Xmas.........Present.........

And this beauty was handmade for me, for xmas! The handle is deer horn, from antlers I got years ago. I passed them on to my friend, Trev, who is a woodworker. The deal was, could he make me a knife with a horn handle. Didn't he just!
The sheath was made by my friend Tracey. I am a very lucky woman! With lovely friends.

Knit and Stitch Show; Harrogate

 Stella Harding; 'Moon Bloom' willow, flax, rattan.

 Joyce Stalker; Heartfelt: Excerpts from the publications 

of a washed up feminist

Printed text onto tea towels

 Margaret Johnston; Transformation (above) 

Links to the Land (below)

leaves dipped in iron water

 The whole piece of silk

The Bundle; steaming

I dipped the leaves (fig leaves, and a plant I can't identify) into iron water for a couple of days, and left them there.

Wrapped them into a bundle of silk cloth; no mordant; an aluminium steamer. It's never cleaned in between dyepots, so has remnants of all sorts of plant dye in it.

I left it for a couple of days, after steaming it. Then unwrapped; and I think it's come out rather well! Am leaving it to settle for a bit; then I will iron it to fix it, which will flatten the fabric.

I'm rather happy with the results.

leaf prints on linen

Did these a while ago; going through my fabric pile/s I rediscovered them.
I remember doing a lot of dyeing on linen, and pre-mordanting with soya milk. As you can see, there are a lot of creases in the fabric! I don't mind that.
I'm currently looking at some leaves dipped in iron water, in a silk bundle and steamed. Not used that technique before....so I await the result with interest.

Eclipse

The completed piece. Found fabric; dyed fabric; stitched fabric. From the eclipse in April. The moon covering the sun.

Close up.

12 Circles

12 Circles; remains unfinished.
The last 3 weeks have been lost in a blur of labyrinthitis. And the future looks pretty hazy too........I get a couple of 'good days' where I feel better......then stumble back into illness. I'm not daring to work on this, in case I mess it up; so I'm pulling out fragments of fabric; and stitching them together in a random linear fashion.
To go in the exhibition at Westgate Chapel for the Artwalk on 30 September.
Since Kate died earlier this year, there's been no-one to co-ordinate the Artwalk exhibitions at the Chapel; so I offered to take it over.
Six exhibitions a year. Organising publicity through the website, and facebook page. Not massively onerous. And, of course, contacting artists. I've got 5 of the 2016 slots filled; one more to go. Next year may prove a busy one then! 
 

slow stitiching

 Nine Circles; complete.

 Close up; and incomplete

How one piece begets another......Twelve Circle.......unfinished.

July was for hols.......

 In July I went to a festival. Took a photo of this lovely van! 

 The view from my lovely van!

The weather stayed warm, and clear all weekend, despite rain during the night. We all had great fun; listened to music; danced; drank beer; laughed; ate some fabulous noodles! And I had the best cuppa in the whole field!

And now; here's September.

honeysuckle....Vessels

Work ongoing on the honeysuckle frame; printed paper; stitched together and onto the frame. It's tough on the fingers. I use a thimble. I need to bind the frame together with less 'twist' in the honeysuckle. It has a tendency to pull in different directions, which makes the stitching even harder. More thought needs to go into the initial frame. A steep learning curve!

Tee-shirt commission

So I was asked to print a tee-shirt; a paid commission. Course, it's done on 'mate's rates' which means the cost in no way came close to the amount of time it took me; but that doesn't matter.
Above is the completed design...sideways on. All hand stitched...I couldn't get to my sewing machine, due to various furniture being moved around. And hand-printed.

Close-up of the print, and some stitching detail. I printed from a collagraph plate I made a while ago. It had feather, and seed-heads on it, which you can see has been picked out in the foreground of this photo.

This blue fabric is from a pack of rather wierd and wonderful fabric....which is somehow impregnated by chemicals that make 'photograms'. You place objects, or made stencils, on top of the fabric; leave out in the sun, and you get this change of colour. Solar printing I believe it's called. Took me back to the days of doing black and white photography in my loft!
The tee has ended up with 2 methods of printing; and hand-stitching used on it. I have more pieces of this fabric, so I'll be making some stencils, that I can use on them, in different permutations.  

