Advance notice.

LLiz has a solo exhibition coming up,details below.

 

If you are quick you can also catch some of her work in Hayloft Ashton Court Bristol until 27th April. She is showing as part of iD artists,a group of interdisciplinary artists.It has lots of interesting pieces,well worth a visit.

Caravanning and St.Ives !

Carol's first piece is a very well put together peg bag.We all want one.The reason ......her son is moving into a new place .This is a very personalised present it's  his camper van.

 

Next she showed the progress she has made on her piece for exhibition.There are four background pieces,each will be representative of living things.This is just the beginning,next she will embroider the double helix and then add insects ,birds etc.

It is a real labour of love and all hand stitched and hand- dyed !

Debbie brought along some purchases,some pre-printed panels from the  Kemshalls.She 

has started to work on the owl,attaching it to some tweed and free- machine embroidering.The  piece had a light border but Debby dyed it with tea to knock it back.

         

She also had these threads.Her work shows her trademark colours,this first one based on a weather report.

Below,a detail.

Some free machining on a batik of her beloved St.Ives

And a detail of the houses overlooking the beach.

Beach combing in St Ives

Have just spent a week in St Ives, beach combing, finding lots of lovely shells, sea glass, fragments of blue & white china, and beautifully rusted bottle tops, & pieces of rusty wire.

I even attempted rust dyeing pieces of strip cloth wrapped around some of my rusty finds in sea water.

First attempt resulted in me getting very wet, when caught by a wave as I rescued my piece of cloth. Second attempt more successful as made sure a very long piece of string attached to the cloth.

What informs our ideas?

Jenn had been away on Sian Martin's masterclass weekend.There is always a Friday night challenge activity .This one centred around examining the content of work and whether it is concerned with representation,materials ,emotion or abstract concepts and how to develop ideas outside of our 'comfort zone'.First a number of images were examined and discussion ensued as to what category. they belonged? Next each member worked with an image they had brought along they felt a connection with .Small palm size pieces of work were done to respond to each of the four areas before their responses were discussed.

It was interesting as most members found the representational the area they were most at ease with ,followed by materials and abstraction,the emotional was the area most difficult to deal with.There are more  photos on

www.stitchedtextileartists.co.uk of work by other members.

Jenn had also played with materials to begin to develop ideas from her sketchbook, seen last month.She used silk,bondaweb and some stitch.

Interestingly Sue had been sorting through some fabrics and artefacts to spark some ideas for 'Echoes'

The embroidered fabric had a connection to her grandmother who worked as a dressmaker .The letter and tide timetable below belong to her husband.Both may evoke memories and feelings which in turn may lend a personal connection to the eventual piece.Is this one instance of using emotion in our work? 

April and a catch-up with Ira.

We didn't see Ira last meeting as she has been away and catching up with her new grandchildren.Due to a misunderstanding her work had not arrived with her in the meeting previous,so we had a lot to look forward to.First were her take on ammonites,aren't they wonderful? Ira is an alchemist,she produces such magical results with such unpromising fabrics.

She only uses man-made fibres which are painted ,melted,layered and embroidered.

This picture shows the organza upper layer set aside to show the under one.

Here we have the beginnings of the embellishment which includes hand embroidery and metal leaf.

Next we saw some of her work in progress for her Slimbridge exhibition .This is inspired by looking at agates.

Lots of stitchery and 

fabric painting.

Inspiration and the task of choosing threads and ways to enrich the surface.She insisted she had nothing much to show!

 

If you want to see more 'in the  flesh' then go along to 

Ira will be exhibiting on the days highlighted in yellow.

Fabric packs

After our day on Tuesday making the packs I  looked out some I bought during our Somerset Arts Week last May.I have taken them out several times and thought how lovely they were ,only to put them away again.Deryll had mentioned the idea of using a pack each to show what they could be used for.I probably should have been doing something else but this was more tempting.

                                  

My pack contained,some black felt,some plain yellow fabric,a black and gold tie- dye fabric,tiny black beads and some threads.See photo above.

 I decided to add some wadding,scrim for backing ,black cord and two large beads.

I backed the black fabric with wadding and scrim and used the black sewing cotton to quilt it along the grid lines.Some of the tie-dye shapes were outlined in running stitch with the shiny gold thread

Next I cut the fabric into a large piece and two smaller pieces.The large one was made into a bag,lined with some of the yellow fabric.the smaller pieces were lined with felt and made into a scissors keeper and a needle case.I used the tiny black beads as accents on all three items.

                               

I used the cord to make drawstrings for the bag closure and to attach the needle case and scissors keeper to the bag.The large beads ,found for pence in Oxfam,were used as cord ends.

  The top picture actually shows what is left after making the items.The bag is large enough to hold the two smaller items and still have room for additional threads.

A very satisfying little project for the princely sum of £3.00 ,plus added extras from my stash.

Industrious !

Heather collected the most amazing range of fabrics,threads ,ribbons and beads.In her quiet ,unassuming way she used to assemble them into creative fabric packs .These were sold at exhibitions.When  she left the group we took possession of her stash.As you can see the fabric filled three tables.

Some of it looks less than useful.

When cut into usable pieces ,ironed and added to they begin to take on a different life.Several of us got together yesterday to attack the mountain of stuff.Jane did sterling service cutting and ironing.

Marilyn packed the resulting creative packs.

Debbie 'primped',adding threads,beads,sequins,ribbons

From this rather large container.We had lots of delighted squeals as she found yet another treasure.

Patricia took three or four fabrics artfully chosen to tone or clash.

Viv 

 

and Deryll did the same.

Carol cut the fabrics and has plans for these leavings,nothing was wasted.

Here are the fabrics folded and arranged awaiting 'primping'.

In the process of being 'primped'.

And finally packaged ,labelled and ready to go.

Nine of us managed to produce 130 packs in 5 hours and Heather used to manage 50 all by herself!

We want to give her a VERY BIG THANK-YOU for doing all that work over the years.

If you would like to pick up some of these packs,they really are little bags of lusciousness,then be sure to visit our exhibition.