Free Machine Embroidery

I've had a great day today down at Art and Stitch in Peterborough.  Gina Ferrari led a workshop exploring the basics of free machine embroidery.  While I've done several machine embroidery workshops I was keen to work with Gina again as she is a very calm tutor and inspires confidence.   Before I went to Peterborough today I watched Gina's DVD "Creative Free Machinery Embroidery" which she made with Colouricious. I was really glad I did as it put me in a good position to benefit fully from today.  

The aim today was to slow things down (not literally as far as the stitching was concerned) and concentrate on excercises involving only straight stitch.  

My main efforts working on different patterns within in a grid, after having played with some very basic (more basic than this!) scribbles to settle into controlling my machine and tension. 

The next step was to work on a 'colouring in' exercise which took a while but was a lot of fun!

I was so pleased with my effort I even signed it! lol  It's about 4" x 3" (10 x7.5 cms)

With the remainder of the time (in my case not that much of it) we made flowers and leaves which again was fun and I can see lots of uses for these,

The leaves are made of paper stitched onto felt.

The atmosphere all day was one of fun and enthusiasm and there were some great results considering most of us were fairly novice (as in havn't practised enough before!) at FME

Don't you love Sally's dragonfly and mushroom?

I don't know who did the owl but I love him!

 

Sorry I can't attribute any of these properly but everyone did really well.

Of course, a workshop at Art and Stitch wouldn't be complete without lots of cups of tea and coffee and a little treat to keep the day moving:

Raspberry and white chocolate cupcakes. Oh my!

I need to catch up on another workshop I did last weekend with Hilary Beattie (no wonder I'm shattered!) so I'll try  and get that on here in the next couple of days.

Arts and Crafts 2

The second Arts and Crafts property we visited recently was Blackwell Hall in Lancashire.

Blackwell Hall was built as a holiday home for the Manchester brewery magnate Sir Edward Holt by the architect Baillie Scott.  The house is very elegant and gracious and is run on very welcoming lines with the visitor allowed to wander freely from room to room and to spend time sitting in the window seats enjoying the beautiful views of Lake Windermere which it overlooks.  If you hover over the headings on the web page for Blackwell  you can read the present and past history of the house.

You are aware of the beauty of this house before you even go through the door.

I don't think I've ever seen chimneys like these before.

As an added bonus to our visit there was a sculpture installation in the grounds by Laura Ellen Bacon.

If you click on the last photo you should be able to read more about Laura's inspiration.  I don't know whether she intended the two willow sculptures to be viewed incontinuation as if the inside of the house is morphing with the outside but I'm sure she would have been aware of this view.

As with Wightwick Manor photographs are not allowed due to copyright attached to some of the objects on loan to the house but I did snaffle a couple of pics (naughty!).

Just one of the many window seats where you can while away pleasant hours enjoying the view.

I really liked this beautiful stained glass window. 

If you have a look around the Blackwell website you will be able to find further photographs of the interior.  The house is beautiful inside and out and has an unusual Great Parlour which is effectively split into different areas by the arrangement of furnishings, shortened walls, seating areas and carpeting.  You can see an image of part of the room on the Events page of the Blackwell site.

We spent a very relaxing time in Blackwell Hall and rounded it off with naughty but scrummy cream scones in the comfortable cafe.  As we left I was looking up at the building again trying to soak up every last view and my eyes spotted these residences waiting for their occupants to return,

I would think by now they are refurbished and busy with new life.

Our holiday featured quite a lot of wildlife

This duck obviously has an identity problem and thinks it's a dog lol

These ducks wouldn't believe me when I said I didn't have any bread and continued to give me a good peck!

Aaaaaah!  These sweet ducklings were on the site we were staying on.  I think she had 14 altogether.  So sweet!

PS In addition to the sculpture installation outside there was also an exhibition on the second floor titled "Woven From Nature: Four Contemporary makers".  The artists involved are basket-weaver Mary Butcher and tapestry weaver Jilly Edwards,and Jo Mcdonald and Maggie Smith.  The exhibition was varied while having the connecting thread of weaving and Jo McDonald's work with paper was both impressive and emotive.  If you follow the link to her site you will see many of the pieces on display at Blackwell.

