In a previous post I showed a wire work Angler Fish made using galvanised wire, aluminium wire, beading wire and sinamay, for Waltham Textiles forthcoming exhibition. My original plan had been to cover the wire frame with painted Tyvek fabric before distressing with a heat tool….somehow I got carried away with making the framework and didn’t get to add the Tyvek fabric at the point I’d intended and the fish was put to one side looking like this…..
Feeling this project wasn’t really finished, last week I decided to bite the bullet and go back to my original idea of adding the Tyvek fabric, although at this stage it was going to be particularly fiddly! Now I can call it done and I’m really glad I took the time to do it, the result is far closer to how I originally envisaged my fish looking.
Painted with Dylon fabric paint and acrylic ink she stands approx 31cm tall x 62cm long x 36cm wide.
There are over 300 species of anglerfish living at various ocean depths. All anglerfish are carnivorous and therefore adapted for the capture of prey. Deep-sea species have large heads that bear enormous, crescent-shaped mouths full of long, fang-like teeth angled inward for efficient prey-grabbing. Most adult females of the suborder Ceratioidei have a luminescent organ called the esca at the tip of a modified dorsal ray (the illicium or fishing rod). This organ serves the purpose of luring prey in dark, deep-sea environments, but also serves to call males’ attention to the females to facilitate mating. Who knows what this girls gone fishing for!
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!!
I mentioned in my last post that Waltham Textiles Exhibition will feature an Octopuses Garden. Well, after many hours of needle felting Olivia, or Oli to her friends, was born. At approx 36cm in diameter she’s a blue ringed octopus, fully articulated and created from carded Corriedale with Merino markings. The only thing left to do now is create and attach her suckers but that will be a fiddly time consuming job and one that will be fitted around less repetitive projects!
In real life the blue ringed octopus is much smaller than Oli. Size differs between species, but they range from around two to six centimetres long, with arms reaching lengths of seven to 10 centimetres. They usually appear as pale-brown in colour, and are only identifiable by their iridescent blue markings when they are agitated or hunting. Native to the Pacific Ocean, they can be found in the soft, sandy bottom of shallow tide pools and coral reefs. Although small and pretty they carry an extremely toxic venom which they use to paralyse their prey! Like other octopuses the blue-ringed octopus has a short lifespan of about two years. During the mating season the female will lay anywhere from 50-100 eggs, which she will guard for a long incubation period lasting almost two months. The male blue-ringed octopus dies after mating.
I’ve also recently given a makeover to a 3D wet felted piece, this was the first of two coral inspired vessels I made in 2023. The second one was heavily FM stitched, and far more interesting for it! I’ve been looking at this first vessel for a while and thinking “should I”? Over Christmas I finally bit the bullet and added FM stitch. The images on the left show before and on the right show after.
I absolutely love stitching into felt, whether by hand or machine, and I’m really pleased with the outcome and the added depth the machine stitching has created in this project.
I’ve done it again…..it’s over six months since my last post and I’m now sitting here wondering how it happened and whether it’s possible to “seamlessly” slip in half a dozen catch ups without it looking clunky!
As this blog originated as an online journal to keep track of the things I’m doing, seeing and experiencing creative wise, I really do want to fill in the yawning gap that was Spring & Summer 2022 but I’d be kidding myself to think I can make it look seamless. Some of what I’m going to post has already appeared on the Felting and Fibre Studio. I would normally write it for myself first and then copy it across but, for whatever reason, it didn’t happen! Anyway, here goes with my Uttoxeter catch up which takes us back to April and the Quilt & Stitch Village, an annual 3 day textile show held at Uttoxeter Racecourse in Staffordshire.
