Auricula Theatre

Flora Exhibition catalogue cover – Holburne Museum. Bath 2000

In an effort to be topical with the spring here at last, I am posting another of my Flora Embroideries, the Auricula Theatre. A strange idea to display flowers in such an artificial setting, I just had to embroider it – but needed quite a bit of help. In fact after the initial sampling I left the embroidery of all the dozens of tiny petals to my then assistant, Debbie Cripps, and a beautiful job she made of them. All I had to do was design and assemble the whole edifice.

Auricula Theatre illustration by John Farleigh

The theatres actually did exist and originally for a purpose other than display, the curious colours of some of the flowers is due to a farina or flour like substance that coats the leaves and petals giving  them a white or silvery appearance and it can be washed away by rain – so the earliest flowers were often placed under protective coverings. I became intrigued by the auriculas having seen them at spring flower shows – not in theatres but in simple plant pots; even in local church halls they really attract attention – they just don’t look real, they look like someone has painted them in strange colours with stripes and edgings of greens and white and yellows, they look like a child’s drawing of a flower.

black and white auricula at a local flower show

And when they are displayed in modern theatres their various markings can be truly appreciated

modern Auricula theatre

So I set about making one for myself, to become a permanent display. I arranged several of my photographs form the various shows I attended into a staged setting, then set about trying to embroider them.

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show photographs arranged as theatre display

first I needed to draw them before I could start to stitch them.

first pastel drawings of flower heads

at first I tried to paint in the backgrounds, really to make things easier and quicker….

painted dye on linen ground with embroidered edgings

They looked OK but didn’t really have the intensity that the real things had, show auriculas look like imploded flowers so intense is their colouring  and perfectly symmetrical their form. I realised that I had to make similar intense embroideries. I started by embroidering individual petals..

my hand stitched samples of individual petals

I decided to try coloured grounds to make life a little easier.

different ground fabric samples

I used gauzes and fine silk grounds so that the made up flowers would not be too heavy but it was a bit of an awesome task even with help with the stitching.

after giving the fabrics and my working samples to my assistant I set to work to develop the theatre.

initial drawing for the embroidered theatre

I know that this drawing is really simple and childlike but it was enough to get me started – I soon realised I had to make a 3D embroidery, so the curtains were  lined and draped and the canopy was held above and projected out beyond the flowers, it was ribbon worked exactly as 17th century embroidered bed hangings.  The earliest auricuals were grown by Flemish silk weavers and eventually shown in special competitions were prizes were awarded, usually a silver cup or spoon. The Flemish silk weavers introduced them into England as early as the 17th century  – so I decided to have curtains made from woven silk brocade that features auriculas ( you can’t say I am not thorough in my research)!

pure silk brocade featuring auricula flowers

The finished embroidery is very 3 dimensional and is densely stitched and draped, it is the one piece of work that everyone wants to buy, probably because it featured on the poster for the exhibition at the Holburne museum in Bath where the whole set of Flora embroideries were first shown in this country. This was in 2000 so this is really old work now – but making this piece made me decide that I needed to start to develop new types of work using different media or techniques or both, this heavy stitched surface is too time-consuming and therefore too costly to sell except to a committed collector or dare I say it – museum? and I have decided not to separate the pieces because they tell a story of how, through trying to perfect nature we can go horribly wrong. I had stitched myself into a corner but I still had quite a few more pieces to complete The Flora set of work.

completed Auricula Theatre

Skin

Fingers and arms lasered for translucent vellum

I have become fascinated by skin as a material to work with. This has come about, no doubt, by my recent project to develop a piece of work for Pairings II for the Stroud International Textile exhibition. I used a huge skin that had been prepared as vellum – or parchment -  a hide, possibly reindeer in this case, treated in such a way as to make a smooth, hard, fine grained surface after removing the pelt, either  fur or  hair – don’t let’s forget that all animal leather and suede is simply skin with the fur or hair shaved off.

