A little behind.....

Not posted for  quite a few months as  always seem to be racing towards another deadline so just posting here some work I have been doing for  an exhibiting group I belong to with the intention of taking time to find  a few minutes to record what I get up to rather than always be doing it!

The pieces below were based on the theme of 'Abstracted Nature' which all members of the Voyage Art textiles Group were working to, earlier in the year I had started work on some pieces based on Foxgloves from a Norfolk Garden- but having done a couple - I lost the will to develop any more designs from the Foxglove - hence   I eventually settled on abstracts of Norfolk Landscapes - this is an area that until recently I did not know well but the huge open skies and diversity of landscapes were the trigger and starting point for this years series. The designs developed from the colors abstracted from photographs of each  landscape.

The pieces all start as white cloth and were then dyed and screen printed in block shapes using thickened transparent dyes.

Heather and Gorse at Grimstone Warren.

Opaque screen printing inks were used to create the strong colour of heather on top of the screen printed backgrounds.

Oilseed Rape fields outside Burnham Market

The vibrant yellows and lime green colour ranges of the rape seed fields were the the backdrop for the piece. Overprinting with opaque fabric paint was used to add some depth to the piece before quilting the final piece.

The Salt Marshes at Blakeney

This has become a favourite place - the desolate salt marshes which surround the small fishing village of Blakeney, so often emerging from the mists.

After creating the backgrounds as before, I used discharge paste to  lighten some areas to create wave forms. The marsh reeds and darker waves were done by overlaying dyed silk organza, stitching and then cutting back to the shape.

Lavender at Caley's Mill

The fields surrounding the Mill are planted for miles with different varieties of lavender, and in June the sight and smells are a joy. 

The lavender flowers were again produced using dyed organza, stitched and cut back.

Jean

December 2015

Looking at the dye samples

One of the joys of natural dyeing is the unpredictability of the results. It's about

the only ironing job I like - ironing the dyed pieces after they have been rinsed and dried.

You can see the shibori indigo piece  in more detail below, a few lines of stitches were done on the machine with a long stitch setting before I drew up the threads tightly and put the piece in the indigo vat..

Natural dye day

Perfect warm day for doing some natural dyeing - joined friend in the village who is expert both in growing dyestuff plants and in choosing suitable mordants. So after cutting up walnut leaves and stewing onions skins and other plant sources we ended up with 8 different colour pots. I used mainly silk, silk noil and cottons to put in the pots and ended up with a lovely selection of soft natural colours.

The fabric was mordanted with aluminium acetate escept for thre indigo dye which did not need mordanting.

Logwood and Madder root on the boil

Oak Gall and Onion skins stewing

Hanging out to dry

A very enjoyable day was had amongst good company - and result... lots of soft gentle colours on my fabric to use in various projects.

I do appreciate the subtlety of the colours you obtain with natural dyes but as a general rule find procion dye suits my work as I can gauge and predict the colour outcomes more reliably. However, the soft natural colours I ended up with today will I am sure, stimulate more design ideas for my work.

Screenprinting the lilies

From my sketches of the lilies I cut a silk screen using a Gocco printer, ( A small japanese craft version of a Thermofax which will cut up to A5 size screens) the screen was then used to print with discharge paste on some hand dyed backgrounds. 

Quite pleased with the results as a first attempt.  The sketches therefore became white against the dyed background - not sure how I will use this in a piece  of work yet - who knows........

 I will probably try to screen with thickened dye next.

Drawing lilies

I am keen to get some good line drawings of lilies developed to try them out as a gocco screen so looked and found some photographs on the internet which I then sketched into a line drawing I could photocopy to use etch the image with the Gocco.

My intention is to screen print the image on dyed fabric with discharge paste and to use the pieces as part of a larger collage based on the lily flower. We will see how that works out......

Off to Taiwan - the quilt - not me!

I have been working on a piece with an 'Eco' brief for an exhibition - The Taiwan International Quilt Exhibition in 2016 that is taking place in Tainan,Taiwan. The actual theme is 'Protecting the Earth's Environment'  

The piece below is ready to be shipped out - I did most of the work on it at a retreat in the Lake district in February but had not got around to assembling and quilting it until this week!-  cannot remember whether I put the earlier pieces on the blog.

The piece is called - For how long..........

For how long will we be able to see the beautiful colonies of sea anemones on our coral reefs? We have already lost 27% of the world's coral reefs. If present rates of destruction are allowed to continue, 60% of the world's coral reefs will be destroyed over the next 30 years.

This piece is developed from a design I used for some pieces for Voyage in 2013 which seemed to suit the 'Eco' brief.  The background  was discharged using a range of agents; the coral reef was achieved through a simple hand cut screen and standard Jacquard discharge paste  varying the strength of the paste to try to achieve the effect of varying depths under the sea.    

