Yet more new work

South West Textiles Group have an exhibition next year in Stroud called 'Ebb and Flow' so i am working towards this now. For the first time ever i have continued with my inspiration from the Textile Study Group summer school i went on with Jean Draper this year.
we were asked to choose a collection of items with strong contrasting lines. i chose a stone from a beach.

i have always wanted to work with these stones! we undertook various drawings of them and a charcoal one.

then jean gave us a sheet of black paper and told us to randomly cut across emphasising the shapes in our drawings. 

then by shifting them slightly they were stuck onto white paper and we were asked to think how you would replicate these in textile.

the samples at the top were my starting point, black organdie with a rigid wire support.

i have adapted them slightly in technique and size but just need to get on and make them!

plan is to support them all with fine pins so the shadows play a major part and you can view from above.

while working on this i was thinking about pebbles, stones, beaches and of course Virginia Woolf who used stones as an aid in her suicide! all cheery stuff but it got me thinking of 'To the Lighthouse' and the phrase i hope to use in this work (oh i love random connections).
'there it loomed up, stark and straight, glaring white and black, and one could see the waves breaking in white splinters like smashed glass upon the rocks' Perfect.



 
 

Sampling for new work

i realised that the last post was some time ago. i have been busy, mainly witha new kitchen and the upheaval that that has involved however i am just about resurfacing and continuing with something that i have started with Stitch Textile Artists at our Ammerdown meetings.
the work has sprung from my visit last year back to North Norfolk and Cley in particular. i was stunned by the windfarm which wasn't there last time i was!

i have been looking at photographic negatives and the need for people to take many shots of the same thing. the work is on undyed Ramie cloth with ko-i-nor pigment paints and graphite with removed threads.the squares are the size of 120 film just a bit bigger than 5.5cm square.

 somke stitch has been played with using transparent nylon sewing machine thread

i still need to refine my technique and also reading something about the koh-i-nor paints has got me thinking about long term stability. i have some samples up at the window which i will check on 17th (one month)to see their fading capacity. i have decided i don't mind them fading as like the photographic images they change with time and become more mellow.

other samples are based on the wind turbines themselves and the tracks the seals make between them to feed. further details will follow hopefully sooner than the last blog.
 

'Strip Show'

finally finished my contribution to South West Textile Group's show at 'Fashion and Embroidery' NEC Birmingham 16-19 March.

15cm wide by about 150cm long.

quite difficult to photograph long thin things and have any definition so i have photographed it in sections just as it was made. do come along and see the show. 

'Strip Show'

i am busy working on a new piece for South West Textile Groups exhibition in March at the NEC in Birmingham.
Title: Strip Show, it is 15cm (approx) wide and will be 1.5metres long. 

i have gone back to my favourite material Ramie with graphite, drawing pen, other things and good old fashioned stitch! Wow.

as usual i have gone for black and white but there are some gems of bright colour occasionally

i have been playing with pulled thread insertions to join pieces, so enjoyable but frustrating at times when working so small but as usual my own choice. 
watch this space for more.
i am also working on something for the 'Festival of Quilts' at the NEC in August, again a South West Textile Group exhibition based on a pin loom workshop i went on at 'wool on the exe' 

the tutor Jane showed us the diagonal method of creating woolly squares on a pin loom. needless to say i have adapted this to small squares, non diagonal and worked in paper yarn. more later