Following making my Dark Red Helleborine book click here to see it, I have finally finished the textile piece it inspired. The fabric was coloured using gelli plates with hand-made stencils, watercolour was added and then it was patched and sewn/quilted. It took a while to make!
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| Dark Red Helleborine and habitat. |
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| Printing and colouring the base fabric.... |
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| The finished piece and details below.... |
After visiting Whitbarrow and photographing the limestone pavements, I decided to try a Pavement Patterns book. I began by making some gelli prints using acryllic paint and also inks .... not particulalry successful, but what I am learning is to keep going and work on things until they do work! So by cutting prints up and then making them into a book, I have made a half reasonable inspiration source book....where this leads now I have no idea!
I am very much wanting to do a textile piece that relates to the erosion of bedrock under a glacier ...as you do! This is a sample piece that uses foam blocks to print the pebbles, watercolours for the colouring and both hand and machine stitching. I'm envisaging felt pebblles being incorporated too, and maybe some layers of transparent or translucent fabric on top too...it's got a way to go, but it's a start!
We try to pick our days carefully, depending on the weather, so as we drove over Shap and through a drizzly Tebay Gorge we did wonder.....But it dried up as we headed south and when we got onto the top of Whitbarrow, it was a scorcher! A glorious walk with lovely flowers and butterflies. The sky hinted at thundery showers, but thankfully they didn't materialise.
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| Whitbarrow... |
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| Walking up through the woods the Broad-leaved Helleborines were bob on! |
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| Broad-leaved Helleborine flower. |
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| Up onto the Scar top, where the Dark-red Helleborines were over, with just dried up petals left. |
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| Carline Thistles and below. |
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| Looking back ... |
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| There were lots of Grayling butterflies on the wing. |
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| The sun came out .... |
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| Looking into Central Lakes. |
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| Harebells.... |
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| Nice limestone pavements and grykes. |
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| With the heat, limestone, flowers and butterflies, it was reminiscent of Spain. |
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| The beautiful High Brown Fritillary. |
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| A very fresh Red Admiral. |
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| Just lovely! |
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| I do like Harebells! |
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| ... and back to the beginning. |
