This time last year I became a member of Lincolnshire Textiles, an exhibiting, mixed media group who meet monthly at Cherry Willingham near Lincoln. I became aware of the group after being invited as a guest speaker to talk about my work and this was followed by a visit to their last group exhibition, Sapphire & Steel, which was held in Lincoln Cathedral. As well as members exhibiting their individual pieces, central to the displays is always a group piece and this creates a striking focal point as you enter the Chapter House as you can see from this photo taken of their last exhibition.

This year the main theme of our exhibition is “Water” and the group piece will represent a whirlpool with 30(ish) members having contributed a section each. Along with a template we were each given a colour swatch and asked to work in shades of that colour without going too dark or light either way. This was my template for shape which is approx 60cm x 15cm at its widest parts, and the little colour swatch of thread.

My first thought was to fill the shape with swirls or crashing waves……

But then I remembered seeing some of the pieces that had been submitted at previous meetings and two or three other members had already worked on that type of design, so I decided to rethink.

The other thing that came to mind was that my section might lend itself to being the shape of a fish so that’s what I decided on…..

The next step was to gather various threads that looked like they might be suitable and then look for different textured fabrics which I could colour. As we were asked to work in monotone it would be important to use as many textures as possible so I pulled out cotton, velour, interfacing, tulle, Lutradur, Evolon, gauze, elastic and crepe bandage.

I mixed up a shade of green that was as near as possible to the swatch and applied it to the fabrics in varying strengths. This gave me a nice variety of shades and texture to work with.

This is my finished fish with the addition of beads which I’m hoping will catch the light and add interest. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished piece but certainly don’t envy Hilary who now has the job of joining all of our segments together and making them fit!!