It was my first time exhibiting at Uttoxeter and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would visitor numbers be low? Most ladies attending shows like this are of a certain age (me included!) and I know some still have concerns about mixing in large groups. This is predominantly a quilt show, would there be enough interest in feltmaking or would the majority walk straight passed? I was manning my stall alone…. would the neighbouring stall holders be too busy to relieve me when I needed a loo break? I needn’t have worried, when the doors opened at 10am the visitors flooded in and it turned out to be three very “full on” days! These are a few of the items I had on show……
Just prior to the show I’d felted myself a couple of sculptural, roll edge collars which I wore over that weekend. They attracted a lot of interest which has led to me making them as commissions as well as running one day workshops for ladies wanting to make their own.
The cockerel and hen also proved popular with visitors. I had originally read a free tutorial on how to make a wet felted parrot in an issue of the Australian “Felt” magazine. It had been written by a wonderful Feltmaker called Sue Smorthwaite who creates fabulous birds native to her home in Australia. Keen to try the technique, but not wanting to use Sue’s design, I had the idea to make a pair of chickens. By making two I could kill two birds with one stone (sorry!) as I also needed to create a pair of “something” for a Noah’s Ark Project…..but that’s for another post!
My pitch was next to Project Linus, a charitable organisation that provides quilts and blankets for children in need. Their aims are to “Provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.” And to “provide a rewarding and fun service opportunity for interested individuals and groups in local communities, for the benefit of children.”
Project Linus always attracts a lot of interest and the two lovely ladies on that stand were swamped with visitors for the three days! Somehow they still managed to cover for me when I needed a comfort break which was really appreciated!
I didn’t get much chance to visit other stands but when Jane (Wylde Oak Artistry) came over to say hello and told me she was working with Spun-bond fabrics I had to go see her work. I loved her masks and corsets, made on the theme of body dysmorphia, and came away feeling that there is so much more I could be doing with Lutradur!
Another stand I particularly enjoyed was “Traverse”, a group of exhibiting textile and mixed media artists. Apologies for not getting close ups of their work…….it’s worth following the link and taking a look at their website.
It was a good show, spread over three large halls as well as various other smaller buildings. Most of the photos I took were prior to opening but as you will see from the last three, we really did get visitors!
Where did January go? With the lifting of Covid restrictions and things starting to get back to normal the time is passing in a blur. It’s terrific to be takings bookings for classes once again and I’m looking forward to working with new groups this year. It’s also going to be great, after two years of cancelled exhibitions, to be showing my work at the Quilt & Stitch Village at Uttoxeter in April and the Big Textile Show at Leicester in October.
At the Waltham Textile group we normally have a biannual exhibition of our work but, due to Covid, it was cancelled in 2020 rescheduled for 2021 and then had to be cancelled again. It’s now been confirmed for August but in the meantime I’ve sold my main “Leaf” themed piece made for that show so recently made this mixed media “Monstera” to replace it.
I bought a 40cm x 80cm canvas with the intention of painting Monstera leaves on it and then adding a 3D Felted leaf. After drawing a template onto paper and offering it up to plan the layout I changed my mind about painting onto the canvas. It’s not something I’ve done before and the surface appeared to be a bit too textured for the look I wanted to create. Instead I sketched the leaves onto a piece of white cotton fabric, outlined them with an Inktense pencil and added a little shading. The aim was for very simple, very smooth, perfectly formed leaves looking more like curved metal than the foliage on my cheese plant. I think this was influenced by the very smooth metallic looking Tyvek seed pods I’ve been making lately.
The Monstera in our lounge looks a bit neglected, to the point that I couldn’t bring myself to photograph it for this post! Its been with me for more years than I can remember, moving from house to house, and I thought it would be nice to make a piece of work inspired by this plant….or should I say the plant it used to be!!
I don’t consider myself a painter but I do like painting on to fabric. If you need to paint precise lines a good tip is to use aloe vera (by far the cheapest) or acrylic medium instead of water when applying acrylics on fabric. This keeps the paint where you want it to be and avoids it bleeding into other areas. I managed to get a tiny bit of black paint on the lower section of the fabric but stopped short of starting all over again when I realised the felted leaf would cover it up!