I built the sea anemones up on the background by layering over a sheet of silk organza. I stitched free hand the first layer and cut back the organza to the stitching line and then repeated the layers twice more to build up a more dimensional shape. I used dye paints to colour some sections of the sea anemones;  the intention was to achieve the see through - jelly like structures of the creatures. Finally I machine quilted around the rock formations of the reef.

Just the sleeve to add the it's ready to go........

Local stitchers

I belong to a couple of local stitching groups and recently we have encouraged everyone to start a travelling book. The idea is that everyone has the same small sketch book and each month we put a small stitch piece, sample or design idea in another persons' book until the book is full. We swap books every month. A few of the pages I have done are posted below.

Back home from travels

Well, it's been over a month since I last blogged - whilst I have done lots of stitching I have been overseas in Madeira and then to  Verona where they were holding the 'Verona Tessile' - a biennial Art exhibition around the old palaces of the City. I posted my piece for Verona a few months back - it was based on the colours of the ripening vine in line with the Exhibition theme - it was a juried exhibition so I was pleased to be accepted and decided to visit as it was somewhere we had always wanted to see.

It is a beautiful old city set in the bends of the Adige river, the centre is almost all pedestrianised so easy to walk around - and there are so many old palaces - never mind the Roman remains and the Arena!

The various textiles exhibitions were held in old palaces, ancient public buildings and old churches. 

They formed a wonderful backdrop for the various different exhibitions on show. 

From Contemporary to tradition and from old silk printed textiles to 3D textiles sculptures.










My piece based on the colours of the red grape as it matures

I particularly like the exhibit of''Take a line.......'

What a way to spend Monday - The Well Cottage Group

Spent most of the day in our local village hall - once a month about eight textile enthusiasts meet up and spend a day doing our own work in company in our small but comfortable village hall. Whilst there are stitchers and quilters in the group there are also dyers and felters- so we make quite an eclectic mix - sound levels rise and fall and it is such  a good atmosphere to work creatively. In the summer we move over the road to Well Cottage (hence the name of the group) and spend the days dyeing with natural materials under the tutelage of Jackie our botanist and natural dye expert.

Used the time today to finish off the backing of my silk Foxglove piece below. It is a whole cloth silk piece, dyed and then machine stitched. Silk is not the easiest fabric to work with but I do enjoy the handle of silk when you are working with it.

Catching up

Well it seems to have been a very busy month with a lot done despite not being at home base for a large part of the time. The piece I showed last post has been selected for the Verona Tessile so is winging its way to Verona- perhaps I will manage a trip out there in late May.

I have been working on a small piece as a fundraiser for the surface design association conference in the states. What they call a spotlight collection to raise funds. My piece was a screen print of a box of shallots developed from a photo image which I discharged on dyed fabric then machine quilted.

Working on a new piece

Been very busy trying to get a piece done to send out to Italy  for an exhibition based on celebration of the vine in Verona.  - hence no time to write on the blog. However, hope to catch up with  recording some of my recent textiles activities soon as I am off up to the Lake District on a creative textile retreat.

The piece is made in differing weights of silk, dyed and overdyed which has then been pieced and quilted - the colours of the silk are intended to represent the ripening of the red grape from the emergence of the first leaves through the maturing on the grape for wine.

Still Dyeing

I needed some more threads for a couples of projects I am working on - so another wet afternoon was the perfect time to do this. I have used a variety of cotton and silk yarns including some silk and yak wool threads from Nepal- sold locally in Oakham which have a marvellous texture. The moss green threads in the centre of the photo are Yal wool and silk.

The large aqua bundle of differing threads took the dye well despite many of the threads having a mixed fire composition.  

I presoak the threads in a dilute soda ash solution ( 25g to 1 litre warm water) for an hour or so then drain off the soda ash before dropping concentrated dye pigments onto the threads. They 'cure' overnight then they are rinsed off until clear of dye.

One of my current pieces of work is this piece an impression of the incoming tide at  dawn over Blakeney Salt Marsh. The base is a loose weave linen which I dyed with procion. I then felted on dyed scrims and organzas to achieve the effect I wanted.  Now is the time for some machine couching and hand stitching - hence the thread dyeing!

Trying out some new colours....

Wet and rainy day - just the time to try out some new colour dye pigments - I recently bought some different acid dyes from Landscape Dyes in colours I have not tried before - usually they are the shade I need to mix with my Procion dyes.  I used  Wattle - a rich gold, Sweet Pea, a warm pink and Kelp - a lovely grey green.   I have quite a bit of rayon silky ribbon tape about 5 mm wide which is super for embellishment and ribbon type embroidery - but procion doesn't work - acid dyes do so I had a short session dying them with the acid dyes in an old crock pot - works really well. I also used up the dye with other fibres, silk and cotton and although the cotton dyes a little lighter these dyes gave clear constant colour.