Design and Stitch

I am both excited and nervous to find myself teaching Contemporary Textiles Workshop.  Pauline Verrinder has sadly decided to retire from some of her teaching committments and I have taken over one of her classes.  Pauline is a very hard act to follow.  I know because she taught me in the  City and Guilds Creative Embroidery course and was  so inspirational.  In fact, I could honestly say she totally changed my life by introducing me to the whole wonderful world of creative embroidery.  I learned so much from her  'what if....?' approach to exploring materials, processes and ideas. 

I was already running my screen print studio when I discovered the  Creative Embroidery course.  I had been researching masters' programmes at various universities but found they were much too theoretical (and expensive!) for me. 

 I knew when I went to a C&G taster class that this would be the course for me, when a fellow student jokingly asked me if she could cut a snippet from my skirt to use in her embroidery! 

Doing the C&G gave me an incredibly thorough education in practical textile techniques at a very affordable price.  I just didn't want  it to end.  And friends, - suddenly I met a whole community of textile lovers and I knew I had found 'my people'.

Anyway, 2 weeks into the new class, we are starting with black and white expressive marks on paper and developing these into stitch. Hopefully we can continue the whole 'what if...?' tradition and create fabulous, unique and creative textiles!

Watch this space for further developments.

Weekend of Screen Print onto Textiles

Impington Village College
Tutor: Ricki Outis
Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 October                10.00am – 4.00pm
£72

 
Brief Description: Small scale screen printing - the emphasis is on the experimental, creating simple paper stencils with small silk screens to create bold shapes and pattern on fabric.  The course is aimed at those with some experience of screen printing as well as beginners and it is an opportunity to work in a studio atmosphere with tutor support.  This 2 day class will allow you to build up layers and develop more complex designs, to explore texture and to have some fun with experimental techniques.  Learners who have previously attended a one day course can develop their own projects with help from the tutor as needed.  A4 and A5 screens and squeegee are provided for use during the weekend

£8 for materials
Wear old clothes and an apron
Reference pictures to use as inspiration.
5/6 old newspapers
Notebook, pen and pencils
Paper cutting scissors / craft knife & cutting mat
20 sheets computer / photocopy paper (not recycled)
A rag for cleaning eg fabric torn from old T-shirt or an old facecloth etc
Clear / masking tape

Fabric: you will need to bring your own fabrics to print on. These must be 100% cotton. Polyesters and poly- cottons do not print well. I suggest you bring about two to three metres of white or light coloured, 100% cotton fabric, preferably washed and ironed.   If you are a non stitcher, you can bring pre-made items for printing on eg. T-shirts, shopping bags, pillow slips - as long as they are, a light or bright colour and once again, 100% cotton. (T-shirts & shop bags do not need pre-washing)

Location:Impington Village College, New Road, Impington, Cambridge, CB24 9LX

CONTACT: tel 01223 200411   community@living.tmet.org.uk

Norris Museum Tablecloths

This is an update on a previous post.  I think I wrote about these tablecloths,  printed by adults with disabilties a few weeks ago.  Since then I have done a bit of infill and that's pulled the whole design together.  They will be having some very colourful teas at the museum!

I pre dyed the cloth and everyone was amazed to see the colour come through when they printed

This one is to hang on the front of the serving table.

Who said museums have to boring!

Botanic Gardens Screen Print Workshop

I was excited to have the opportunity to teach a 2 day workshop at  Cambridge University Botanic Gardens .  There is so much inspiration for print and pattern.  It got me wondering why I don't go there more often.  Here's some wonderful work by students.

Proteas by Jax

Clematis by Lindsay

Daisies on calico

Elspeth's ginko leaves

Hoverflies by Val - see her pencilandleaf.blogspot

Jennifer Copley May. see link  jennifercopleymay

And Fiona Payne -link- Fiona - Open Studio

Ely Folk Festival Carnival

Ely Carnival Arts  did  a whole batch of making activities for Ely Folk Festival's annual carnival parade.  We work with children at the festival to create costumes, props and puppets and this year our theme was "Into the Forest"

Our costume theme was Robin Hood.  The bows and arrows were especially popular!

As were the sheilds - a brilliant activity for all age groups.

The parade itself was headed up by the skipping girls.... with a custom  made willow skipping rope.

Followed by the giant Green Man puppet.

Then we had a long line of Robin Hoods - both male and female.

And finally Tom carrying Annie's banner.

A great green time was had by all!

Histon Feast Print Workshop

Another busy and popular screen print workshop at Histon Library for the Histon and Impington Feast day.  I will let the pictures speak for themselves:

Here's a great description from Cath who organised the project: "So, nearly 60 took part: lots of children, little ones helped by parents, and all ages up to eighty plus, a few keen artists but mostly people who had never done anything like this before and were thrilled with their success. Watch out for our bags around the village!"

Thanks to the Friends of Histon Library for organising this. Keep an eye out for their book sales - they have a massive collection of very good books!

Family Print Workshops

Families making art together is one of my favourite things.

The last couple of weeks has been jam packed with artmaking with people of all ages, all abilities.... as end of term events intersect with all sorts of summer celebrations we've been really busy making prints and having fun.