coloured drawing, dyed, stitched and lasered onto vellum

What is really exciting me about working with vellum is that I can draw onto it as well as stitch into it. There are other things to do with it as well but drawing and stitching really are the backbone of my textile practice, and here is a new material redolent with all sorts of symbolism that I can start to mine. So maybe this will lead to more drawn imagery with stitch to enhance the drawing – not sure yet – but hand stitching this material needs long and slow preparation.

drilling the vellum to stitch it together

Recently I have been working with all types of other skins, mostly calf skins, some with the hair still on…

shaded mottled calf skins

I have done quite a lot of work with fine leather and suede, most recently at a workshop in Finland at the University of Ostrobothnia, at the faculty of Applied Sciences, where I first experienced the large scale sheets of vellum as an option to work with. However I chose metallic leathers, cow hides and farmed fur to create an embroidered seascape, embellished with silver leaf. But I had remembered the large vellum skin and how beautiful it was and so used it for the Daphne Tree metamorphosis piece.

hand stitching fine metallic skins to hide

sample of stitched leather and calf skin

The company who farmed and manufactured the vellum, were generous in sending me a whole skin to work with; it has caused much interest in the exhibition, most people seem to think that vellum is just some esoteric writing-paper and keep asking me where is the animal?

But what is really exciting is that the leader of the Finnish workshop, Basil Kardasis, is conducting another workshop at Heart Space Studios, but  this time using one of the most unusual and beautiful of skins -  fish.

He is introducing this material for a master class for experienced makers, called Surf, Turf and Sky, using fish skins, leathers and feathers – all of which are by-products of the food industry, so think eel….

dyed and stitched eel skins

water snake (they eat these in Scandinavia)……

un-dyed stitched water snake skins

and smaller whole dyed fish skins….like salmon, trout, pike….

dyed salmon and trout skins

and also some specially hand – tanned skins from Sweden, perch, cat fish, and plaice.

a variety of tanned fish skins

the individual skins are small but call out to be combined with other materials to enable us to make fabrics out of them..

tanned catfish

tanned perch

but my favourite fish sample is a tiny single side of Knot, it already appears to be embroidered.

beautiful preserved Knot skin – about the size of a sardine

Plan B for the Daphne Tree.

Daphne drawing by laser etched vellum

I have been too busy to blog – or rather too tired after working a succession of 12 hour days to get to the deadline, today, for putting this work on the wall of  the Pairings exhibition. I have been making the Daphne Tree  with Rachel Kelly, designer of Interactive Wallpaper,  and Daphne is a truly metamorphic development. She morphs from a laser etched drawing in animal skin – (I suspect reindeer as this is a gift from the manufacturers in Finland,who produce and sell these large sheets of vellum or parchment for  making into drum skins) through paper hand made petal infused and shoji screen papers which are vegetable eventually becoming cotton damask with a man made surface skin of printed decals…..But to start we have burnt a drawing of a figure using modern technology onto of the oldest drawing materials known to mankind – and the result is very very beautiful.

laser etched leaf drawing on vellum

The quality of the skin changes over the surface of the animal, thin and white on the sides nearest to the spine – which is dark; then translucent on the edges where it has been stretched and where, I presume, the skin is thinner. The results of the lasered marks are startlingly different, in places hardly discernible in others a beautiful burnt golden brown.

lasered image with strips of masking still in position

The appearance of the drawing fluctuated over the entire surface of the body – sadly it needed to be drawn into to make it look stronger and bring out the intricate patterning of Rachel’s original leafy drawing. and the hair had to be coloured as well as it turns to leaves

paining dye into the hair/leaves

So far – so good, all going to plan…then we hit a series of snags, first the fabric chosen for  printing the flowers of the canopy was not is stock and then Easter holidays meant that the staff in charge of the printing machine were away and suddenly everything looked to be very tight for getting it organised in time….

