A Quick Note

For anyone on module 3 of the diploma with Distant Stitch and struggling with the Elizabethan stitches (I certainly did) - have a look at the videos here for a demonstration.

I have just uploaded another time-lapse film of Cogitation here with the extra red marks - it is now mounted on our wall and running happily. Still intending to collate my notes and put it all on the website.

Spring Cleaning

We have had a couple of lovely bright days over Easter which has inspired me to start decamping to my summer workspace -

a table in the store room over the garage. This is how it looks after cleaning up - imagine how bad it was before. The midday sun is just about high enough now to shine in the windows and give a bit of warmth (and dry out the damp) so I can leave my stuff there instead of moving boxes and sewing machines around the kitchen and hallway as I have been doing over the winter. It also gave me a chance to sort out all my bits of loose coursework and see where I am. Now just waiting for school holidays to finish so I can sit down to some work for a few hours. (It occurs to me that I seem to say that rather a lot - I do love spending time with my family really!)

X&*!**&

Grrrr... Tried to post twice - the first time, the photos disappeared and then the whole thing crashed. I will get back on tomorrow and sort out the last post.

Later - yippee, fixed it!

New Website

Well, I still don't know what happened to my website but as I had been thinking of making changes anyway this seemed like a good time to do it. I now have a new site at http://www.janeoleary.name and have spent rather too much time today revamping the pages. It all looked perfect on the preview but somehow the layout has slipped around now it is online. More adjustments needed!

Website Problem

I have just found out that my website has mysteriously disappeared - apologies to anyone trying to access it, I am trying to find out what has happened.

A New Blog is Born

I have found a few times recently that I have arty/crafty things I would like to blog about that don't really fit here (although a few have slipped in) - I want to keep this blog for work and ideas related to my coursework - so I am pleased to announce the birth of Quodlibet.

I shall not be getting module three until September so there may be a few weeks before my next entry here. In the back of my mind I know I should be contemplating the next assessment piece, which logically ought to be the one using metallics, but I need some quiet time to think when I am on my own (it's my artistic temperament you know :-)). In the meantime, come and see me at the new blog.

Playing With Wordle

I came across this website via In a Minute Ago. It is a fascinating on-line resource for creating word clouds from your own text. The size of the word reflects its frequency in the text and there are options for changing font, colours and layouts. I have had a little play with a long blog post from February and saved it in their gallery here. I could have a lot of fun with this. I see T-shirts, sketchbook covers using text from the notes inside and all sorts of things.

Drawn Threads

This is another slight diversion from coursework but all part of the journey. This pictures are from a workshop with Sian Martin at my local branch of Embroiderers' Guild. I hadn't planned to go and it filled up quickly, but there was a last minute cancellation. Sian gave a talk the evening before on fresh ways of looking at working with drawn thread, and we worked with both white and dyed linen. The only rule was that any threads withdrawn had to be put back in by the end of the day. The finished sampler (although I am not sure it is finished) is about 20cm wide and I think about 1m long.

The first picture shows how I joined the two pieces. The second was the challenge to find an interesting way of fringing the the top edge and turning it to make a tube for hanging. I pulled the loose ends through in bundles, twisted and tied in place with coloured threads.

Taking a Break/ Poetry in Stitches

Sometimes it seems I go three steps forward and two steps back - as soon as I do a good run of coursework, it grinds to a halt and I lose the thread (sometimes literally - the heap in the corner of the kitchen is getting out of hand again. Perhaps I should rename the blog Losing the Thread). Decoupling the school holidays from Easter means that all the adults were on holiday two weeks ago so we had the usual family visits etc then but the children are on holiday now. So not a lot of coursework going on. But I have finally made something I have been meaning to do for the last three years.

My youngest daughter's favourite poem when she was 5 was "Reward and Punishment" by Roger McGough which lists things that will be given if you are very good or naughty - we would read it night after night. My favourite line is the promise of "a pocketful of yes's" - I think it is a lovely image and I imagined giving her a handful of IOUs with yes on every one to make up for all the times I have to say no. I saved her favourite jeans when she outgrew them, intending to do something to illustrate the line but was only spurred into action when I came across the Poetry in Stitches 2 project being organised by the National Needlework Archive.