Arts and Crafts

When I say that I mean the Movement not the activity.  In the last few weeks my DH and I have been lucky enough to visit two beautiful houses built or, in the case of our first port of call, re-modelled, in the style that has become known as Arts and Crafts.  

The first property we visited on a chilly April day was Wightwick Manor (pronounced Wittik) 3 miles from the centre of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands of the UK.  This property is owned by the National Trust and sadly, because of the many important paintings housed at the Manor and for other copyright reasons, no photography is allowed inside.  A very extensive history of the house can be read here. It was amazing to be able to see close-to work of such Pre- Raphaelite artist as Rosetti and Burne-Jones.

We did manage to take a few photographs of the exterior of the building:

Walking up from the car park you are greeted with this beautiful stone wall and a view of the black and white buiilding. 

The building itself is beautifully elegant and no detail has been missed in its external decoration.  The bay window above looks out over a yew tree walk which sadly had been cut right back before our visit so will take some time to recover its former glory.

I would imagine these tiles above are terracotta.  Click on them to see the detail.

This beautiful carved wood is on the main entrance porch.  Don't you just love the bat above and the sweet little owl?

All visits to Wightwick Manor operate on a timed escorted/guided basis and our visit was enriched by the history and anecdotes relayed to us by the very knowledegable guide.  It was fascinating to see beautiful William Morris wall coverings as they were originally intended, with the soft furnishings matching.  I'm pleased to say I've found a National Trust source of photos and information about Wightwick Manor here.

Photographs of this beautiful house can only go so far to convey its elegance and beauty, you really need to visit for yourself if you possible can.  Andrew Lloyd Webber visited Wightwick for an ITV television documentary and was moved to tears by its beauty and atmosphere.  He was particularly taken by the painting by Edward Burne-Jones  'Love Among the Ruins' which can be seen in the Great Parlour.  He said of his visit “It’s alive, this place is not some museum at all, it’s about a whole family’s passion for Victorian art – art collected in the thirties and forties when art of this kind which was just valueless.”

Not that you can see much but this above is a view of the stained glass in the entrance hall, taken from outside.  I do find the structure of  stained glass windows interesting.  These particular windows were much more traditional in design than the rest of the house. 

On a more intimate level these excerpts from the wages records of the domestic staff give an interesting insght into the economy of the time.  The tour included a visit to the kitchens and the Servants Hall which were very much more basic but seemed nonetheless comfortable.

I was tempted into a little shopping, as you do,  and had to buy the postcard of the porcelain fish plaque which had beautiful stylised fishes and wonderful movement lines in the background.  

While we were in Lancashire we visited Blackwell Hall which was a much more informal visit and I'll write about that in my next post as I really do need to get to bed as we are out again tomorrow!  We are going to Lavenham and Long Melford in Suffolk, two places that I have been wanting to visit for along time.  Hopefully there will be more photos to show for that visit.

Shelley Rhodes

I think I may have mentioned our trip to Lancashire and the fact that it was prompted by the lure of a workshop with Shelley Rhodes.  I had seen Shelley's work at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace last year and hoped that her workshop would challenge me and lead me on in my quest for better self expression in my textile work.

Shelley has a spacious and welcoming studio in the beautiful countryside near Carnforth Lancashire.

The studio is the main building with roof fanlights and is a lovely stone building with exposed wood rafters. I think there were 8 of us for the workshop but the day was so busy that there was barely time to say hi.

The workshop was titled 'Fabulous Fragments' and before we went Shelley asked us to collect items from which to work in a small box and to photograph them in various groupings and print off A4 images.  It didn't take much thought for me to decide to take a selection of beach finds.

We went through a series of hectic exercises to enable us to study a selected item and consider the marks it revealed and also to produce papers from which to work later and to distress some of the printed images.

We had a brainstorming session so that we could introduce ourselves and say what had interested us by our chosen 'fragments'.  I settled on working with the greeny shell in the box and I also used the encrusted piece of plastic I found on the beach in Cornwall some time ago.

From the shell I made marks on a piece of paper I had constructed but  I didn't think to photograph it in its entirety before I cut into it later. The following photographs pretty much show the whole piece but in sections.

Some of the marks above were already on the papers I used.  The dark ink marks and various pastel marks were part of the process.  We also started to join pieces of prepared papers and fabrics together to work towards either a finished piece or a series of small pieces,

These holes were meant to echo the holes in the plastic and would reveal the underlying layers when used in a piece of work.

