September Textile Love - part 3
Day 12 Mark making
During 2019/2020 I learned a lot about mark making with stitch.
It began with an opportunity to pick up on some of the workshops in the 2019 Stitch Book series created by Helen Birmingham under the Untangled Threads banner. Those who signed up for the whole year became the Stitchbook Collective and there will be an exhibition of their work at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show in November 2021. The image shows two pages from my stitchbook on the right.
Having realised that I do like the meditative nature of slow stitching I joined Heather Chalkley's Slow Stitching group at the York School of Sewing. The counted thread work came out of one of her classes. When we could no longer meet face to face, Heather rose to the occasion and took up the challenge of continuing to teach us online - a real pioneer!
Jo Avery is a member of the Thread House team and although it now seems a distant memory, we did actually meet face to face at a Threadhouse Winter Retreat near Bristol in January 2020. Amongst the many workshops there, was a Crewel Work workshop with Jo. A lovely opportunity to try out a variety of stitches that can be used in mark making. Jo is about to publish a new book on Crewel Work.
Day 13: Line
Quilting with a walking foot doesn’t have to always be straight lines, though shadow quilting is a favourite. For those who are not fans of free motion quilting, there are lots of ways of creating interesting textures with a walking foot. I can recommend two books by Jacquie Gering Walk and Walk 2.0 which lead me through a variety of exercises to gain confidence in quilting large quilts.
The quilt back shown here is the largest I have quilted to date on my machine. It may not pass muster with the Quilt Police, but I hope it will provide a warm hug for someone who needs it, when sent to the Siblings Together charity.
The second piece was from my Textiles Practice course, working in black and white and thinking about negative space. The shapes are drawn out where there is no line!
I am still exploring the potential of straight line stitching, I may be some time.
Day 14: Floral
Cow Parsley seed heads.
From my Sketchbook to Textiles work last year.The drawings were made early in the course, and were tentative, but I was trying to get some depth to my drawings.
The stitch was free motion on the machine, in a hoop. I used different shades of thread to give some depth, I think that particular day I had been out running in light fog and was aware of things emerging from the background in that hazy way they do in fog or mist.
Day 15: Sketchbook
I’m still working out how a sketchbook works for me, and enjoying seeing the wide variety of ways people use them (or don’t).
This is part of my concertina sketchbook for my summer project, #patternfinder21 , as part of #fdatextilespractice @bradfordtextiles
I’m a journaling kind of person, and maybe need to keep more than one sketchbook going, one for ongoing ‘journaling’ but separate ones for specific projects?
I very much enjoyed seeing other people’s response to this prompt, and answers to my question. I have a couple of books that were recommended at the beginning of my course, and I shall go back to them for more inspiration.
Greenlees, K. (2005) Creating Sketchbooks for Embroiderers and Textile Artists. London : Batsford.
Rhodes, S. (2018) Sketchbook Explorations: Mixed media approaches for textile artists. London: Batsford.
Day 16: Making Connections
Last year many of us made a great leap into the unknown world of Zoom.
Here in Yorkshire it enabled us to connect across Region 14 of the Quilters’ Guild. Our first zoom meeting was to Sit and Sew in our own homes, but together making enough Friendship stars for the four quilts for Siblings Together.
The Quilters’ Guild provides many ways of making connections for quilters of all levels of experience and interest. Since I joined the Guild I have met many lovely quilters, both in York and further afield and am proud to call some of them my friends.
Through Zoom we have been able to keep connected both within our region and also enjoyed talks and workshops with people from across the world, a small blessing to come from such difficult time.
Day 17: Structure
A timely prompt for today. This afternoon I have been learning with about the wonders of Tyvek with a very talented textile artist, Justine Warner.
Heating the Tyvek creates interesting, but somewhat unpredictable 3D structures.
I have, so far, only explored the tip of the iceberg, there are so many variables to play with. I could be some time!
Day 18: Geometric
Of course quilters use geometric shapes all the time, particularly regular shapes that tesselate, but I do love a wonky triangle block, as you don’t have to worry about losing your points :)
