Catching Up (2) - July ATCs

For the July swap at ATC Swap UK on Facebook the theme was It's a Man Thing. After some dithering, I came up with the idea of a circuit board which I stitched on baize.

Catching Up (1)

It has been two weeks now since we got back from our holiday and I still feel as if I am just catching up. I keep writing blog entries in my head but not getting to the computer for one reason or another, and they have rather mounted up, so I am having a bit of a catch up session and will try and do a series of short posts today.

Firstly an apology - I read quite a few blogs and normally comment fairly often, but I have just had a mega-catch up reading session and haven't left any comments, and now I feel a bit guilty. So if my friends are reading this (and particularly fellow students), I'm still interested in seeing what you are up to and keep up the good work.

Holiday was two weeks in Spain staying with friends who have retired and moved over there. Lots of sun, sand and swimming with the kids. We did sneak in a bit of culture by taking the train for a day in Valencia but discovered it takes a longer than you think to walk everywhere when the temperature is over 30 degrees. We also got caught out by the siesta - we hadn't realised that absolutely everything closes for the afternoon, not just shops but museums, cafes and bars. Even the traffic and pedestrians disappeared. We have got so used to the 24 hour culture that I couldn't imagine a city in the UK being that quiet. Anyway - some pics (in the wrong order because I forgot to reverse them - bother).

Above - parts of the City of Arts and Science in Valencia. I love the stark white architecture in bright sunlight. The arts centre was closed and deserted for the summer, but we had a good time at the aquarium. The children especially enjoyed the tunnel with sharks swimming overhead.

Below - the station at Valencia and vaulted ceiling in the merchant's hall.

And finally - some rather nice metalwork on a shop front.

ATCs From June Swop

I love getting things throught the post - on Friday this delightful pair arrived from the June ATC swop on Facebook. I am scratching my head for July on the theme of "It's a Man Thing" at the moment.

Summer School

Finally sorted out the pictures from Urchfont. As usual, my head is spinning from all the ideas. We had a two day workshop with Janet Edmonds working in 3d and a morning with Sian using solubles. I spent a lot of time experimenting with samples so I have ideas I can use later but no finished piece to show you. Here are some fancy close-up shots of the paper design based on -guess what - cogs.

Off to Summer School

I don't seem to have made much progress on the module in the last few weeks, but my excuse is the sun is shining and we have to take advantage while we can - who knows how long the glorious weather will last. I have got as far as fitting the clock movements to the sheet of copper, but am being hopelessly indecisive about what to do next.

Never mind, I am all packed and ready for the Distant Stitch summer school at Urchfont Manor College starting on Sunday evening - two 1/2 days and evenings focusing on textiles hurrah! - and expect to come back fully enthused. I am going to get there about lunchtime on Suday to have a look around the Open Day and exhibition which I can recommend as a day out to anyone in the area. The college is in an old manor house set in its own grounds in a pretty village near Devizes, Wiltshire, and is a lovely place to visit on a summer's day. The Open Day is from 10am to 3pm.

If anyone is going and wants to meet up, drop me an email.

ATC swap for June

Here are two ATCs made for a Facebook swop on the theme of 'things with wings'. I digitised a drawing of a dragonfly and stitched it out in different ways. The one on the left is scrumpled tissue on pelmet vilene painted with layers of Moonshadow mist. On the right is hand-dyed fabric topped with silk paper and then stitched.

More Module 3 Chapter 8

Experimenting with various way of edging fabric, starting with a batch using fraying. From the top we have

1) edge cut at 45 degrees and frayed on left, threads withdrawn on right with running stitch added.

2) horizontal threads withdrawn part way up the fabric, machining over vertical threads into bars, fabric folded and twisted to leave machined bars at the edge.

3) bottom edge frayed for about 2 inches then folded to the back and the frayed ends pulled through and stitched down in bunches.

4) bottom edge frayed as before and threads withdrawn further up. Folded back and machine stitched to make a hem with the area of withdrawn threads at the edge and the loose frayed ends hanging behind. A strip of dyed scrim is slotted through the loops.

Stitch explorer - A Bit More Needleweaving

A little sample for the May challenge, trying out weaving without withdrawing any threads.

