Textiles of Marrakech

Linda recently visited the souks of Marrakech (a favourite haunt of hers) and found beautiful stitching ...

sumptuous colours ...

... and wonderful detail ...

One of a series of hand-turned applique pieces that Corinne is creating for 'BLOOM'

Cats and Cakes

Corinne has been busy with a house move but has found time to make a wonderful paper cake for her daughter.

Linda is in Marrakesh where she finds lots of inspiration for her work and has been endlessly exploring the souks.

Mary's Garden

Have been enjoying some free hand stitching based Have been enjoying some free hand stitching based on close up images of flowers on five inch square blocks

Sunflowers

After taking many, many photographs of flowers and gardens in the last three months, it seemed like time to experiment with the images. I chose sunflowers first of all for their positive in your face colour and form and manipulated them in Adobe Photoshop Elements, cropping, layering and changing colour.

I began with photos of whole flowers, first of all removing the extra leaves and stalks to give a cleaner image, using layer via copy.

Next, I cropped out and selected small sections and filled them with colour.

Then I played further (lots of images developed, some more pleasing than others) and layered the results one over another, abstracting further as I went.

And now to decide where to go next!

Carla's blooms

Having dyed the fabric, it was time to experiment. I transferred information about chlorine onto fabric then cut holes into it and place beads into the green fabric and placed the two together and pulled the beads through. 

Bloom

Having spent ages doodling and trying to conjure up images of blooms to illustrate what chemicals in the atmosphere would look like, I  imagined Exotic blooms, sweet smelling but deadly. So, It is time for  some sampling. First dyeing. Chlorine has an acid green gas!