I have been remiss…

 

in not posting about the progress of my ‘environment’ in a Scotch box  - or rather, the contents of the Scotch box. [Not the Scotch – that went years ago …]

I left you with the impression that this was going to become a book.

I misspoke.

 

 

 

This is the book -  in situ. [The colour isn’t right, it’s gold not green!]

 

 

This is the book cover.  I decided that, as it was inspired by a poem about memory, and memory is patchy [well, mine is] I wanted something equally patchy and less structured than the crazy patchwork wannabe that had been developing in the workshop.

 

These are the contents of the book – unfortunately the pages wouldn't stay flat. These photographs of my parents were taken at the time of their marriage. I realised when I was scanning the originals that mum is wearing her little RAF brooch which I still have.

Sharp eyes may spot that Dad is in khaki, not RAF blue – that’s because the photo was taken in Iraq, where he served at the end of the war.

I am now trying to pluck up my courage to write under the photos.

The box isn’t quite finished – this needs a few beads before I add it to the sleeve of the box, to hide the word ‘Talisker’, which is still legible despite the spray paint. The gold bits fell out of my stash telling me they belonged together – again, it was inspired by the scrappy nature of memory.

 

 

I took some time out from box and book making to pay our first visit of the year to ‘Art in the Garden’. Perhaps because it was a drab day, I was a bit underwhelmed, though Wensleydale disagreed.

I did like these by Janet Schooley. You had to look twice to confirm that they weren’t natural …

 

although this was a bit of a give away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked this too. You can’t see the very nice carrot cake because I’d eaten it.

Today was contemporary textiles day …

the last one as it happens, because we’ve decided not to go next year.

So of course it was the best one we’ve had.

We were told to take a box, so I took one I've been saving for years, just in case.

Amazing what a bit of spray paint and a flash photo can do – unfortunately it doesn’t quite look like this in real life.

This is just a slip case -

 

 

this is what it looks like inside. [To give you an idea of scale, it originally held two miniatures of Talisker, a present to Wensleydale, though I helped him drink it <g>.]

 

We had to make an ‘environment’ inside, inspired by our choice of poem. Sensible people chose poems with lots of visual imagery, but I chose ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti.

Having a gold box, I had only taken gold and black fabric and threads, so I was a bit restricted. And I’d been looking through this book by Rozanne Hawksley before we started, which might have influenced my choice. [The only time I ever cried at an embroidery exhibition, was at Hawksley’s ‘The Seamstress and the Sea’, which we saw some years ago  in Portsmouth, a particularly poignant place to see it.] 

 

But I digress. By the end of today’s session the box looked like this inside.

 

 

I had also tacked this together, to go inside. It was going to be a panel placed on the other layers that are in there already - there are another 3 you can’t see.

But when I got home it folded itself over and told me it was a book.

It will become a book of photos of my parents and grandparents – I have several of those tiny black and white ones they took in the 40s and 50s, which I think will fit quite nicely.

On a much less serious nautical theme, the mermaid’s purse is finished. Note my attempt at set dressing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And another bit of seaside felting – I can’t remember if I showed you this bit of hand needle work.

Tomorrow we’re off to ‘Sea Fever’. All this salt water splashing around. Must be the summer …

It’s the real thing …

and a bit scary. This is the base fabric for my 2D piece – freezer paper resists, bleach, anti-chlor and a rinse. Now all it needs is a bit of embellishing, some appliqué and a heck of a lot of hand embroidery.

I’ve already embellished two circles at the top to represent my parents – a bit of embroidered hankie for mum – the last person I knew who used real hankies – and a bit of tea towel for dad – who had a bit of an obsession about washing up…

Now I need to go back to sampling – trying out ways of embroidering the embellishing, and different techniques for the lines which will run top to bottom. Just need some good telly to listen to while I do it – unfortunately although ‘Wallender’ is on tonight it won’t do as I have to look at the screen to read the subtitles.

It was contemporary Textiles yesterday but we will pass over that in silence. ‘Textiles’ was stretching it a bit – think brown paper, string and wire – and although I liked what I did yesterday – I don’t today.

I was so busy whingeing yesterday …

that I forgot to show you these - proof that JP was right when she said spring is on its way.

Of course the forecast is ‘Chance of snow’. :>(

Thanks to JP and Sandy for their encouraging remarks yesterday. Not sufficiently encouraging to get me darning a 1” diameter hole, though, even if it is ‘hand embroidery’, Sandy.

 

I also forgot about this, which I finished before the free machining disaster day. It looks a bit like a storm cone – or an escapee from a Saatchi art competition.

