Lincolnshire Textiles

In my last post I mentioned the Iris that I’ve been working on for the Lincolnshire Textile Group exhibition Bountiful Botanicals which will be held in August 2026 in Lincoln Cathedral. Having made numerous leaves, seed pods and flowers in the past using Tyvek I knew this fabric from DuPont would be perfect for the flower project. I think most readers will know of Tyvek fabric but if you don’t it’s made of 100% high density polyethylene (HDPE) fibres. These are randomly laid and compressed through a unique flash-spinning process to form a strong, non woven material that has the properties of paper, film, and fabric. It can be painted, stitched and heat distressed to create wonderful textures and exciting structures.

The idea was to create a single, tall slim flower with four leaves. I began by creating the individual petals, four larger ones to hand down and four slightly smaller ones to stand upright. I decided to make this a stylised Iris and added a twirly flourish at the end of each petal, finished off with a gold painted wooden bead.

Apart from the B&Q wire for the armatures all the other materials used in this project have been recycled or repurposed including the recycled Tyvek which I now buy in preference to the new, non recycled version. It isn’t as substantial as the original but perfectly good enough for creating petals, leaves, etc. and I love the effects I can get when it’s distressed and painted with metallic acrylics. Although it isn’t yet widely recycled there are specialist centres that are doing this which is good to know.

The stem of the flower is a repurposed garden cane and for the base I found the perfect shaped glass vase in my local charity shop. Originally I was going to felt a “bulb” as a base but I’m glad I went with the vase as it not only provides the stability needed for the display but it also gave me the ideal form around which I could wrap the string, plus it emphasise the verticality of the flower making it appear even taller. I was intending to dye the string but after offering up a few different coloured papers to audition the colours I came to the conclusion that it works better left natural as it gives more focus to the flower itself.

The photo of my flower in situ shows where the choice of colour came from. It stands 112cm tall and the flower head is approx 26cm wide.

Photo shows a hand made, single stem Iris created from Tyvek fabric and wire. The flower is painted in turquoise, purple and gold metallic acrylic with four turquoise leaves. It stands in a vase on a coffee table next to a large Monstera plant.

If you use Tyvek fabric in your projects and want to try the recycled version it’s available on eBay UK from Spenic-recycling.

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!!