Plan B. I decided to ask Rachel to send me her designs on print transfer papers that can be ironed into position – I had seen this done before at Heart Space Studios by Teresa Searle and I knew it was a possibility to get things printed fast …so I bought some T shirt printing transfer papers from the local high street, and taking my courage on both hands started sampling.

my sampled transfer bird with the new packages of prints from Rachel.

Meanwhile I stared to dye the shoji screen papers for the leaves which transitions the animal to the vegetable.

dip dyed shoji papers

Then I started to cut and apply the leaves onto the paper and the fabric..a beautiful vintage damask I had dyed in tea to blend in with the petal paper…

dyed papers cut and applied to petal paper for fingers to leaf transition.

first transfers in pressed position

new flowers placed in position

By this stage the transfer designs had arrived from Rachel – and they were really something else -brighter colours on new flowers…daffodils, tulips and big bouquets in brilliant colours – I loved them BUT they didn’t go with my first row of lovingly pressed transfers….I had to think on my feet – but hey I am a designer and this is what designers’ do…isn’t it? I definitely needed more leaves and many more flower transfers..the space looked massive that I had to fill up – about 1 x 1 1/2 metres wide….but eventually Rachel and I got there.

most of the flowers in position

OK I hear the more attentive of you say, ” you missed a bit – the body is now attached to the head which is attached to the arms…HOW did that happen”?  Well it was all stitched together.

drilling the holes through the vellum for stitching

To be more precise it was drilled and stitched together, the vellum and petal papers being too tough for me to get a decent spaced stitched line – here I am hard at work

me drilling the stitching holes to attach the head to the arms.

But eventually Rachel arrived yesterday to complete the flowery appliques..

Rachel filling the last pieces of the canopy

All we have to do now is starch and press it, get it fixed to a cardboard tube as if it is a roll of fabric and take it to the exhibition…..you can get the latest update and the other side of the process by visiting our Pairings blog, which is by way of a conversation between us Rachel and myself.

Panic Early – Design and Sample

Chintz bouquet - Rachel Kelly

“Panic Early ” has been my making motto for many years and the advice I always handed to students at the beginning of any project with a set deadline….now it is my turn to heed my own advice. As a hand embroiderer the idea of stitching in a hurry is a total nightmare.  So I tend to give myself a few days ‘wriggle room’ on any given deadline, I hate last minute making. So as my partner Rachel Kelly and I have about 3 more weeks to the deadline for a piece of work, I have decided to step up my input and get to grips with the rest of the tree design and sampling (with a plan B as well – watch this space) so that as soon as the Easter vacation is over we can just roll into the manufacture of the fabrics. The actual piece of work has been in the making for about 2 months now (see the last 2 posts) and the idea to make the Daphne Tree is at least 15 years old and I am about to see it come to fruition in the next 2 weeks, when it is due to be exhibited at a group exhibition called ‘Pairings’ the Museum in the Park in Sroud

design drawing for the Daphne Tree canopy

The design drawing above, although sketchy, is looking fairly comprehensive, although to anyone who hasn’t seen the full scale pattern on the tables at Heart Space Studios will have their doubts about my progress.

full scale paper design set out in studios

As a hand embroiderer I am used to developing my original design ideas as I make them. Working from a fairly comprehensive design drawing with stitched/dyed/fabricated samples, hand stitching then affords time to contemplate the work in progress, so subtle shifts of colour or even whole areas can be re-assessed -  sometimes a piece of work can take several months of steady work to complete. The initial research is a  fairly rapid process compared to the execution of the finished piece. Now I have to plot the whole piece in advance of starting the work so that I can calculate just how much stitching time will allow…we have hit on the idea of working with paper computer print-outs that Rachel send to me as she designs them -so that I can develop the design and get the scale sorted out, while we wait for the fabric to arrive to be printed and the departments to open up after Easter

cut out paper printes collaged to develop new motifs for the chintz design

 My pairing partner, Rachel, works in a completely different  way – she is a digital printer, so everything she makes has to be mapped out first on a computer and programmed so that she can manipulate everything she needs at the final printing stage. She gives herself a range of options to choose from – making her work spontaneous in a totally different way than mine…..in fact my way of working isn’t spontaneous at all, it could be said to be organic or even vegetative in its development. She takes a long time to prepare; I take a long time to make; she can print metres of  piece of cloth in a day; I can take months to cover half a metre.