Eyemouth beach-combing

Last weekend I spent the Solstice at Eyemouth in Scotland; at my friend, Paula's place. I spent many happy hours walking on the beach; collecting stones and sea-glass. 

 Treasures; a small handful of sea-glass.....and a stray button........

And even found quite a bit of green sea-glass. I'm thinking of how I can use them in my textile work.......I've passed on 2 pieces to my friend Paul, who has a small drill. At some point he'll drill a hole through each, and I'll make earrings out of them.

Some of the small pebbles I collected. I brought back a big bag of larger stones with me; they're in the garden; waiting for the right place to sit.
I've also noticed that a lot of the photos I'm taking on my phone, have this square (of the photo shape) and the circle within it. I'm considering this. And; I've begun painting again. Well......one painting. It's a step forward; I've not painted for three years.

stitching eclipse........

woad seeds

A friend kindly gave me these woad seeds for xmas. They're very light; like feathers. Planted up; hopefully I'll get some plants come through, and get enough to be able to dye from. Plans for my 'dye-ing garden' are developing! Cross my fingers.

collography print experiments...

I used water-colour paint on this print. Brushed it on; the varnish repelled the water, and left some interesting pointillist marks.

 This was acrylic paint.

This was using textile paint; much thicker, denser colour. Each print has different qualities. I used the same paper for each print. I'm looking now, at printing on top of them, using different colour/s. Maybe the same plate?

Maybe a different one?  

And this is the 'plate' I printed from. On a piece of A4 card, I mixed a printing medium with P.V.A and tried to build up layers and marks, to see how it might be manipulated. To finish up, I varnished over it, and once it was dry, did some prints. My next printing plate is a metal can, with a mix of tile grout, and P.V.A. dripped onto it. I think I'll use the same approach (different paint mediums, on the same paper) to see how that comes out. It's great when mates who are printmakers, give me tips on how to work with materials. Lovely!

No fabric printed yet with this plate; though once the process is underway, ideas flow, as to how I might develop it. 



honeysuckle and suchlike........

 building honeysuckle into a structure

 using cotton thread dyed from odd leaf bath to tie the honeysuckle

men on bikes.......the Tour de Yorkshire came through Wakefield today

Pomegranate & Tea dyed Silk

Exactly what it says on the tin!
Silk bundle with tea bags wrapped in it; dyed in pomegranate dye-pot.
I'm using some of the silk on a small piece of stitched collage. Slow stitching.

seeds

A collograph print on silk. Fabric paint.
This was used by Arts Hub Wakefield as their FaceBook banner picture earlier in March. They're using a series of different artists' work each week, to display the range of creativity around Wakefield.
Positive comments; which is always nice!
I'm still in the process of feeding my creative soul at the moment, so not much going on. But the pomegranate dye-pot I made before xmas, to use with a group of young people, is not quite exhausted yet, so I keep popping bits of fabric in. And I put a folded and clamped piece of silk into a dye-pot of tea/bags...easy-peasy to do. Will show the results of that later.
Currently, I have a white cotton top that I was given, bound up, and straddling both dye-pots.....should be an interesting result! If it comes out a disaster, I can simply cut it up, and not bother wearing it. However....I'm hoping it comes out some kind of pattern that is wearable. I love these experiments in the alchemical kitchen!
Meantime; there's art to look at!

William Blake at Oxford

Can't believe it's been a month since I last posted! Been very busy at work; and tired as a result. AND went to Oxford to see the William Blake exhibition.
Which was amazing!

 My friend got me the catalogue for xmas, so I had an idea what the exhibition would be like. And there had been an underwhelmed response by some critics.

Despite everything; I loved seeing his prints again; and could only marvel at his printing skills, and beautiful handwriting on his printing plates.

Written backwards, so they'd print the right way round.

 And saw a number of Samuel Palmer drawings. Palmer, a follower of Blake's.

Beautiful; intricate; be-jewelled.

Seeing them in real life, has helped me make sense of the catalogue.

You just can't beat looking at the 'real thing' in art!

I love the Hare in this one!