A suitable bag for Christmas.

Here is my bag for Christmas. Taken at the top of my garden on a frosty morning and they are baubles not brussel sprouts! Merry Christmas to one and all!

Bags that travel

Freezing fog here and my car won't start but meanwhile one of my bags is on the beach with friends, south coast of Cambodia enjoying the sunshine!

Daisies Completed!

I thought you might like to see this finished as I have been showing pictures of it in progress. It started as a mono-print - taken from a sheet of glass. I painted it with silk paints for a wash of colour and then hand stitched it. Finished size 20 x 7cm. Title: Autumn daisies.

Two new images from Linda

An exhibition to wonder at!

Fantastic exhibition at the Museum in the Park in Stroud by Corinne Hockley. It finishes today at 4.00. A walk amongst winter fairy tale trees with a multitude of small hand made details to delight the imagination. Let's hope it goes on tour!

Lindas talk

Linda Babb, another member of the Brunel Broderers, gave my embroidery group a fantastic talk about her travels in India and bought her splendid collection of Indian textiles for us to marvel over. Thanks Linda for a truly inspirational morning!

News from Corinne

Corinne is experimenting with her new ipad  so this image comes from this new bit of technology. The image is of stitching into the jelly prints she has been experimenting with.

Lastest testing

I have been thinking about the work that I do and have come up with a new title for myself.  I am a ' cloth investigator' who interrogates cloth and records the findings from the process of applying a series of pre-selected patterns to my work.

This is a new sample of a series that I am working on and thought you would like to see it.

"A Caravan of Cuffs" by Lizzie Weir, new work for Suited 2013...

Through manipulation, altering and gentle persuasion a 'caravan of cuffs' slowly begun to grow from the pile of fabrics passed into my care from the tailors shop. 

In essence the fabrics are utilitarian, however they have a history and beauty that I feel essential is retained and respected.

A lost pattern was found, circa 1951, on an African Newspaper from when my Grandparents and Mother were living in Malawi.  

The cuffs were realised....and slowly they became a caravan, weaving, communicating and moving across the floor...

Some large, imposing, leading, some small, following and learning...

I have been mono-printing with my group in Preston, Cirencester. It creates a lively, spontaneous line. After printing onto the fabric I add colour with silk paints. I then select threads and begin to stitch, trying not to lose that movement and simplicity.

I've been thinking about stitch. For me stitch is done by both hand and machine  I use an old 'Bernina' machine   a real work horse. It will stitch neatly and precisely but fabric can also be pulled through at speed distorting the tension. I often work from the reverse of the image. The unexpected results add freedom and spontaneity to the surface.

As well as being a reflective and meditative process it can also be seen as an energetic and challenging activity. Polly Binns writes of: “a sense of struggle and frustration; process becomes a conscious mark-making, not a soothing or repetitive rhythmic activity. However, the most successful pieces [for me] are those which develop from considerable lengths of time in the ‘meditative’ process stage, while the actual activity of making happens very rapidly, almost angrily.” ’Art Textiles of the World, Great Britain, Vol. 2. p.72

I will often work standing at the studio wall, making some marks, walking away, then turning to catch a glimpse liz hardinglike something noticed in the landscape.

The BB'S go to Bridport!

Very exciting news for 2013..! The BB's are going to exhibit in Dorset at
Bridport Arts Centre 
 
Have a look at the range of create, vibrant, thought provoking activites that go on.
And - of course a few minutes away there is the seaside!
Alison and Susi met Polly Gifford (Arts Director) during the summer.

Somehow, on our journey down, we were chatting and forgot to get off the train at the right stop and ended up in Weymouth!

 We were rather keen on an ice-cream and Alison was just looking around hopefully.. but we needed to work out how to get to Bridport Art Centre on time and spotted the perfect way..












We hopped on this wonderful bus which goes all along the coast road to Bridport.

We sat on the top deck looking out..












The Exhibition is titled "Strand: textiles with a contemporary twist'
It will run from Saturday 17 August - Saturday 14 September 2013
with the Opening on Friday 16 August - 6-8pm

We are inviting 3 local artists to exhibit with us too.... more later...

The bag that went to New Zealand! This is the bag I made for my friend Rosemary Cochrane, the ceramist, she took it on her travels earlier this year.

I am busy packing pictures for an exhibition at the Parabola Arts Centre in Cheltenham with Glos Guild of Craftsmen. It is open Oct 5th - 13th. 12-5pm, closed Sundays. It is linked in with the Literary festival and the Arts Centre is part of the Ladies College. I am stewarding Monday 8th Oct.
This little picture is called A Splash of Colour.

Suited

This is some new work for our 'Suited' exhibition next year in Stroud.  Made with the beautiful fabrics that were given to us.

