Nothing is ever a failure in textile art. Sometimes it's good to have things that don't quite work out as you'd hoped.
Firstly, of course, it teaches me what not to do.
Secondly it drives me to do more research and I love an excuse to buy a book.
Thirdly it frees me up to rip, print and sew all over them. To think what if........
In that spirit, I've been using some last week's horrible fabrics and papers to do some stitching. Also a bit of bark from the poor dyeing birch tree we had to take down in the garden. The flowers and cups are from drawings I made of my grandmother's tea set and screen printed onto scraps of fabric.
I have to give credit to Cas Holmes for inspiring these little patches.
TextilesArtist.org has been running some fab free workshops on their facebook page with
wonderful stitch artists. I completely fell in love with Cas Holmes's
approach - If you get a chance, have a look at her wonderful workshop.
Isolation- and how to make the most of it?
I know there are people who are bored at home, but not me. Oh no, I have a lifetime of stuff I've been saving for just this moment. I finally have revenge on the minimalists of this world. I have clutter and I am glad of it!
One of my students once said that she was sure I had a house full of beautiful things I had made. I had to set her right- I have a beautiful house full of beautiful materials for beautiful things things that I'm going to make...one day. Indeed, my proverbial 'rainy day' has come!
The first week, I got out my mordants and cottons and set myself up to do some natural dyeing and printing. I produced a lot of fabrics and I have to say, the results were generally quite underwhelming.
I mean the bundles looked great as they came out from steaming,
and one fabric looked rather lovely.
but generally I got a lot of these:
Actually I lie - this was the best of the rest. I got an awful lot of beige.
But I did get some great photos from the process, like this one of the steamed foliage.
It's like something out of the swamp - which is what the fens once were.
So all is cyclical.
Okay, I feel guilty......I really love being in isolation. I am so grateful to live in house with plenty of room for making stuff; to have a job that I love and can do from home; a beautiful garden and to have a really loving and patient partner.
I've been sewing a few scrubs laundrey bags to send out to care homes. I started off making bags from pillow slips. Then I did a couple of very simple bags.
I realised that I needed to to make it a bit more interesting for myself so I did a bit of simple printing on the fabric before I sewed them up.
Here is a very simple way to make the very easiest scrubs bags. The drawstring fold is on the inside but that doesn't matter, it flips out once you use it.
Thanks to Cary for interpreting my very muddled instructions into these drawings.