My paper template for the painted leaves was 13” x 18” so to make the felted leaf I multiplied by 1.4 enlarging it to 18.5” x 24” to allow for shrinkage. Layer one was a very yellowish green Merino (might have been lichen but not certain). Layer two was a combination of various shades of grey with the yellowish green running down the centre. This was topped with a layer of dark green Merino and Ireland Viscose all around the edge and snippets of gold Viscose down the centre. These images don’t give a true representation of colours but you get the gist.
After wetting out I measured the fibres and found they had spread to approx 20” x 27”. At the fulling stage, every now and then, I put the original template on top to check for size and ensure I was keeping to the right shape.
Once it had shrunk to the correct size it was left to dry. The next stage was to add wires to the back of the leaf so it could be shaped. This could possibly have been done with directional laying of the fibres and lots of fulling but I wanted the option of posing the leaf once it was attached to the canvas and wires are a good way of doing this.
The wires were spaced out and attached on the reverse using a zigzag stitch which also formed the veins on the front side. You can see that bright yellowish green colour on the reverse of the leaf. Once that was done it was just a matter of cutting into the felt to form the individual leaves and the characteristic little holes of the cheese plant before attaching to the canvas.
Once again I find myself playing catch-up as the time has flown by and I realised I’ve not posted for three months!
August 16th was the preview evening for the newly opened Alford Arts, a beautiful gallery next door but one to the Craft Market Shop in Alford, Lincolnshire. I had dithered as to whether or not to put my work in here as I didn’t want to pull out of the shop and it didn’t seem to make financial sense having work in the two spaces that were so close together. At the last minute I decided to give it a go and it was really encouraging to have my favourite Rockpool Bag sell on the opening night!
Staffed by volunteers Alford Arts is open Tuesday – Saturday from 10am – 4pm and showcases a good mix of styles, techniques and mediums created entirely by Lincolnshire Artists. I am one of only two textile artists currently exhibiting and selling in there, the other is my friend Evelyn Jennings who creates the most wonderful embroidery’s on hand painted silk fabric such as these two, On The Steps and Hedgerow.
The following photos were taken back in August and I’m pleased to say that several of my pieces have since sold including the Monstera.
You might remember the hexagon samples I made for one of the Felt & Fibre Studio challenges. I removed the glass from a pair of oval frames, sanded and painted them white and adapted the hexagons to fit.
These are just a few of the other works including ceramics, glass, wood carvings, paintings and prints. If you’re in the area it’s well worth a visit. You never know, you might just see something that takes your fancy and, if you do, you will be supporting a local artist!
Alford Arts also offers a range of art workshops which are held in the gallery on a Sunday and Monday. Visit the Alford Craft Market Website for more info or to make a booking.
It’s been a long time coming but last weekend I taught my first face to face workshop of 2021 at Cober Hill near Scarborough. Originally booked for summer 2020, this residential workshop for the East Yorkshire Embroiderers had to be carried over to this year due to the Covid lockdown restrictions.
I did wonder if it was too soon for some and if numbers would be depleted but it turned out the ladies were very keen to get back to normal! Nineteen of the twenty ladies booked for the weekend retreat turned up, sixteen came to do the workshop and three came simply to chill.
Cober Hill was built in 1890 and was purchased by Arnold Rowntree, former Liberal Member of Parliament for York, and nephew of the chocolate manufacturer Joseph Rowntree, in March 1920. Rowntree had a vision for it “to be a place of joy and beauty, …a centre of refreshment and inspiration for many of those engaged in difficult public services… I hope experiments in Weekend Schools, Winter and Summer Schools of various kinds and of longer or shorter duration may also be tried there…” The venue, with its gardens, tennis court, croquet lawn, theatre and numerous other communal spaces, offers an annual programme of craft workshops as well as hosting private groups, businesses and schools.
The theme for our weekend was “trees” and the aim was for the students to combine layers of fabric and paint with machine and hand stitching. The finished work could then either be backed as a quilt or mounted in a frame.