I finished this miniature garden a few days ago (the last one to complete the box of gardens) in time for my workshop with the Worcester Embroiderers Guild yesterday. Thanks to the ladies there for being so enthusiastic and welcoming. My last workshop for a while and time now to develop some new work on a larger scale! ( garden size 12 x 10 cm )

Suited 2013 - the beginnings

Work in progress!
Where to begin..

a tailor,
buttonhole stitch:
buttonholes,
patterns on delicate tissue,
buttonhole wheels









and the memories of a story..120 buttonholes of cherry twisted silk
A long way to go, many choices to make, but a beginning!

More on boostitch's blog in pattern piece doodle and pattern piece doodle two! (click on the pink links!)

Suited is the first new BB Exhibition for 2013 at the Lansdown Hall Gallery, Stroud
Please see Stroud International Textiles for many exciting events and news of Select 2013

These are the little sketchbooks I am working on at the moment. Top right is the book/folder I made with Corinne Renow-Clarke at Preston Embroidery group. I am filling it with butterfly facts and information to aid my failing memory! Bottom centre is the little book I took to Islay and I am filling with holiday sketches. Top left, the first experiments for Suited ( BB exhibition next May in Stroud) If you want to look at them in detail I will be at the Glos Guild of Craftsmen exhibition in Painswick next Fri 17th August, doing a demonstration day for them.( Open 10 -5) Ex runs until 26th. Liz Harding and I have work in the gallery for sale.

...some images of the gallery space at Musgrove Park....

Louise Watson

My work is a celebration of the craft of stitching, darning, mending and replacing a lost button. With much time and thought this then becomes an avenue for expression, elevated beyond the merely practical. The origin of darning is to make good a worn surface, but it can be decorative. A humble button can be more than functional. I come from 3 generations of professional dress-makers and with 30 years experience of embroidery I continue to “mend my ways” and meditate on the art of stitching.

                                                                          

                                                                        Liz Hewitt

Cloth is the silent companion of us all; used to protect, comfort and decorate. Since being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, working with fabric has become an essential part of my life. The process of stitching calms my mind and body, like  meditating, helping to heal and mend my body and  bringing a warm glow to my soul.  These pieces express the thoughts and emotions felt as I sew.

                           Images and artists statements of a selection of the work currently at             Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton...

                                                                      Linda Babb

                                                Linda's work in the centre of this cabinet. 

 ‘The mending of clothing, underwear and household linens, though wearisome is nevertheless very necessary and no woman should be ignorant of the best methods of doing it. There is much merit in knowing how to repair the damage caused by wear and tear or by accident, as in the perfect making of new articles’        

                                                                  

                                                                   Carolyn Sibbald

Originally a graphic artist, later studying textiles, forming an eclectic approach to surface design.
Carolyn uses natural fabrics and mixed media, recycling in unusual ways, sizing the discarded and looking at it afresh.
Exploring different medium, she embellishes hard and soft surfaces which retain that graphic sensibility.

                                                                        Carla Mines

I have spent many years looking at the detrimental practices of modern man on Earth, especially in the increased production and disposal of plastic. ‘Mending my Ways’ meant that I had to look at the other side of me, the optimistic side that recognises the enduring power of nature. The quotation in Braille says,

‘What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, God calls a butterfly.’

                                                                         Lizzie Weir

I repair my husbands clothes, 

we repair our children's wounds, 

you repair my heart, 

they repair their relationship, 

he repairs the car,

she repairs...

I repair, we repair, you repair, he repairs, she repairs, they repair

The intention was that this work had the delicacy and transparency of lace, but an integral strength, a history, a memory. All of the fabric used has undergone a journey, much has been stitched, torn, re-worked, repaired, mended, by many hands before it came into mine. It is important to me that this shows within the work, that every stitch, join and repair is visible. I wanted the piece to be a whisper, barely there, but to have the strength of a bandage, to have repaired, to have mended. 

                                                                    Alison Harper   

  

                                                              Leave only footsteps

For this exhibition I am re-working a textile piece made many years ago, re-assessing and re-evaluating it. This I see as a kind of ‘mending’, of making better, of making it useful again.

On examining the piece I discovered I had interlined it with a winceyette sheet that had belonged to my mother, this brought immediate memories of stockpiled linen cupboards and suitable uses for old, worn sheets.

                                                                     

                                                                    Loads of balls

These tennis balls have in a way been ‘mended’, re-invented as decorative objects, rescued from what fate I am not sure. The outer layer of wool, still made at a mill in Stroud has been ‘darned ‘, and by using embroidery, applique, beads and gold-work  these  balls have assumed individual identities belying their industrial manufacture.

                                                                      Liz Harding

Colour and the ways it can be mixed has always fascinated Liz, whether it be with paint and a brush or thread and a needle.

She was taught to darn at school, to make do and mend; and she still enjoys its repetitive build up of surface.

The simple crossing of lines of thread has become a way to explore the effect of colour whether as a drawing medium as in ‘Five Figure Studies’ or simply to delight in the dynamic way colours work with each other as in ‘Five by Four Colour Animation’