing', to keep learning.

My development as an artist has come from a mixture of intentional education and 'on the job' learning. Many years ago, I decided that I wanted to learn more about design and how to take the step from using commercial fabrics to using my own fabrics. So I took a City& Guilds Certificate at South Trafford College followed by a C&G Diploma with the lovely Linda Kemshall. I learnt a lot about design, and got to sample many different media and techniques. But my biggest 'take away' was that I'm not a sketchbook person and that fully designing a piece upfront is not for me.

Studying with Linda gave me the confidence to sign up for masterclasses mostly with Committed to Cloth (C2C). This was a significant investment in time and money over a period of a few years but worth every penny. Some classes were technique based but all included an element looking at how to develop ideas when working directly on cloth. The best class was Colour Families with Leslie Morgan at C2C - a simple idea that bears fruit every time.

But my deepest, most effective learning has been 'on the job'. My decision to stop taking classes, to spend 20 hours a week in my studio and to work in series was the best I've made. It has given me the time and the framework to take the techniques I learnt in class and make them my own. To develop my own style, to find my own voice.

I guess I may take another class at some stage but right now the art I am making is being built with my own bricks.

My new partner in art Helen Conway wrote a great post last week called '3 reasons you should know your place'. She talks about how knowing the place, physical or otherwise, that recharges your creative batteries, knowing the place your art practice has in the art world and knowing the place you want to reach is empowering. It should be no surprise to anybody that knows us that I agree with Helen. We are both 110% committed to our art and, just like in our respective day jobs, we both strive to be the best that we can be. And we both know that reflection and self-awareness is an important part of the jigsaw.

But when it comes to the detail we are very different. In her post Helen writes how the repeated ritual of sitting down in her favourite cafe triggers the flow of creative. I can guarantee that, for me, sitting down anywhere with pen and journal posed is enough to empty my head completely. For me creativity (whatever that really is) happens mostly by stealth. It happens when I am immersed in process. I think that is one of the reasons I use intense stitching in my work. I have to concentrate when I'm doing this as I am pretty obsessed about getting straight, parallel lines but quite often, out of nowhere, I have a light bulb moment. Only then do I pick up my journal and pen!

I am a textile artist. I know that that may mean my work is viewed in a certain way in the art world but that is OK. My work is who I am. And how I work is who I am. I don't sketchbook. I don't draw. I don't work in chaotic, organic disorder. I do let my scientific training loose when I experiment with new colours, new marks or new methods. I don't make one off pieces to fit other peoples 'theme' - I let my work go where it wants to go. My methods of working are slow so I have to pick and choose which opportunities to pursue. I am a realist - it is likely to be 10 years before I can create art full time so I pace myself. I know how my art practice fits into my life. And I know my place.