Rachel's range of bouquets for me to choose from

And as we are playing a game of consequences to make this work, in that we each react to the others new idea or  image, I have to play by the rules and just make  new ways to to do my stitched work within the time span. But what wonderful choices I am given, beautiful bouquets of exquisite flowers, some with hidden birds that I can cut out and embellish, but at the moment just working with paper makes the stitched results rather crude, but gives me ample opportunity to play with the colour and composition.

appliqued embroidered paper bird motif

Eventually we will have the cloth to print on and cut out and sew beautifully – and the vellum will be laser etched hopefully later this week ready for me to start sewing it all together. Meanwhile I have to carry on sampling all the ways I can make a piece of vellum transform into a sheet of paper which then becomes a printed chintz design on cotton. I have started to sample dyeing the shoji paper leaves to applique onto the cotton fabric – hand stitching is the answer   as all of this is too big to go under a sewing machine – did I mention that this work is 3 metres from the toes to the top?

stitched applique of embroidered paper with digitally printed bird.

digitally printed bird on dip- dyed leaves

Drawing Consequences

combination of Rachel and my drawings for the Daphne figure

I have often said that drawing is my first language, English my second and Stitching my third, and I can’t now remember a time when I did not draw. So it is a real pleasure that my latest work (working title – the Daphne Tree)  that I am making for an exhibition Pairings, with my partner Rachel Kelly has involved all types of drawing, from scribbled notes on the scrap paper made on trains to laser etched vellum.

2 sets of drawings on the table ready to be combined into the figure of Daphne.

Rachel and I are making a single piece of work using the idea of the game of consequences; we are reacting to each others work, developing a figure turning into a tree. I drew the figure, Rachel drew the “bark on shoji paper, then I sent the collaged bark drawing back to her and so we go on…but before this second step I had to make several large drawings to establish the figure – she needs to look like she is being stretched and frightened and also looking sort of tree shaped….I had problems with the legs – getting the stretch in the calves was crucial – the first drawings were useless they looked like she was floating. I always use cheap rolls of lining paper used for decorating for any large scale rough drawings

first life sized legs drawing

re- drawn feet

I had to work on her feet, they were supposed to be burrowing into the ground taking root, the drawings look really nasty like she has been burned, but they are starting to look forceful and like they could penetrate the earth. in fact they look like they have been dug out of the earth….But it is the head that has to be looking as if it is in shock at the moment that it is turned into tree bark and the hair to leaves.

design - drawing of the face and hair

The final drawing for this transition or metamorphosis, has to be exact for it to be then transferred and later translated into other materials and different types of drawing – and this re-drawing with a tracing wheel is just as crucial as all the drawings that have gone before.

drawing transferred by using a metal spiked tracing wheel

So eventually Rachel and I have met up to develop the drawings, I have taken my large sheet of vellum, that I have been kindly given to work this project with, by Kemin Nahkatarvike oy the Finnish Leather and Fur manufacturing company. We are now sampling all sorts of other material that we may use in the final piece – we need to sample all the stuff to see how we can laser these drawings onto the various surfaces…but first more drawings are  developed by Rachel – on a computer.

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Rachel programming the computer drawings for sampling the laser etching onto vellum and paper

The results were not exactly what we wanted – well not for this project ….

laser cut drawing from original shoji papers

The drawing into hand – made paper was more successful even though we lost some of the surface petals  – but we had to hand-draw and cut the stencil that acted as a shield for the burnt area of laser etching

laser drawing on hand made paper with embedded petals

But meanwhile Rachel and I were busy thinking and drawing out the next stage of the work – this is only the trunk of the tree – now we had to imagine the canopy. I had scribbled some ideas down on the train to Manchester, I don’t know what it is about trains but they always make me very imaginative, I get lots of ideas on train journeys.

