Speleothem Textile

Talk about putting myself out of my comfort zone! With no final idea of what I was aiming for I began by dying some different fabrics and tearing them up to form four small 'picture' bases, much in the way that I had done for the Gitbarrows pieces. Click here for that blog. Anyway, after composing the pieces I used the embellisher to 'stitch' the layers together and to distress some of the fabrics. Looking at them I then decided to stitch them together as one long piece - based on the textures in caves - and began to machine stitch and hand stitch into them. Finally I added wax to some areas, before scraping into the wax and pushing oil paint into the scratches - a technique used by Debbie Lydon and learnt on the Fibre Arts Take Two course that I am doing - although I have had a six month break from it! Hopefully the piece reflects the layered and rippled nature of cave deposits, with the wax relating to the shiny smooth nature of the deposits.

Initial pieceing ...

Using the embellisher to join and distress the fabrics.

Detail before waxing...

The final piece ..and detail below...

Soundscape development...

After having practised pulling threads click here and played around with seams etc - I went on to make my final piece based on the sounds of wind and rain on Weholme Flow.. ..but it's not my final piece as I want to go 'big'on this piece. I have also just been on and eco-dying workshop and discussed the use of peat for dying - but that's another story and I need to decide what I am doing! 

So here is my piece - basically the holes relate to the rain drops - but the wind can blow through them...the pulled threads are the wind resonating across the moss. The base is a peaty brown and the top a stormy sky. I think I have decided how to display this piece, as the holes need to be hung so that shadows are made ....but I haven't got round to that yet. 

A plan ....

Piecing ....

Painted with watercolour ...the middle row pieces are a linen scrim which is easy to pull threads from ...unless you paint it, but I wanted to paint it so that the panels linked in colour as much as possible. The top and bottom row are linen - quite tightly woven, so easier to make holes in. 

The back of the piece ...

Finished ..I'll trim the bottom right bit....before I decide how to finally mount/frame/hang this. Interestingly, the linen scrim takes the watercolour paint differently depending on it's orientation - so the warp and weft are clearly slightly different in composition. Luckily for me, I only rotated the middle panel so it was balanced...look at the difference in the coloured threads in the pulled section.

Details ..and below - the white circles are holes...

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Pulling threads

 After four days selling at Crafts of the North, in Keswick, back to normal and a chance to create some samples for my final 'Sound Walk' piece....These are two samples. I'm going to focus on wind and rain - to reflect the current weather! The wind will be through pulled threads. Now pulling threads isn't easy in a tightly woven linen, so I used linen scrim - far easier: 

Pulled threads in linen scrim with watercolour paint.

Making eyelets, to reperesent the rain,  in linen scrim though, isn't as easy as in linen, so for my final piece I am going to combine the two fabrics ...I have found I can make a continuous pulled thread hole which includes a seam and create an eyelet through a seam...so here is my scruffy sample for this: 

Now to move on to the final piece!

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Soundscape in Stitch (2)

Following my previous post this is the same walk ...just a different day...and different weather. So, still with a constant breeze, small birds - Robin, Great Tit, Chaffinch and Long-tailed Tits, chattered in the trees while in the open, Skylarks ascended ....

The Skylarks are the yellow; the small birds - the loops. The wind blows in the background, with a smattering of drizzle. As to the large holes: as part of the course we are exploring 'holes'. Using wire formed grommits, eyelets represent the breath of spring air opening the way to Spring proper.

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Soundscape in Stitch (I)

Following my post about my Sound Walk, and its interpretation click here for that one....I have tried doing a sample of interpreting sounds through stitch. This is the first sample that will hopefully inform a larger textile piece. The day was damp, with a constant breeze. Gusts of wind were rain laden, while a solitary Pink-foot Goose sailed overhead. The red stitches are the raucous calls of Black-headed Gulls.

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Layers of sound

As part of the course I am doing, we go on  a Sound Walk. This will then lead into creating a stitched 'Soundscape'. Wanting to get on with things I found myself doing my walk in windy and damp conditions, but this may yet prove to be an advantage, as the continual gusty wind and spattering of rain gives a good background ot the various bird calls. If it had been decent weather then my sound walk may just have been bird calls giving a disjointed score - we shall see! So my first task after having jotted down a graphic notation for what I heard, was to transpose a small selection of these onto tissue paper that could be layered up to create an image ...some interesting effects .....

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Sewn Paper Collages

 Having created a range of papers - time to play cutting them up and stitching ...

To be honest, having chosen a peat bog for my theme, I have struggled as there are no obvious geometric shapes or vertical lines ....but the discipline of doing this is good and has definitely forced me into abstraction! 

I like this one the most ...using the forms of bent over grasses and water layers of peat and vegetation.

This one was using all the techniques - the foregroung couched htreads representing Molinia.

The water/pool reflects the mountain ...and the rushes are reflected...

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Flour and water paste papers...

As part of the course I am doing, I have been experimenting with flour and water paste to create textured papers. I created the usual patterns - mark making in the paste with a comb etc, but really liked the ones where I used heather to create less controlled and more place-related patterns. These papers will be combined with others into collages to create a sense of place -hopefully! 

Marks made with heather...

..and marks made with a strip of card ...

I like the changes in tone and the movement in these - time to do more!

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Caterpillar books

 As I have mentioned, I'm doing an online course ...one of the preliminary activities is making a caterpillar book from a free flowing, intuitive 'painting'. I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this, so here are a few pictures - the books are inspired by the words I wrote when creating a quick sketchbook on Wedholme Flow...one of the books has the words written in it - the other doesn't. 

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Reflections

Today I focussed on the reflections that the grasses make - I love the form - some of the reflections are almost script like. I am hoping that I may be able to incorporate some of the shapes in some collage work which is coming up in the Fibre Arts Take Two (FATT) course, that is being facilitated by Debbie Lyddon, that I am doing ....

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