Cobi made an interesting suggestion about what to put in the middle:

http://bigartadventure.blogspot.com/2009/04/patty-says-that-this-has-been-such-fun.html

http://bigartadventure.blogspot.com/2009/03/altered-cutlery-guest-designer.html

but I don’t have any spare cutlery <g> – and I was afraid it would be too heavy for the structure to support. The central diamond [can’t remember the proper geometric name for that shape!] is made of gessoed craft Vilene, which I just happened to have in my stash – as you do. I added machine embroidery in a diamond pattern, cut out equilateral triangles, and used jump rings to hold all the bits together.

Today I took my courage in both hands and returned to FME – but this time I used my Bernina, not the Elna I take to college. And some more interesting fabric than calico. Not perfect – but much, much, much better.  The flower and leaf shapes were in the hand-dye, so I just outlined them in a variety of stitches – and thoroughly enjoyed myself – until I cut off the corner by mistake. Which is why there is that couched cord top right …

Now what?

With this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which used to look like this. [I’ve realised what they remind me of – the rather nice choccy biccies they give you with an Americano in Costa coffee in Haskins  - and possibly other Costas as well.]

I know I said I was going to add beads, but when I tried, they didn’t look right. I then struggled to get a thread through the tubes by dangling a needle down and hoping it would drop through. [It didn’t.]

Then I remembered my rouleaux turner – which worked perfectly. Doh.

So I assembled the tubes, and made a tassel and hanging loop, and held it up – and realised it looked a bit empty. The obvious thing is another pearl tassel – but I’ve run out of pearls.

Current ideas are:

1. a different, bigger tassel – perhaps in wool, for a contrast of texture.
2. another smaller diamond shape in a contrasting material , yet to be decided [i.e. I don’t have a clue what.]
3. something like these – or is that a cliché?

Anybody got any better ones?

And that was all I managed, despite having almost a full day to play – or so I thought. By the time I'd been shopping and done some cooking, there wasn’t much time left.

Thanks for the comments …

there is someone out there after all! Obviously the onion had stumped everyone.

For once, it didn’t snow on Tuesday/Wednesday night – well, not here in the coastal plain, anyway. Mr and Mrs Cheddar had some, and so did some of my more far-flung fellow students. We just had rain, rain, a touch of sleet – oh, and some rain …

Despite the weather [and some fairly horrendous traffic on the M3] we enjoyed our trip to the Art Gallery. Got to like a teacher whose first act when we got to the gallery was to send us into the [very good] cafe for coffee. [I can recommend the chocolate flapjack. and the feta, tomato and mint sandwich I had for lunch.]

The we had a scene-setting tour of other areas of the gallery, before going into the Hodgkin print exhibition. Mel, the teacher, took us round in reverse – and I realised why, when we got to the ‘first’ room. She was saving the best till last.

The exhibition is called ‘As Time Goes by’ – the titles of two huge [20’ by 8’] prints. And they are mind-blowing, even after the big beautiful prints we’d already seen. One is mostly in reds, the other predominantly blue. Well worth a visit – and the other pieces in the rest of the gallery at the moment are interesting too, including a very covetable Monet.

Today has been for hibernating – although I did finish the doggy bag. That is a sketchpad inside it – although I didn’t manage to get crayons to put in the crayon pocket. Babybel’s daddy is coming down tomorrow, unfortunately without Babybel, so he can take it back with him.

 

 

After that I went a bit further with the rolls of paper from the Contemporary Textiles workshop. Well – a bit over the top really. What started off an an experiment with weaving - I’ve got weaving on the brain at the moment - ended up like this. 

I had been thinking about figures – but he [definitely a he, despite appearances] wasn’t quite what I thought I was making - definitely one from the subconscious. I find him totem-like.

The droopy bits of thread were because the fabric was torn and I liked the dangly ends – and that led to some bigger dangly ends.

The fabric wasn’t a reasoned choice – it was the first thing which came to hand – so I think he may meet some paint tomorrow.

What can you make …

with a 4mm dowel, lots of newspaper, and some masking tape?

Yes, it was Contemporary Textiles Workshop again – although as A. said, there didn’t seem to be many textiles involved. [Is paper a textile?]

The answer, of course, is some of these. Roll the newspaper round the dowel on the diagonal, starting at one corner, and fasten with masking tape. A. got those lovely stripes all over hers but as I was using a more downmarket paper I only got a few of them.

