September Textile Love - part 2
Continuing my posts on Instagram responding to the challenge of the Seam Collective using the hashtag #septtextilelove.
Day 6: Reverse
I love looking at the back side of a quilt.
This is my 2019 entry to FoQ, “Help is on the way”, a tribute to all the aid workers who come from far and wide to help when a disaster happens.
The small crosses were pieced using Foundation Paper Piecing and then added to the grunge white background fabric as parts of larger and larger squares to achieve the spreading out. This was the first quilt I had made, apart from a baby quilt, and I was learning as I went along. Once the whole thing was pieced I had to decide on the back.
So the back became a large red cross - though I now know that it is not The Red Cross as that has a white surround - and is the inverse of the Swiss flag.
I machine quilted around each red cross and then filled the spaces between with similar sized crosses. It was suggested that I free motion stitch the crosses, but I didn’t have the ability to do that so it was all done by walking foot and quilt wrangling! However if you look at the crosses close up on the back they are not beautiful uniform shapes, so perhaps I could have done them with free motion!
I wrote more about the thinking behind this quilt in an earlier blog post.
Day 7: Edges
I am in the early stages of learning to draw, and one of my challenges is not drawing edges, but defining the edge by what is either side of it.
This interpretation of a recycling symbol was created as part of my work in the first part of my Textiles Practice course.
Part of this ‘drawing’ made from words lead to the stitchwriting I showed on Day 5.
Day 8: Stitch
Stitchwriting
I first came across stitchwriting in the work of @catherine_hill_textile_artist and have been developing my style since, with early help from @heatherchalkley_ and later a workshop with @artistrosalindwyatt
This is the centre block from my entry to the 2020 Festival of Quilts for the Quilters’ Guild challenge ‘the threads that bind’. I wrote more about this quilt in the same post as I referred to above.
I need to do more stitchwriting, like everything it needs to be practised to keep the skill.
Day 9: Colour
I looked through my photos and those who know me well will not be surprised at the palette I came up with.
Blues of all kinds, with some complementary oranges/reds for pop.
Clockwise from top left:
A scrappy ‘flip and stitch’ piece used to make a birthday card
Gouache paint, from my work developing a colour palette for weaving
Another scrappy patchwork piece - a mug rug this time
Weaving with painted warp to attempt to achieve colours in my palette
A collage from my palette development work - more about that in an earlier blog here.
A rusting bollard, snapped on a morning run
Centre: Agapanthus - must get some more of these for the pots in the garden
Day 10: Fibre
I do like yarns, and fabrics, from all kinds of (mostly natural) fibres, here is a selection.
Clockwise from bottom left:
Sock yarn, this was a specially dyed by @nataliesfergie for when I was a volunteer for the TdF Grand Depart from Yorkshire in 2014. She also dyed me some socks when I was a Gamesmaker for London 2012 I wrote about that in my earlier blog although the images have disappeared as iIno longer subscribe to Flickr. Another job to replace them.. Natalie used to dye the most wonderful colours, and I still have a good stash to knit and maybe weave.
Next , more yarn, this a combination of yarns knitted in a fair isle rib, which lends itself to great colour and texture.
Then silk threads from @airedaleyarns , so fine but beautiful for ‘painting’ with weaving.
And finally fabrics. These are beautiful shot cottons from @oakshott.fabrics , almost too luscious to cut into.
Day 11: Detail
Zooming in
The camera on a smart phone yields such amazing images, and the quality is maintained when zooming in provided you have a steady hand and good light for the original photo.
Here I took a photo of a seed capsule from an umbellifer, zoomed in and tried to sketch some of the variation in tone; then worked from the sketch to stitching.
From Mark and Surface in the first year of my Textiles Practice course.
