Victorian wallpaper ,bags and camels.

 

Viv has finished her interpretation of the scrap of Victorian wallpaper.It was uncovered while decorating at her house .She has deliberately dyed and distressed the background fabrics as the fragment had obviously darkened over time. She has used a mixture of vintage fabric appliqué ,hand and machine stitch and picked up the rich maroon of the flower to edge the piece.

She had been given this bag by a friend .It is a Banjara embroidered piece

It has bands of satin stitch ,with ricrac braid and shisha mirrors.

She also brought this camel neckband from Egypt, with a photograph of the border force camel handler.

Both are showing the use of traditional  embroidery, the former from India and the latter from Africa.

Such a lot of care and effort  lavished on everyday useful items .

Work in progress .

Sue has been attending water colour classes and is making great progress.This time it was about populating places .So with a view to that they practised people. 

These are so simple but characterful.
 

Then they added some to a view. It makes all the difference ,making it come alive........where is it ,who are these people ,why are they there ? A way to engage the viewer with the painted scene.

Sally ,meanwhile has begun to order her thoughts by collaging pages in her concertina sketchbook.She has started to add in some of her own interpretations and expressed how problematic ellipses could

 be .She has a lot of those with jars, bottles and jugs .

 

Debby was wondering what to do with a failed gelli print ....work fast adding found fabric ,collage papers without overthinking? The fluorescent pink is outside her comfort zone ,but often provided at Sue Brown's .Could she turn it into a window view of St.Ives ? 

 

Surfaces.

Fumi trained as a surface designer and occasionally comes across her designs .This was in a B&Q brochure . She designed fashion fabrics ,wallpaper ,borders ,placemats in fact anything that could be printed upon.She even saw one of her designs on a set in Coronation Street.Apologies for the photo but how exciting !

She is continuing with the 100 day project online with Ann Wood www.annwoodhandmade.com

Sue Brown is a favourite with Debby and Jenn.Fumi spent some time there at a workshop 

exploring print of all kinds on fabric.www.theyardartspace.com

Sue is such a generous teacher and has pioneered  eco friendly  ways of printmaking.

Some mono print on fabric ,it creates such beautiful marks .

Continuing the print theme Fumi cut an eraser into an oval.She  then wrapped a thread around it to create this pebble cloth ,such a simple but effective block.

 

Stitch club

Just lately Carol has been very involved with her daughter's project in Broadmead .She has researched the kind of plants that would once have populated the area .There will be large planters plantedup with these outside of 'Sparks' at the end of May. We hope it goes well.

 As a consequence her work has taken a back seats.This month she brought along a Stitch club workshop which entailed recycling a vegetable net to create lichen/fungus which is 'very Carol' 

It was heated so it melted but in a controlled way ,see above against Sally's sleeve.

Carol keeps such detailed notes of the Stitch club  www.textileartist.org workshops that she can refer back and use them whenever she pleases .

This one was run by Nerissa Cargill -Thompson and you can find out more about her work here ;

www.ncargillthompson.co.uk

It also used a suit trouser leg printed with bubble wrap and the addition of Suffolk Puffs to represent  limpets or bracket fungus.

 

Sarah Hibbert and collaged quilts.

Debby,Alison and Fumi all attended Quilters workshop with Sarah Hibbert who is a British Ambassador for Modern Quilting .The idea is to first  create a collage on paper ,then a grid is used to choose an area to translate into fabric.There is a lot of clever fabric choice , cutting and stitching to create the eventual quilt.You can see they created some individual designs and learnt a lot in the process.

www.sarahhibbertquilts.com

Debby

Alison

Fumi

 

Portfolio and more excitement.

After getting so much from her ceramics course Kirsten had taken the next step and applied for the Degree course at Weston College.She was going straight from our meeting to her interview.These photos detail some of her work .It covers a range of media undertaken over the years .We think she should be a certainty.

Her latest Print club challenge  was to create something to do with  Fish in print .These were then distributed to each member. Kirsten bound hers into a book with stab binding and end papers she  marbled herself.

Kirsten made several prints before 

choosing just the one to edition.We loved the little sparkle of gold.

Below are photos of her next Ceramic piece, as yet unfired .It is slab built with  coloured slip into which she has scraffitoed  ,then screen printed with mussel shells .

And finally a Mothers' Day activity with her family, printing onto a tote bag. Fun thing to do with a very useful and personal item at the end.

February into March 2024.

Sally hadn't been at our last meeting but had taken time to create her Dandelion clock. It is delicately stitched on some sheer fabric .

Meanwhile this month's 'OLD' prompt was treated in different ways as seen below.

Jenn 's work wasn't put up for February so here it is along with March's contribution.She had been to the Elias Sime exhibition at the Arnolfini which was very interesting in a number of ways.Aside from the work she was struck by the Ethiopian symbols and did some research to find some to explore.She has been Gelli printing and made some stencils and stamps from them to build up layers.These were printed on silk from some of her prints them some stitch added. 

She cut up and collaged some of her prints onto postcards.

She had also been to the Cathedral where she discovered some Medieval glass fragments in the cloisters .She played about taking them into monochrome and printed onto silk.

She had also been to the museum and looked at the Delfware they have.The fragments were what interested her so she took some of the patterns and free machined some on cotton organdie.

Doing further research she found jug shapes and made a drawing using some of the patterns to create a tetrapak print block .

All of these have possibilities to develop into new work and may well find their way into our next exhibition 'Found'. If and when we can secure a venue as Bristol Guild have let us down.

Jenn continues to add to the Shelley Rhodes piece started with Bristol Stitchers zoom workshop.It 's a lovely way to use up small snippets and can be picked up and worked into in odd moments.