Edges for Cog Design

Another good afternoon for getting work done today. I decided to pick up the design work for the assessment piece again now I have moved on a bit in module 3 - I am trying to balance the two. The cardboard model I made here has been sitting on the sideboard all this time and each time I walk past I have been thinking about how to make the cogs. Today I sat down with various bits and the kitchen scales and decided that the best option will be to replicate the card versions in pelmet vilene with paint and metallic stitching. I had hoped to use metal shim but found the various pieces were either too floppy or too heavy to work properly (now you understand about the scales). I retrieved the copper sheet from the garden where it has been quietly sitting getting distressed (and we all know how that feels) and took a photo of the card cogs in place.


I set myelf the task of coming up with a series of ideas for the edges of the metal and also to think about the background in case I do not want to use the ideas from my earlier post. I figured the easiest way to do this was to print out lots of copies of the photo, stick them in my sketchbook and doodle away. I came up with the 6 possibilities below before running out of time. This project is the first time I have put my notes directly into a bound book and I think it is doing me good as I can't just bin or hide the ones I don't like, and it is much harder to tear out pages.

Now to sleep on them over the weekend.

Module 3, Chapter 8

Investigating edges - for this exercise, I have taken strips from this fabric and come up with some alternative edge designs, based on what is on the strip.

1) Felt tip and pastels. I enjoyed drawing this but then realised I had created a new repeating pattern rather than an edge.

2) Coloured pencils
3) Brusho ink and koh-i-noor dyes.

4) Felt tips and pastels. Not sure if these are pea-pods or teeth.

Stitch Explorer - May

I have slipped behind with the stitch explorer challenge on Pintangle, but as June is going to be a catch up month, it should sort itself out. May's challenge is needleweaving so while I think about it, here is one I made earlier for the City and Guilds Part 1. It is made in three layers and is a picture of snakes in a tree.

Module 3 Chapter 7 - Weave

For this chapter, I am exploring the contruction of weave through using paper straws and small samples in fabric, thread and anything else that fits my theme. I am continuing to use the same colour scheme and some of the braids from chapter 5. (In case you are wondering what happened to chapter 6, it is a choice between using knit or weave). I had done some of this work during module 1 before the course was rewritten, but never finished it, so I have been adding to it this week. First, here are the paper experiments I had already done.

From Gallimaufry

From Gallimaufry

Two old samples, one in strips of fabrics and the second trying water soluble paper on metal strips and wire. I need to have another go with the paper as this is not very good.

Next is a larger sample which incorporates some of the braids from chapter 5 with coloured and textured metal and strips of fabric and yarn in the colour scheme from the research work in module 1. Most of these are ones I dyed as part of that module. I have tried to reflect the machinery/industrial landscape theme by weaving in triangular sections that relate to the work on pylons and by including metal.

My next sample (to the left of the picture) used wire for the warp as I wanted to fold it in the same way that I folded paper for the pylon designs shown on this project page. By coincidence, the speaker at our Embroiderers' Guild meeting last week was a weaver called Laura Thomas who has (amongst other wonderful things) made some pieces using very fine wire and silk, which she has then folded and pleated. This inspired me to have another go using a much finer wire and yarns and weaving it tightly. This gave me much cleaner, sharper folds but as it is time-consuming, the sample is tiny - about 2 inches square after folding and I could only fold it side-to-side (the paper is A4 sheets pleated in several directions).

Finally, I tried a bit of circular weaving by warping around all four sides of a square frame, a technique featured in Workshop on the Web some time ago, to make a cog-like shape.

A Busy Week

You know how it is - you wait all winter for an exhibition to visit and as soon as May arrives they all come together. I took some time out on Sunday to go around part of the Severn Vale Art Trail in Thornbury and met up with Heather whose blog I have been reading for a while. Yesterday I braved the rain to go over to Ashton Court to see the work by Gordano Textile Artists and catch up with some friends. Heather is also a member of this group and has posted pictures on Ragged Old Blogger which are well worth seeing. All being well, I am heading into Bristol on Saturday to see another group exhibition at Bristol Guild and I must get my act together to go to Stroud before the textile festival finishes. Whew.

Last Bit of Chapter 5

Finally finished playing with these braids, rearranging and layering them to make an acceptable presentation. I wasn't happy with the backgrounds I had done so I tried again and came up with this by stencilling using folded strips of freezer paper and Markel sticks on a previously dyed piece of cotton.

And then added the braids...