my train journey drawing

I drew this in Biro – I really like Biro to draw with as it can make a very elegant mark; but actually it was all I could find in my handbag to work with. It shows how I envisaged the next stage of the work – the canopy. But when I got to Manchester we had to really start to consider the various stages for the design drawings, so we stretched out our combined drawing along side the samples we created with the laser

original combined drawing with the sample design drawing

Then while Rachel dealt with the computer drawings – did I mention that she is a technological wonder woman? I dealt with the tracings of the original figure.

spot and cross paper drawing for exact design transfer

I had to make quite a few different typed of marks to translate into the separate systems that we needed to translate the original drawings into  computer aided drawings

master plan of head and hair

linear drawing for the background laser etch

When we met up between tasks or at lunch, we talked of the next stage – how will we develop the canopy? I thought we could applique some printed versions of old flower bird or leaf designs  from our separate practices,  as used in old American chintz patchworks and quilts. And chintz seems to be where we are going next…but the during her morning train journey into work Rachel drew this( below)  in her note book.

Rachel's train drawing

And now we are at last ready  to start to introduce the missing element for us both – colour, but that needs a new set of research drawings….

Live Pairings Project – Metamorphosis

Daphne and Apollo by Pollaiulo

Yet another first for me – I have been invited to make a piece of work for an exhibition in the Select programme for  Stroud International Textiles . I have often visited the Stroud textile festivals and even posted my observations last year and the year before. For about a month the whole of the town of Stroud in Somerset, England, is taken over by textiles to be viewed in exhibitions, talks, workshops or bought at specialist markets, generally a must-go-to see show every spring.

another Daphne in an English field

I have been invited to make a piece of work for an exhibition called Pairings, where several partnerships of makers have been put together to develop work. This is a result of the Stitch and Think project that was the major part of my research post at UWE. Bristol,  Alice Kettle, a Senior Researcher Fellow and applied artist using machine embroidery has been conducting a similar project at MMU ( Manchester metropolitan University) and she invited several members of the research group to join in this fascinating project. Over the past several months I have been preparing work to make a combined textile based on the idea of Metamorphosis. My partner, chosen by Alice, is Rachel Kelly, a textile designer specialising in Wallpaper and an associate lecturer at MMU. Rachel has been asked to incorporate new technology within her making processes – this should very interesting for a hand embroiderer.

Rachel interacting with wallpaper

When we first discussed the work I explained about my ideas around metamorphosis; we would have to change our ways of working to develop this work and as her work incorporates lots of motifs to make your own interchangeable wallpaper designs the idea seemed a perfect fit – Rachel agreed – luckily. We decided also to make a joint piece of work – not easy when we live and have our own studios more than 200 miles apart. We discussed what we had in common, she read the blog and I read her website. she thought we should concentrate on drawing and I recognised that she was an avid colourist – so we set to work. After some initial difficulty getting started, I suggested that we make work by the game of “consequences” one person draws something folds the paper down and the next person draws the next bit…..you can follow this interaction on our joint blog that starts this weekend.

the womanly side of the tree

the animal side of the tree".

So to begin – I sent Rachel 2 images of a tree I had seen in the local wood, it looks like an animal stretching upwards with a rump for a tail from one side and from the other, a side view of a voluptuous woman. I have been observing the tree for about 20 odd years now and I call it the Daphne tree, I take visitors to see it and I never pass it without an acknowledgement. I kept thinking I must do some work with this. I really feel that the Greek myths of metamorphosis, mainly observed by the poet Ovid,  are true parables of the human condition; how often do we wish to change ourselves in some way or another – it is the hardest thing to do – and as the saying goes, “be careful what you wish for

I started by drawing the tree from either side, quick pencil sketches just to make a start by recording what I could see and the camera couldn’t quite capture. The dogs got bored quite quickly and it was very damp, my paper was really limp and my drawings extremely scribbly, I sent them to Rachel via email.