So what can you do with giant fire lighters? Well, you can wrap them with eyelash yarn and weave embroidery thread through them. No, I’m not sure why either, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

 

 

 

Or you can stick the ends together with more masking tape, and plait them.

 

And then you can do this – you can see my basket weaving skills are not what they might be …

 

 

or you can do this. No idea what, if anything, I’ll do with him. I'm not a great one for figurative work – art dolls and stuffies do very little for me – but I rather like this little chap.

He reminds me of this big chap. [And the giant firelighters remind me of these.]

The paper tubes are surprisingly strong and pretty rigid, and I thought it was an interesting technique, which of course I had to experiment with.

On of the few advantages of insomnia is that you can get up and try out all those ideas that are buzzing round your head. [Of course the insomnia may well be due to all those ideas buzzing round your head…]

These were made about 2 a.m., using magazine pages, rather than newspaper.

One of the disadvantages of rolling on the diagonal is that the ends have fewer layers than the middle and are a bit feeble, so I tried rolling with the dowel parallel to one side.  They were a little harder to get started that the diagonal ones, but not impossible. I ran a glue stick over the last couple of centimetres to hold them together, because I wasn’t too keen on the masking tape. And of course, although the wrapping isn’t compulsory, it helps to hold them together. The result was neat, shiny, firm tubes.

These are pages from a clothes catalogue. The photos all seem to feature backgrounds in shades of beige, so I ended up with this rather interesting coffee and cream look. Come to think of it, the clothes were pretty beige too, which is why the catalogue got recycled!

I think these may get some beads – and then I need to find out how to fix them together. One of the disadvantages of rolling parallel to the sides is that the ends are the same thickness as the middle so you can’t overlap them to bind them together. And although they are hollow, I don’t have any sewing needles long enough to get a thread through them. I may have to resort to wire – or dangling a needle on a long thread and hoping it goes through …

And finally –here’s something I made earlier.  Can you work out what I used to stamp this flower? It wasn’t a flower, or a leaf, but I bet many of you have one of then  in your house right now.

Answer next time – if I remember.

A bit of this, and a bit of that.

‘This’ being – er – this. Which I think is seriously cute - so cute I may make another one, subject to confirmation from Babybel and her mum.

Free pattern here if you like it as much as I do.

‘That’ is more drawing – some very disciplined and some less so. This is another image from the booklet about the Staffordshire hoard – although it isn’t part of the hoard, rather an example of decoration from a book of the period. Wish I knew what it says.

As you can see I didn’t space it correctly, so the twiddly bits underneath are some of the details I didn’t have room for.

I love its exuberance – the way the letters intertwine and the little faces added wherever the scribe fancied. It made me think of graffiti – the scribe could make his mark by adding his own little flourishes and decorations, just as a graffiti artist has his own tag. It was great fun to do.

This was also fun. I remembered  the exercise we had done in Contemporary Textiles, drawing with three pens rubber banded together. So this is my teasel drawn with a big fat pen, a very fine one, and a calligraphy pen. It was quite difficult to keep them all touching the paper at the same time, but I am very pleased with the final effect.

 

I am trying to keep in mind that the purpose of my drawing is to inspire embroidery – and therefore I should be thinking about making the sort of marks which translate into stitch.  The drawings which I like best, I realise, are those, like the teasel and the ‘kimono’, which I can visualize as stitch.

 

 

 

Alongside the shopping and cooking and drawing …

I managed a little needlework today - some embellishing and, after this photo was taken, a bit of FME.

 

 

It’s a cover for this bit of Contemporary Textiles silliness – although it has morphed since I took the photo, losing its edges and gaining some folds, some stitch and some holes. [Do you gain a hole or do you lose it?] I thought I’d taken a photo but can’t find it so I’ll try to remember to take one tomorrow.

Speaking of strange bits of paper – this is the end product of class on Wednesday. With  its edges straightened, its bits stuck down and a neat white border. She’s strict, that Terrie.

‘What the heck is it?’ I hear you ask. Good question. We were each given a paper bag with two mystery objects in it and told to make a collage inspired by the objects. What objects? Inspirational images? Exquisite bits of textiles? Beautiful flowers?

Nah. I neglected to take photos of mine, but there was one of these and one of these. Inspiring, no?

Actually, I loved the shape of the jar opener – made a quick sketch to sort out the structure, and started tearing paper. [No scissors allowed – told you she was strict.] Then I decided to use the remnants for a counterchange pattern, with the paper bag underneath it all to break up the brown paper.

The tissue paper blobs are the door knob. Obviously. [Have you ever tried to tear a circle?]

