Missing strip cloth.

Liz has been using strip cloth for a good many years ,sourced through Maggie Relph and the African Fabric shop. However, there seems to be a shortage so Liz is trying other fabric.

These pieces are naturally dyed cherry on tree silk kapok.It is a softer, looser weave as you can see from the picture below, it is on the left.Liz has put two pieces back to back so these will be double sided and to be seen in the round.

Like some  of us, she has been "resting and considering."To keep her hand in she has been 'mending' this indigo piece by adding in patches with hand stitch and adding to the piece she brought last month.

With her plans to work pieces based around the Oak tree she had spent a lovely time in Foyles  bookshop and picked up this ,below.

Copyright?

Debby had been enjoying experimenting with her Gelli plate.

She had been inking up the plate with Raw Umber then using shiny magazine pages to create resists.

This lifted parts of the image leaving a ghost on her chosen base.

She tried a variety ,using faces and seascapes, all were surprisingly successful, and is another useful technique for image transfer.

However, it occasioned a discussion about the issue of copyright and the ethics of using other's images etc. for use in  work.We were not entirely sure how it applies .We know that the printed word is lifetime plus 75 years and that some things like newspapers and OS maps cannot be used.There used to be something that allowed a certain percentage for personal or educational use but not if anything was for sale.In this increasingly legislative  world we thought it best to use only those things we have done ourselves.With the increasing use of Pinterest, the internet and social media there is a growing problem of where ideas originate and who owns them.

Debby had been given this book, published in the 1930s.It looked surprisingly modern.

She had also picked up this little bargain for the princely sum of £3, in'The Works.'

2019 is going to be a BUSY year!

After our disappointment of preparing for exhibitions last year that had to be postponed, this year will be a whirlwind !

Bristol Guild have offered us a date April into May,Newark Park is fully open and we will be there in June and to round off we will once again be at UWE in August.We will be very busy bees preparing new work ,this gives a frisson of excitement but also apprehension as the months tick by so very alarmingly.

Keep checking back for how we progress.

The period up to Christmas is often a fallow one as other things take precedence.Viv has been busy cataloguing her Miao pieces for eventual handover to the museum.She brought along several as this will be one of our last opportunities to handle them.

The work is so very small and intricate that we viewed them through a magnifying glass.

We wondered how they managed to fold the tiny triangles .

The piece below on the left is bound with raffia to pleat the fabric for the indigo dyed skirts.

The colours of the exquisite embroidery sing out 

and are so finely stitched.

More offerings

Sally produced images from her diary of a recent trip to Zambia, made using recycled art paper that she had washed and hung out to dry!   Animal markings and landscapes combine possibly to become an interesting textile work one day.

She had been looking at the design of a cushion in Newark Park and has been making drawings from it. Some of these are transferred to layout paper which she has pinned on to a background of coffee-dyed calico. 

Jane had been experimenting with a bamboo duster that had been washed in her washing machine, ending up as a lacy, delicate fabric. On to this she was laying images of insects, machine-embroidered on to silk hankies, to see how the two could combine. 

Anne Coleman, a former GTA member, came to join us for the Christmas lunch and brought this wonderful painted and drawn zig-zag book she had been working on, which describes all that she sees from her balcony high above the Downs. We loved it!   

Deryll had been doing Kasia's Advent Calendar (see Carol's in previous Post) and these are some of the pages from hers:

She had also remembered a way of making Christmas cards taught in City and Guilds by Mary Youles and brought a sheet of them to show us.

Happy Christmas

Origami Christmas trees. This was our post-lunch activity, instructed by Carol.  So much fun.

continuing with December

Carol had also been working with shells in an interesting way.

She had been following Kasia's Advent Calendar, a diary with each day's subject dictated by an online prompt.  (Everythingart.com)  Her pages so far have made a really interesting sketchbook.  

She had helped to make all these poppies for the display at Olveston Church. Busy, busy lady, well done!

Carol and her husband had been together to a glass crafting workshop and had produced these jolly Christmas pieces.

Debby showed us some things she had been teaching at her after-school club.  These were things to make from circles of fabric - simple but effective.

She had made this pretty soft pot

Debby will be tutoring creative stitch courses at Stoke Lodge, BS9 1BN from 14th January.

December, continued

Liz is working with a length of woven fabric which she thinks could be Miao.  It has interesting lines of blue in the weft, and she has found some shells and threads which pick these up perfectly.  No doubt she will create an interesting hanging (or2, or 3?)!

She also showed a strip of African mud cloth which she had printed with leaves.

She showed us a publication which has inspired her book-making:

"The Art of the Fold" by Hedi Kyle and Ulla Warchol.