the captured animal

the stretching woman

They were enough to get me started though, I next asked Sophie, my administrator at Heart Space Studios to pose for me from the tree images that I showed her.

then I drew from the photographs as the pose was really difficult to hold for her.

first drawing from photographs

I really did not like this drawing, too beautiful, too glamorous; she looks like a glamour model …yes Daphne was a nymph but this needed attention so I drew over a photocopy and got rid of the breasts…

design drawing over a photocopy of the original drawing

but she is still too lovely, too refined, this won’t help the feeling I want to establish and what is that? -  Below is a Ted Hughes poem, from his  book ‘ Tales from Ovid’ published in 1997 this is another woman turns to tree story – Myrrha, from the poem ‘Venus and Adonis’ -  Myrrha calls to the gods to help her and her prayer was answered…

The earth gripped her ankles as she prayed.

Roots forced from beneath her toenails, they burrowed

Amongst deep stones to the bedrock. She swayed,

Living statuary on a tree’s foundations.

In that moment, her bones became grained wood,

Their marrow pith,

Her blood sap, her arms boughs, her fingers twigs,

Her skin rough bark……

I have never forgotten that passage of sheer terror when I first read the poem, and some of this somehow needs to be conveyed…so back to the drawing board. So if you wish to follow this developing project go to the joint blog that Rachel and I have set up, www.haighahdkellypairings2012.wordpress.com where we are posting our ongoing work and immediate reactions to one another..

Mending = Art = Exhibition

Darned Heart Sampler - vintage linen, vellum,vitreous enamel, silk mirror

This is a first for me and I want to share it with you – I am, from today, exhibiting in America. I have 2 pieces of work in an exhibition called Mending = Art showing at the  Gershman Gallery in Philadelphia and this evening I should be at the private view, but instead I have just returned for Heart Space Studios having run a birthday party, making beaded brooches with ten 9years olds – and very enjoyable it was too. But how I would love to be seeing my work in an international exhibition at such an amazing event as the  Philadelphia  biennial textile art festival FiberPhiladelphia 2012.

the inspirational wood cut from the Berlin Museum- Frau Minne's way with Mens' hearts

The call out came early last year, from American textile artist( she of the wonderful brilliant red website)    Diane Savona,  for textiles made around the theme of Mending…this must have been the universe answering my call. I had several things on offer, as looking at the ‘ Ongoing Work” section of  this blog will show you. But unusually she also asked me to send her an image of the inspirational early woodcut that has inspired at least 10 years of textile and enamel work, and mending was the subject of my first post in this blog.

counterpane/counter-pain - vintage cotton and cotton thread

and above is the other work that Diane chose to represent my mending embroideries, a real heart-felt cry now that I look back on it, I can remember every stab that contributed to this image but then yoga certainly reaches the parts the needle can’t.

So this is the shorted post I have ever written, but now I am off to celebrate with a glass of something chilled and pink and fizzy……

OK so it’s the day after the night before day and here are the pictures from the exhibition sent today from Diane Savona.

from left: Amy Orr (organizer of FiberPhiladelphia) Miriam Shapiro (curator at the Gershman) Dorothy Caldwell and Libbie Soffer, as Amy says a few words in front of the Japanese boro from the Liao Collection.

and very glad to see a video work from one of my colleagues Amy Houghton,

then there is my work hung together with Frau Minne keeping count in the middle of it all….

mine all mine!

something tells me that that red and white is the new black, white and grey of studio art textiles…..

Ilaria Margutti in front of her work

and again….

Wolfie Rawk in front of her work

and yet again…..well mending seems to = blood red for a whole lot of women.

Erin Endicott in front of her work……ooooh!!!!!!