Initially i loathed it, but bits of it grow on me. The shape reminds me of this, and I like the counterchange idea. In fact I  lay in bed at 4 a.m. thinking of ideas to try. But using scissors. And possibly a fun foam stamp, or two. [Ideas are a bad thing for an insomniac.]

 

You get 2 C&G images today, to make up for lost time.

 

This is what is hidden on the right hand side of the spread, under the photo of the bag which it all led to. Bonded tissue paper and [squashed] dimensional paint. That’s the blobby painting, not the bag.

The bag was knitted. As one does on an embroidery course. We had to make our own fabrics to embroider into, so I knitted it and wove threads and ribbons through. All inspired by the Robert [?] Delaunay image on the left.

The photo on the left is a book cover made from the same colour palette, which holds the deathless prose on three British embroiderers I had to write for C&G.

For the degree we have to do a group presentation on an artist of our choice, and one of my group, with no encouragement from me, just happened to suggest one of my three choices for C&G. Convenient or what? I haven’t mentioned this to the staff …

Not saying who the artist is but she lives in Winchester …

I’ve torn myself away from the telly

to write a blog post - which for once has been quite hard work. We don’t usually watch a lot of TV but since the BBC is running an Alan Bennett retrospective, for once there is something good on.

I did manage to find time to finish this. Weird, isn’t it? Hope you like the tassel. It throws quite interesting shadows – I like work which throws interesting shadows. Unfortunately they are a bit difficult to photograph with flash … 

When I was thinking about a lining I considered some dark red velvet before opting for the hand-dye – but looking at these images the velvet would have been better – maybe?

It’s a bit wonky because  I couldn’t find anything the right size to roll it round while I laced it up. Champagne bottle was too small, drain pipe was too big - which gives you an idea of the sophisticated lives we live at Cheese Acres.

This sketchbook page is inspired by a picture by Kandinsky, which I think a lot of embroiderers find inspiring [and quilters, and for all I know knitters and crocheters as well]. On the page I cut the picture up, spread it apart, and filled in the gaps. This idea didn’t lead anywhere , but I did keep playing around with the original – more tomorrow.

Works in progress

Quite a lot really, after the long uninspired period earlier in the  year.

I posted  about the hand embroidery on net which I did earlier in the week – I have also been trying a bit of machine stitch. The net was layered with two thicknesses of that rather blah yellow sheer, which I cut away before FMEing.

I was going to write that I was too lazy to frame it or add a stabiliser before machining – but I have come to the conclusion that my subconscious is telling me that I actually like distortion and accidental effects – hence my liking for splotchy hand dyeing, felting, and other processes that aren’t completely controllable. [So – not laziness at all.]

I shall do a bit more to this – reveal some more areas of net for free machining, or, like the triangular shape at the bottom, remove one layer of the sheer. Or even remove all three layers.

I have also been drawing [!] but can’t get a decent photograph, so can’t show you my efforts. That’s my story and I'm sticking to it …

I also blogged earlier about a piece I made in Contemporary Textiles - tissue paper over a photocopy.

It now looks like this. The soluble-crayoned Vilene ironed on to the back, then cut and folded into a book, holes cut in it, and some of the cut outs stuck down in different places.

It will get some stitch when I’ve finished this – another piece from CT. [Believe it or not, those photos were taken a few seconds apart with the same camera on the same carpet.]

This is the front and back of what started as a panel but is currently seeing itself as a vessel – although I'm not sure how I’m going to persuade it to stay in shape …

Can you see a ‘things with holes in them’ theme developing here? The book wasn’t going to have holes, honest, until I folded it and realised you couldn’t really see the backing.

And here’s one I made earlier, without holes. Yet. A touch of the Art Deco here. This was pootling around, thinking of ideas for the minor metal embroidery piece, before I went back to Klimt. mostly recycled foil and magazine pages, apart from the postcard of ‘Metropolis’ which seemed to suit the theme.

 

An end – and an intermediate step.

The end is this – the fossil fish. I finally plucked up the courage to add a little colour to the fish itself. In the end I used soluble crayon instead of paint, and I'm pleased with the more muted colour it gave me.

This is the intermediate step – also soluble crayon, on Vilene interfacing [not craft Vilene].

 

 

It is to make a backing for this, which is another piece from Contemporary Textiles on Friday. More tissue paper, pasted to an A3 photocopy of the scratched photograph. Hopefully it will uncurl by the time I've added some stitch and the backing.

This page from my C&G sketchbook continues the Kandinsky theme.  Drawing with oil pastel on the left, and printing with white paint and a variety of circular things on the right.