Still life painting

The fourth weekend of Experimental Textiles in Redditch was painting and drawing a still life arrangement. This was made up of a very random selection of things including a recycled aluminium hubcap fish, stuffed hares. a lobster pot, a bead curtain, cushions and a plastic tortoise!

 

This is my painting. The blurry photo makes it look a little better. The whole thing was colour washed with Procion dye as the white background didn't go with the colours. I chose a pale blue as the colours reminded me of a tropical forest and I wanted bits of sky to show through.

 

The beauty of this is I tore my painting into rough strips and tried out arrangements which I could stitch into.

This is the final design. I have begun stitching using perle threads and wool in colours which match the colours in the piece. Stitching paper is hard because it tears easily and if you make a hole by mistake it shows.

I went with a simple running stitch to start then added a running stitch in and out of the first line of stitches which I then threaded wool in and out of. There are still a lot of stitches to do. I can't decide whether to add other types of stitch or to keep it simple.

 

 

 



Boston Holiday

My daughter treated me to a ten day holiday to Boston, Massachusetts. I had never been to the USA before so it was quite an adventure. I was worried about the flights as I am not very good at sitting still but we each packed a sewing project of cathedral window squares to be hand stitched together which kept us occupied in between watching the children's movie Rio and sleeping. We had a wonderful time visiting Salem..........

 

We spent an enjoyable day in Lowell visiting the Textile museum and the Quilt museum which had wonderful quilts on display. How on earth those pioneer women managed to stitch quilts with such  tiny stitches without electric light let alone find the time is beyond my imagination. I have electricity,  a washing machine, a  tumble dryer, a microwave,  a cooker, central heating and a sewing machine and still struggle to find enough time to sew!!!

This quilt was started in 1775 and hexagons were still being added by family members up to 1940. The papers on the back helped date it. It has never been finished. This means my descendants may still be finishing my quilts off in 2179!

This quilt has 6764 three quarter inch squares in it. All pieced and quilted by hand. Amazing work. It was made in 1880.

Here we are in the sand dunes of Cape Cod enjoying the sunshine. We had a fantastic time.

 



Colourful weekend

The end of August was another weekend of Experimental Textiles. This was the weekend of the colour wheel which I do not enjoy painting at all!

Here is my attempt albeit upside down! This will be my third colour wheel of my adult life and I hope it will be the last.

This is the tints (add white), shades (add black) and tones (opposite colours from the colour wheel mixed together). I do not like the tones column at all it is very depressing.

After this I tore up one of my printed and colour washed pieces from a previous weekend and pinned it all in a long strip which was quite a surprise to me as I usually end up with square or rectangular shapes. After pinning it all together I backed it with Bondaweb for stability so I could stitch into it.

This is it curled up as it is too long to photograph well. After the stitching is finished I may attach it to wire and make it into a spiral hanging. It will need to be backed with something first.

A wedding

Just what have I been doing since my last post in August!

I went to Wortley Hall in Sheffield for the wedding of the daughter of  some friends. We had a lovely day. The ceremony was lovely with some of Jenny's music students singing along and the ladies of the church had baked scones and made homemade jam with jugs of Pimms to wash them down for afterwards. The reception was held at the hall with a ceilidh in the evening which was great fun.
My wedding gift was a quilt made in bright pinks and blues. I used a selection of batiks and a simple design.

 

 

August!

I cannot believe it is almost the end of August. I have been working into my tissue and map piece with many many stitches. All fairly simple ones but they still take ages to do.

I backed the piece with Bondaweb to give it strength and to stop the stitches tearing the paper. It does feel more like fabric now. I have pulled some of it together so it now won't lie flat. I have been imagining the stitches are like tracks of animals or people who have travelled across my landscape. The tracks criss cross each other in a meandering way.

 

When viewed from the side it does look more like a landscape. There are still more stitches to be added.

 

 

 

Stitched paper piece the first

I began stitching my chosen papers last night and am not happy with it at all but I am going to persevere for a couple of days and then if I still hate it I will put it in my sketchbook and ignore it.

These are the thread colours I have chosen. I like to use the six strand threads as you can vary the thickness easily and can blend the colours together to get more subtle tones.

I am tearing sections and putting pieces of paper and tissue with stitching on underneath to get depth. I struggle with paper as it is stiff, crunchy and flat.

 

 

 

The decision is made

I have chosen which printed papers I am going to stitch first. Although I may just have to stamp my feet in protest if I can't find the right colour threads to match or convince Kim I didn't hear her say they should!
When I was putting my papers together to bring home this combination just happened. I am finally learning to go with the flow and not to overthink things.