Ribbon Flower Corset for Vintage Weddings

hand drawn poster for new classes

It takes a lot of lovely textiles to make a good wedding! Think about it ….. the dress – obviously, the veil, the bridesmaids’ frocks ( it’s rare to see a good bridesmaid’s frock – Pippa Middleton’s proved the rule)!  But there are also the garters, the waistcoats, the ties or cravats, the suits, then the the napiery, and the flowers -so think silk ribbons…..

hand embroidered silk flowers

Well yes of course you thought I meant the bouquet and I do, eventually; but just for now I have embroidered some silk flowers onto a cupped corset for a wedding gown that has made  me realise that we can develop all kinds of different products perfect for sumptuous weddings and everlasting memories, not forgetting the Hen Party.

ribbon embroidered bridal corset with Catherine Keating, Lisa's youngest daughter, peeking out

I have been working with Lisa Keating, who conducts out very popular corset making courses, and together we have invented new designs for the ultimate romantic wedding that you can make yourself at Heart Space Studios- or maybe send someone else to make it for you. The ribbon embroidered wedding corset and skirt are made to measure – this is the ultimate in hand – made retro chic.

We showed the dress at the latest Vintage Wedding show held in Bristol last weekend.

back view of corset modelled at the Vintage Wedding Fair in Clifton Bristol

Heart Space tutors had made several accessories that we can teach people how to make in short classes ..small beaded hearts and hair accessories, buttonholes and party favours.

wedding gifts and favours made at Heart Space Studios: shoes by Lisa Keating

We feel that is is a good way for a Bride’s family and friends to get involved in making a bespoke wedding, and much of it can be made with recycled and vintage materials. Debbie Bird came up with a lovely idea for  making bouquets made from old love letters…well who writes those these days? But it will still work using a romantic novel or a book of love poetry – I recommend John Donne for the most unashamed  ideas on what it is like to be in love .

recycled paper bouquet using pages from a love story, by Debbie Bird

At the venue after I had set out the samples of what people can make with us with Heart Space, I took a good look around the rest of the stands, absolutely fascinating, so many really desirable things…starting with the cakes…..

Chocolate Delores makes chocolate look like fabrics

I was delighted to find the Chocolate Delores stand with wedding cakes that all looked like they were made from fabrics – and they were made from chocolate…how fabulous is that? those swirls of white chocolate just look like tulle and look at the sprigged rosebud pink print on the wrapped cake.

Other stands were more conventional using real lace, beads and silks, there were so many good ideas for textile jewellry that I wanted to get the makers to come and do workshops for us at Heart Space, some may come and teach with us in the future.

the Lilygrace stand with lovely romantic sentimental fabric jewellry

the Lilygrace stand was full of hand made fabrics beaded and embellished by the maker, Hazel Mathiot was actually stitching pieces at the fair. I particularly liked her very richly beaded wrist band, a case of  the “more is more”  school of design.

embroidered wrist band by Lilygrace

There were lots of lovely embroidered lace accessories throughout the whole show, mostly head dresses with embroidered lace stitched onto Alice bands, Bridezillas were particularly stunning

in fact their stand was mesmerizing so many lovely desirable things, really all this vintage wedding stuff brings out the hidden girly in everyone….

Bridezillas sumptuous stand at the fair

even me!

Making Fabric Beads

starting off with lots of inspirational materials and samples

Heart Space Studios is one year old this week, so we repeated our first ever class, Making Fabric Beads with Patricia Brownen, and the results are as desirable as always. This is one of our most popular classes and the original report also receives many hits on this blog, so I  thought I would show the successful process of designing and making the beads.

coloured ribbons and felts for fabric bead-making

Patricia always brings in lots of lovely fabrics and unusual materials, as well as her own jewellry, as inspiration.  She uses a simple device for designing and making a whole set of co-ordinating coloured beads  for a single necklace: -  picture postcards.

picture postcard for colour co-ordination

Students get to choose from whole range of different postcards, from impressionist paintings to modern textiles, anything where colour is paramount and abstract images are better than figurative, but you could make your own inspirational cards…..

materials chosen to tone with the piece of decorated paper that inspired the necklace

There are 2 types of bead made in the workshop, one involves rolling pipe cleaners with fabric and threads and then stitching through the roll to hold everything into position, the second type is rolled felt that can be needle felted and wrapped and secured with coloured threads.

a whole range of different materials for bead making on skewers.