From left to right we have
1) Scraps of dyed scrim decorated with built-in machine patterns using soluble fabric as a base, stitched onto a braid made by wrapping a long thin wire frame made from a coat hanger with lots of yarns and strips of fabric (actually more like a fringe because I had to cut it off - looks quite cute as a bracelet, perhaps I should make some more).

2) Free machining on felt to make spiky cog shapes cut out with soldering iron, threaded through with a short piece of free machining on soluble and longer strip of built-in pattern stitched onto fabric and paper.

3)Free machining on felt triangles (relate to pylon shapes from earlier work) threaded through with another piece of braid from 1).

4) Free machining on felt circles threaded with short piece of braid from 2) and longer piece made with threads/yarns laid out on soluble fabric and secured with built-in patterns.

5) 2 wide braids made by combining lots of thinner ones using all the techniques above. The orange piece also has a sheer fabric decorated with French knitting made with a very fine metallic thread that is very loose and loopy held down with a machined pattern, and the blue has a twisted centre strip of fabric-wrapped wireform.

Finally, I cut up the two wide braids and rearranged them to create a new textile piece.

And while I had the paints out, I decorated the cover of my knotwork/braids sketchbook using the same stencil and Markel sticks over acrylic paint. Here it is drying before varnishing.

Module 3 Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 Continued

Chapter 4 is making backgrounds by using paper braids as stencils to decorate fabric for backgounds - above are two I made but not looking very interesting at the moment so I will probably add to them. I have carried on making braids for chapter 5 by machining soluble fabric, wrapping wireform, and stitching down groups of threads and am starting to weave and join them to make wider braids and new textiles.

Finally, I have carried on thinking about the cogs piece and been playing with having bits move. I have made a mock-up to try various arrangements of cogs running on the minute hands of the clock movements. As they are mounted off-centre, I needed to check that they would not crash into each other. I didn't fancy staring at it for an hour while they completed a revolution, so I set it running and used a webcam to make this little time lapse film - it is only 13 seconds long and not good quality, but you get the idea of how it might look.

Pink!

I mentioned a while ago that I had joined an ATC swop group on Facebook - well the Feb/March swop fell apart but a new volunteer has come forward so we are trying again, the theme this time is My Favourite Colour. Now, my favourite colour is pink - not the nice pastel shades but the glorious and outrageous bright pinks. It doesn't often appear in my pieces because it is too...well...pink but I have been hoarding a fragment of rather lurid spandex that called to me one day from a remnants basket so this seemed the time to use it. I backed it with pelmet vilene and free machined with about 10 shades of pink following the pattern on the fabric, leaving some of the sparkly bits showing through. The photo shows the ATC on top of the original fabric - people with a nervous disposition look away now (although I am not sure the camera does it justice).

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!)

Stitch Explorer - March

The challenge for March was to explore the style of Assisi work. This is usually seen in cross stitch, where the background is filled in around a shape outlined in back stitch. The actual motif is left unstitched. You can find details of the challenge and links for more information here. I decided to try long stitches around a cog shape using variegated quilting threads and a piece of hand dyed cotton for the background.

Bits and Pieces

Had a bit of a shopping spree this weekend but it is all good stuff. At the Embroiderers' Guild meeting on Friday, I picked up these lovely metal braids.


They are flat braids but scrunch up nicely - I think they would be great for bracelets with wooden beads stuffed inside. Another one on the "things to try" list.

Saturday was the South West Regional Day at Cannington, near Bridgwater. A chance to hear talks by Audrey Walker and Lucy Goffin on the theme of journeys (and make pages of illegible notes) and to browse in the Guild bookshop. Okay, more than just browsing - I came away with these two new books.


Art Van Go also had a stall, so I stocked up on some small samples of copper shim in different thicknesses and Wirecloth - woven metallic fabric - that I can use in my cogs piece (see here).
A good day all round.

Making Banners

I have been keeping busy this week making banners for my daughters to display their Irish dancing medals. I don't normally post about domestic sewing - the embroidery designs are bought in ones for the computerised machine - but I am hoping that some of the other dancers would like to have one made, so I wanted to put up some photos. The dance school is fundraising to send a team to the All Ireland competition next year - we need to raise enough for a set of matching dresses - so for each one sold, I will be making a donation. If anyone reading this is interested, please email me for details. More pictures below.