The final piece is made up of linen, a piece of my printed paper, hand made paper and tracing paper  and was worked into with stitch.  Clearly it needs a lot more work and will probably remain as a sample.  Shelley suggested that I grow it vertically and I may do that when I have the time to work with it further. 

At Shelley's suggestion I used 'L-shapes' to isolate areas of the larger piece of constructed paper and came up with some interesting sections which were attached to a backing with tiny gold pins, a tiny piece of the encrusted plastic being added as a unifying link.

I think the top photo is upside down but it sort of works either way.  I think these warrant further work and may even develop into larger textile pieces.  I'm not sure how big the last image will enlarge to but I was fascinated to see the detail in the plastic after I took the photo.  The shapes there are reminiscent of stitch and take me back to micro to macro of Jo Budd's workshop last year at Summer School.  

We also made time for a little monoprinting on lens tissue and other surfaces exploring our marks further

No time to include these in any work on the day but potential nonetheless. 

I am still digesting everything we did on the day but I have lots of ideas to take forward.  The workshop was full on and two days would have been wonderful but I was glad I made the journey.  Shelley is a calm yet stimulating teacher and it would be great to work with her again to develop some of these ideas. 

More from Lancashire and two beautiful Arts and Crafts houses soon.

It's a boy!

We've had some lovely news today, my nephew's wife has given birth to their second child, a brother for Max.

Welcome beautiful Callum Euan born yesterday, we can't wait to meet you. Callum's older brother Max who is two is said to be unimpressed by the new arrival :-)  Methinks he's going to notice a few changes when the baby comes home.  ;-)

Andromeda

I have quite a bit of catching up to do but I am going to jump in and show you my latest response to the International Quilt Challenge blog which I have posted over there today. 

The theme for the latest challenge is 'Time' and when I started to think about 'Time' my brainstorming produced a long list of possibilities.  The words of a Simon & Garfunkel song came to mind, 'Time, time, time  See what's become of me.......' and a hymn, I think , ' Time like an ever rolling stream bears all our fears away.  They die, forgotten, as a dream dies at the break of day'.

I thought of passing time, time past, holiday time, a stitch in time, old time, part time, daytime, night time, dreamtime, time travel, lost in time...... The list went on and on.  Then, on a visit to Greenwich Royal Observatory I was reminded that there are much larger measurements of time than seconds, minutes and hours.  I was particularly struck by an audio visual installation that stated that the light from the Andromeda Galaxy takes so much time to reach the Earth that's it's journey is measured in light years.  The view that we see of the Andromeda Galaxy is brought to us by light that left it approximately 2.6 million light years ago. It is the most distant body that can be seen with the naked eye and lies just below Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion.  Seen through a telescope it is truly beautiful and I feel a personal connection to it through my late husband who was passionate about astronomy. (Not my present DH in case you were worried).

So, with this thought in mind I chose to make my piece about the Andromeda Galaxy.

I have been wanting to explore the colour wash method of construction for sometime and so played with this a little by using a range of my hand dyed fabrics of various textures (cottons, velvets, bamboo and something unidentifiable that had been tossed in the dye bath) together with a couple of commercial fabrics.  The piece was put together with curved piecing as a reference to the spiral nature of the galaxy but I think I could have been even more adventurous with the curvatures.  I layered the top onto polyester wadding and then hand stitched/quilted in a spiral from the centre outwards.  I felt the spiral stitching would reflect the spiral nature that I think is attached to time and I used hand stitching because it would take physical time to complete.

I used a Madeira Rayon for the quilting and then used a gorgeous metal thread from the Illuminations range at the Thread Studio to make reference to a beautiful infra-red image of the Galaxy that I found here.  Finally, I added some small beads to suggest some of the stars that contribute to the galaxy. 

The finished size of 'Andromeda' is just over A3 and I am thinking of facing it instead of binding it and will probably give it a curved edge rather than square.  As with the previous challenges I am left with pages of ideas to take forward from this theme and may develop it further for my Festival of Quilts entry, but maybe I won't use quite so much hand stitching!

DH and I have just got back from a week in Lancashire and I have a lot to update you on so I'll be back soon. :D