The piece had to made to a set size, so I cut down the jeans and made a patchwork background using leftover fabric from I quilt I made her a couple of years ago - it was a bit touch and go as there was very little left but we got there. I wanted to make the picture very special for her so I was determined to use fabric with meaning to us.

Now, what can I do for the other daughter to make it fair?

Weekend in London and More Animation

Last weekend was a bit of a treat - there were two exhibitions in London I really wanted to see so I stayed over and overdosed on art on Saturday. I needed a long walk on Wimbledon Common on Sunday to recover before coming home. The first was Prism at the Mall Galleries, a wonderfully varied collection. Some of my personal favourites were Joan Baillie's Mysterious Stones in atmospheric rusty oranges and browns and Rachel Gornall's calm and restrained Cenote series. I was intrigued by Lois Woodyer's hangings with photo transfers of Canary Wharf combined with stitch and Catherine Dormor's hangings with photographic images of the process of sewing. The gallery was crowded with groups of mainly women happily discussing the pieces and taking tea.

Next stop was the V&A where I went to see Out of the Ordinary:Spectacular Craft. Sian had already pointed me in the direction of Anne Wilson's work that includes animation so it was exciting to see Errant Behaviour running. Over two screens, threads, pins and lace fragments wind, form into heaps and move. Sometimes they seem like animals or undersea creatures, sometimes they form tableaux like jungle vegetation stirring. Interesting to think about how much the effect is suggested/affected by the sound track.

When I got home, I did some surfing, idly wondering if I could do stop motion animation with equipment I already have (last time I did some was probably 35 years ago when my big brother borrowed Dad's cine camera and we filmed toys moving across the floor). I came across a useful little utility for turning a folder of jpg files into an avi - i.e. stills into a movie - really easily. Eureka! This has overcome the problem of the files being too big too save - I have been able to save the frames individually and join up afterwards. Playing last night, I was able to increase the number of frames and adjust the number shown per second to make a much smoother film.

Exhibition News

Fri 22 and Sat 23 Feb 10-5, Sun 24 Feb 10-4 at Trinity-Henleaze United Reform Church Hall, Waterford Road, Henleaze, Bristol. Entry £2.

I am stewarding on Saturday afternoon so come and say hello.

More Distractions

After posting the pictures of stitching with metal threads I couldn't resist having a little play with Paint Shop Pro. I thought it was time to explore displacement maps after reading Maggie Grey's blog, so here are the results. These have been made by combining two of the photos from the Jan 16th post.

This is the same as the first but using tiling.


This uses the same photos but layered the other way up.

My other distraction today was to go on a workshop with the Embroiderers's Guild run by Orange and Blue, painting sketchbook covers. We built up the surface using cardboard and then many layers of paint. The pictures show the cardboard glued down then with 6 or 7 layers of paint. It isn't finished yet - I want to sleep on it before adding more, then it will need lots of layers of varnish.


I booked it thinking it would be fun day (which it was) and without any clear idea of what design to use. Somehow, those pylon shapes crept in.

Visit to Slimbridge

Today we took a family Bank Holiday outing to Slimbridge and I finally had a chance to see the South West Textile Group's 'Flight' Exhibition - for some reason I thought it had already closed so this was a pleasant surprise but meant I was not armed with a notebook and pencil. I fell in love with the swarm of insects hanging from the ceiling and a piece called Landing Gear which played on the idea of aeroplane wheels and birds' feet.

During the week, I have been sorting out the samples from Summer School and making a book for the smaller ones. Hope to have photos here soon.

When in doubt, use the scissors.

I committed myself back in May to entering two pieces plus some cards into the Embroiderers' Guild SW region exhibition "Waterways" in Gloucester, confident I would have them finished well before the children broke up from school so I could do some more coursework. I hasn't quite worked out as I expected. First, I lost the little bag that I had managed to finish (and found it several days later in the place I had first looked), then I decided I didn't like the second piece once it was finished. What to do? Fortune favours the brave so I grabbed the scissors, cut it into three pieces and remounted onto 3 small square artists' canvases. Much improved. All the bits are now safely packed up and ready to be delivered.

School broke up on Friday so I don't expect to get much done in the next 6 weeks.