We had a  fabulous day at Impington Village College doing T-shirts.

As always, every single one of the prints was outstanding. This one was something a little different from the usual: 

A young lady and her Dad had printed a T-shirt at a previous workshop. Their design featured her pet - I mean, toy bear.  This time they brought a teeny, tiny t-shirt which they printed for the bear.  ( I'm spelling 't-shirt' with a small 't' just to capture how tiny it was) Such a great idea and fab cutting of tiny shapes!

And here are a couple of other notable designs:

We'll be doing another set of family screen print workshops at Impington and Witchford Village Colleges.  This time with options to print either a T-shirt or a Chrismas gift for grandparents.  I know, it's only July, but we have to think ahead! 

These events aren't up on the websites yet but here's the link to their community learning pages for future reference. 

2 Nov 19 at Witchford V.C. 
https://www.witchfordvc.co.uk/community/

30 Nov 19  at Impington V.C
 Impington Adult and Community Learning 

Upcycled Paper Notebooks

As well as making the lovely paper bodice, Move on Up Learners made these beautiful notebooks to sell in the Children's Society Shop.

We used discarded and shredded papers from the office and the art cupboard, soaked them, put them in the blender and scooped them out with a mesh.  Then we used these handmade papers to make these notebook covers and guess what.......?

Well here is a note from the shop manager:

"Just to let you know that we have sold ALL your lovely books to one lady who will be giving them to all her family members as a 'HAG' project - which is .............. that they write down every day the following:

H - Happiness - what they are happy about

A - Achievement - what they have achieved that day

G - Grateful - what they are grateful for

So a lovely end to your project !"

So proud of all our hard working Move on Up class members!

Paper Bodice

I am so proud of the learners in the Move on Up class that I teach for adults with learning disabilities for making this brilliant bodice.

Currently on display at the Children's Society Charity Shop in Mill Rd, Cambridge as part of the CirculArt trail.  Made from used maths textbooks and Soduko puzzles which were donated to the shop but which were destined for pulping because the answers had been filled in.  So we could say that new life has 'blossomed' from old papers. (sorry)

Well done everyone, we had a lot of fun cutting and glueing - and what a great example of recycling at it's best!  Come and see it if you are in the Romsey, Mill Rd area.

Print Workshop - Norris museum

A fabulous screen print workshop today at the Norris Museum.  A group of adults with learning difficulties from CATS in St Ives came along, drew artifacts in the museum and screen printed them onto this tablecloth. Well, it will be a tablecloth when I've printed the museum logo into the centre and sewn it up. Brightly coloured so it won't show the stains!

This is the mammoth

and who remembers these telephones?

 

The Meadows/ St Albans Rd Rec

Printed by campaigning group in Cambridge at Kettle's Yard workshop.  See it at Arbury Carnival and sign their petition to save this beautiful neighbourhood space from development!

Screen Printing Baby Blankets

I have just been in South Africa for a couple of weeks visitting family and friends and spending a bit of quality time with my Mom. Whenever I go there, she and I like to do something creative and 'textily' together.

In the spirit of recycling, we bought a couple of cotton sheets from the wonderful emporium which is the Hospice Shop and had some fun screen printing them with these colourful designs.

My mom and her companion have been on a personal mission to make baby blankets for clinics in Jo'burg.  Apparently it's not uncommon for women to take babies home from hospital wrapped in newspaper or plastic.  So, while I was there, we decided to have another print session and we printed a pile of baby themed designs.  We sewed these onto fleece backings to make them into cosy little blankets. 

I can't honestly think of a nicer way to spend time together!

Searching for Myself...

Sometimes I teach so many screen print classes and community workshops that it seems like I've forgotten who I am as a printer.  I like to keep as many screens as possible clean and available for workshops and I have to remind myself that it's really important for me to get up into the studio and make use of them. 

But it's not just a case of using the equipment.  It's also about having my head filled with student's/ community projects.  I mean that in the best way possible - I sometimes wake up in the night and think "I know exactly what ____ needs to solve his/her design problem".  It can be hard to maintain my own creative identity.

My solution has been to start drawing again.  So over the past year or so, I've been giving a bit of time to my sketchbook.  I decided just to commit to the process of drawing and not worry about whether the drawings were good or not. It's been a challenge for me to keep the inner critic quiet, but gradually I think my drawings are improving.

 I've done lots of flowers because they are both complicated and forgiving as subjects. And they don't move, so I can draw really slowly.

I tentatively started developing prints from some of these while I was in France in the summer. I used a tiny screen and set up on the kitchen table.  They were great gifts for when we were asked out to supper!

I now have a whole year of drawings just waiting to be cut out and printed.  Watch this space!

And on the subject of workshops:

Here are 2 Saturday day schools/ studio sessions in Small Scale Screen Printing onto Cloth for the Cambridge area:

23 March 2019   Cottenham Village College

30 March 2019   Impington Village College

These are separate workshops organised by separate colleges. They are designed to be separate classes but you could do both days if you wanted to do multi layered prints. Click on the college name to get the link.

Happy printing!!!