Little of this and a little of that.

Carol had taken a recent EG workshop with Sheila Davies from Celyn Textiles.It was entitled 'Jungle Bags'They first painted the background fabric then began to add all sorts of stitch with all sorts of 'threads'.Carol disliked what she had done and thought that it might become one of those UFOs we all have .We thought there were a great variety of different stitches in it and that it probably needed much more work to really cover the surface thickly.

She had been on The People's March making this banner, you see above, to display.She is still debating what will be her message and how to portray it .There was some discussion about the role of textiles in banner making down the years ,this may yield some fruitful ideas and inspiration.

Kirsten gave us another look at this handsome fellow ,still to have eyes and some more fluffy wool to add to his coat.

And this below, a teaching sample ,first painted with Intense before stitch.

She is still thinking about the carrier pigeon and his messages .We talked about the kind of things she could include..........post it notes, bottles,facebook ,text message the list can be added too.

Unpalatable

Sally has persevered with her tiger piece.It makes her ill to think how such an iconic animal is being put at risk simply because of cultural beliefs which aren't proven. As well as a  piece of art it is an urgent message to wake up to the fact they will soon be no more.

Sally decided against sending her photos to be turned into  fabric by Prinfab ,instead buying A4 cotton print at home sheets.She has been thinking how best to display it and had brought along a branch she had been keeping.We liked the idea of the diamonds dangling from it.

Jane had a light bulb moment ,in turning over ideas for her message.She explained it was not a political comment piece but from the perspective of "this is a blooming mess! "

She thought of the way televisions used to show interference so tried out different ways of distorting the Union Jack, and having settled on her favourite she set up her machine and pieced thirty sections ,stitching for sixty nine hours in total!

She will display the flag with the banner headline

'DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET ,NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED.'

Some close-ups of front and back.

Deryll meanwhile, had really got into zero waste.

She had been recycling her pieces from 'Forecast',some  group  work done many years ago.

They had been dyed and used to create the 'chasm' in her fracking piece.

She had also found a way to strengthen newspaper to be able to include it to further enhance her message.

Come and read them for yourself at UWE in August.

Is it June

We met on a very wet and unseasonably cold June day, depressing weather but not the work which was shown.

Debby had nothing to show that she had worked on recently.She had given a talk to Newent Quilters about her practice and while sorting out what she would take she unearthed the above length of fabric.It was used many years ago in her degree show.It was a length of Fabricland's polyester silk and painted in her very recognisable style with silk paints.The different coloured sections are for earth ,fire,water and air.She has plans to use this as a background adding in floating birds and feathers .It will be a lovely way to recycle.

Schools have to teach citizenship and Debby devised an original way to engage her 

pupils, who come from diverse backgrounds.Each was given a hexagon and were asked to think about what they thought special about where they came from, and what their families prized as important .Above is one of the pieced hangings that resulted from this creatIive exercise all sewn together by Debby!

If you recall Sally offered Viv the use of her cord maker .They got together and created the twisted cord you see threaded through Viv's pockets 

A choice influenced by the denim and its trademark orange stitching.

She will add some safety pins, with a nod to Punk, to stop the pockets sliding down the cord when hung.

 

While clearing out and sorting through her Miaou samplers she happened upon these little canvas worked samples.She had created some little kits to accompany the exhibition she and Sally put on in UWE.

She thought about making cards from them  ,but we thought they had too much work in them for that .Instead we suggested magnetic needle keepers , brooches ,inserts for box lids ,commercially produced from Framecraft perhaps.

On the roads.

Jenn had been wondering what to use as inspiration for' Messages '.She had a few ideas but nothing really fired her imagination.Looking through some old photos she came across some taken of road markings, and decided to play with making some stamps .

She combined these with some stencils and had a lovely time creating some colourful printed fabrics.With the addition of some appliquéd fabric, wadding and stitch ,these might just make it to UWE.

Bottom line.......

Viv continues to come up with more witticisms for her pockets.Some recent ones yet to be stitched include 'it's LIKE a pocket' ,'laughing so hard my bum hurts','the Bottom line'

She is hoping to create a wound ribbon to thread through the channel she has left .In fact Sally offered her cord maker, so that job will be less onerous .Each pocket will still  have to be thread by hand.They are going to look so amazing and will probably cause much comment .Viv might even have many more suggestions before the show comes to an end.

She has decided she needs to have a bit of a rest from creating this Summer. A long awaited  quiet time sorting and cataloguing her Miaou collection is in her sights.

Kirsten

Ikea frames are a reasonable price but are often made from compressed paper and do not take kindly to having d-rings attached, often loosening and pulling out.Kirsten has worked around this with a neat solution.Use a strong  adhesive attach a batten on the back of the frame then screw into that.

This is what she has on the flip side a stitched wool felt panel with birds on a wire.

The birds were first painted with Inktense bars onto fabric before being stitched to the panel. A lovely mix of media.

She had been working on this fox while stewarding at the Guild.He has been added to since then but still awaits some final touches such as shaggy fibres to his coat and some eyes to animate him.

This hoop is one of Kirsten's teaching aids for some stitch workshops.

You can find out more from 'The Spinning Wheel 'in Clevedon and 'Quilting in the 

Meadow 'at Weston -Super -Mare.She has workshops scheduled for 6th July at Clevedon and 27th June at Weston.

Aaron and Lydia.

Carol had completed her nursing chairs based on the textile hidden away in one of the drawers. 

She had made a superb job of recovering the seats with her fabulous stitching.This is Aaron's chair ,and you can see both at the house ,sitting side by side.

She has joined in with the Travelling Hoops for Bristol Guild.The idea is one person starts and the hoop is passed to the next person who adds to the stitching.The base fabric for this came from an Alison Hulme scrap pack, left over screen printed pieces from her aprons.She visited the Bristol Guild to give a talk earlier this year.

The stitching so far looks a lot like liquorice all sorts, how it will finally end up we shan't know for many months yet.

Newark Park exhibition open.

                     Today was spent hanging  the exhibition at Newark Park.Here are a few images to give you a taster of what is there, we hope you'll visit.We are open from Tuesday June 4th until Sunday June 30th.You will be able to meet some of the  artists on Saturdays throughout the month.

If you are flummoxed by this piece ,as it has no label ,be aware it is there to monitor the light levels in the gallery and we were not allowed to move it!

STRIPES !

Sally had completed the first of her UWE message pieces.

She had felt she needed to add words to it to otherwise the message might not be fully understood.We think it has worked very well and as always the artist needs to make the final decisions.

To accompany it she has one of her trademark books .These are a wonderful, personalised record of her many trips to far flung places.This uses Zambian fabric bought at "Tribal Arts".

Inside Sally collages photos ,drawings and collected ephemera.

She has been thinking how to go about her second piece which deals with the Tiger and its threat of extinction.

She wants to create a loose hanging piece illustrating the threat posed by the use of Tiger body parts in Eastern medicine, much of it bogus.So far she has created this mock up which would hang loosely ,along with many other pieces.Her feeling is the shape is too regular

Irregular would be better but how to achieve that and get the piece to hang is a problem she will need to solve.Pieces of work go through a great many stages before they are fully resolved ,and then sometimes a compromise has to be reached .