After dinner on the Friday evening the group were shown examples of my “tree themed” work and I talked through the techniques I had used to create them. The ladies then started to plan their designs based on images they had brought for inspiration. Not everyone wanted to do trees, one lady chose to use the techniques discussed to do a moon gazing hare while another went completely “off piste” with her abstract take on an owl!
Maggie went her own way with an OwlMelanie painting her background layer.Dorothy and Debra painting their backgrounds.Ann laying down the background for her trees.Rachel’s background is painted and now she’s working on her foreground layers.Sandra adding detail to her foreground trees.
With the bulk of the painting completed and dried on Friday evening the ladies could concentrate on layering and stitching their fabrics on the Saturday.
Hilary’s background has been painted and now she is layering up her sheer fabrics to create depth to her forest.The moon gazing Hare is starting to take shape.Dorothy’s forest is pinned and ready for stitching.Evelyn’s work in progress.
I think the surprise of the weekend was Melanie who only came to Cober Hill to keep Ann, her grandma, company. This young lady doesn’t have the use of a sewing machine and had never done any free motion stitching before…..she borrowed Ann’s machine and took to it like a duck to water!
Melanie’s lone tree is starting to take form.Rachel adding her gate and railings.Ruth is beginning to add hand stitched detail to her tree.Debra used lots of free motion stitch on her version of a tree canopy.Using the same image as Debra for inspiration, Carol created a tree canopy in autumn colours.Judy took her inspiration from my Walk in the Forest.Hilary made good use of zig zig free motion stitch for her background trees.Margaret did her take on my Three Tall Trees.Dorothy added hand embroidery for her foreground grasses and flowers.Melanie’s finished work…..fantastic to think this was her first attempt at machine sewing and hand embroidery!Rhona’s moon gazing Hare….what this image doesn’t show clearly is the addition of black beads which adds texture and sparkle when you see it close up.Close up of Sandra’s finished trees.
What I hadn’t realised at the outset was that none of these lady’s had done anything like this before, so for some it had been a steep learning curve! It was great to see everyone throwing themselves into the task of painting, layering and stitching and the results speak for themselves! By the time we left Cober Hill on the Sunday there had been some terrific work created. I hope some of my students will continue to develop these techniques alongside their more traditional skills. At least one of them has since bought herself a soldering iron for doing more of this kind of work which was music to my ears!
I just want to say a huge thank you to the EYE’s group for inviting me back to teach their 2021 residential and for being such willing students and wonderful company. I shall look forward to working with you again at some point in the future.
No, not my final show! This is the final show from members of the now defunct (CCN) Contemporary Craft Network. The group disbanded in 2019 but five of us have got together for one last time to exhibit at the beautiful Sam Scorer Gallery on Drury Lane in Lincoln’s Cathedral Quarter. The exhibition is free admission, open 10am – 4pm and runs from today until the 20th June. (There is a sixth person mentioned on the poster but unfortunately Andrew had to pull out at the last minute)
We set up yesterday and it’s looking great! There are two feltmakers, myself and fellow IFA member Moira West. There are two glass makers, Kevin Wallhead and Kate Sell, and two mixed media artists, myself and Christine Plummer. The nice thing is that although some of us share a passion for the same medium/craft, everyone of us has a totally different approach and a different style. When combined this has resulted in an interesting mix and what we are hoping will be a very successful show.
If you are reading this and you are local, or even further afield and fancy a day out in Lincoln, it would be great to have you visit. There are lots of other attractions in the area including a wealth of independent shops and bars, our fabulous Cathedral and Castle, the Little Red Gallery, St Martins Gallery and Harding House….all within walking distance of the Sam Scorer Gallery. With the exception of today and the 18th there will be a different artist on duty all day every day so why not come along, see their work and learn all about their craft.
This is my latest post, written for the Felting and Fibre Studio, about my trip to Northumberland earlier this this month in search of inspiration for a piece of work…..
I’ve had the theme “connected” running around in my head for while and decided to use it to experiment with free motion stitch. Each of these shapes has been made using FM on water soluble fabric. The shapes were then connected to a painted vilene background, suspended using FM.
Lincs In Stitches 