These 2 simple systems used to make the beads means that choosing colours and experimenting with textures is a an exciting and immediate process.

rolling fleece and ribbons round a pipe cleaner start off the bead.

To ensure colour co-ordination several rolls of pipe cleaners can be made together before rolling onto a wooden skewer to form separate beads.

several wrapped pipe-cleaners ready to be wound round skewers to form beads

Making the beads is really easy – peasy and  playing with the different scraps of threads ribbons and tiny glass beads is a real textile maker’s pleasure,

several stages of making pipe cleaner beads.

Working to the postcard colours ensures a good range of co-ordinating beads, below are samples of both the wrapped felt ( white long bead)  and pipe-cleaners( 2 blue knobbly beads.)

a successful co-ordinated colour scheme in the making

The long felt beads can be made in very subtle shades when they are needle felted first with scraps of fleece.

softly coloured needle - felted rolled beads toning with water coloured card

At the end of the day’s session everyone displayed their beads with the inspirational card,the class discussed the next steps – making more at home, then stringing them together.

end of day discussion

Patricia showed the group a simple stringing system using a pretty toning ribbon.

toning ribbon for the string

I was so impressed by the results of the colours achieved by working with the postcards that I have made a small selection of the finished beads and their cards. They almost formed a rainbow – soft blues and turquoise…

greens, yellows and orange…

to fiery reds and blacks…

rich rosy pinks and purples…

lively browns and neutrals….

Lost In Lace

hand cut paper lace and shadow.Piper Shepard

“Lost in Lace – transparent boundaries” curated by Lesley Millar is the current exhibition at Birmingham City Museum, on till 4th March; I went to see it recently with colleagues, Hanne Rysgaard and Basil Kardasis, who are part of the Stitch and Think research group. Hanne and I had decided to make a large porcelain hanging based on lace for the group’s exhibition at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery which takes place later this year, thankfully a lot later. Basil came along for the pleasure of a day spent looking and talking.

Atelier Manferdini - Inverted Crystal Cathedral.

The first thing that really got me excited was the scale of the work on view. The Gas Hall where the work is housed and much of it is designed to fit, is massive and the lace exhibits certainly inhabited the space and made a monumental but ethereal impression. My own impression after my first walk around, was of a silent shadowy cathedral; but it wasn’t silent and it wasn’t gloomy, but it was majestic.

Juxtaposition . Cardboard Jaquard punch cards woven together:Suzumi Noda

I became fascinated by the light within the space and also how the unusual materials used to construct the pieces still acted as lace, you can see it but you can also see through it. trying to assimilate the whole exhibition on my second  journey around I sought out this now you see me now you don’t aspect, as seen above.But I had come to try to take away some aspect that I could develop in the work that Hanne and I are about to embark on. We actually didn’t look or speak together for about 3/4 hour, then she said “light” and I said “shadow”.

shadow cast by 'Juxtaposition'

Cosmos Series paper and paper thread: Naomi Kobayashi

I became obsessed by the shadows cast (or not) by the ‘lace’ so this is post is now about the  shadow experience. I now wanted to see and capture shadows, but this wasn’t as easy as I had hoped, which gave rise to a long conversation on the train home to Bristol, about how will we achieve large-scale combined with strong shadow….Annie Bascoul talks about shadow in her pages in the excellent catalogue, she mentions the “eroticism of the thrown shadow” I like what she wrote but I couldn’t find a good shadow to photograph ( but this may be due to my ineptitude with the camera)

Installation of Moucharabieh, cotton Ffbre: Annie Bascoul

A not very erotic shadow – sorry

Some of the most fascinating shadows were from the smaller pieces,below is a detail from 2 edges of Diana Harrison’s ‘Time Line’ a broken,small in scale but very long length of polyester thread. cotton cloth and dog hair. I really wanted to stay and draw the with crisp complicated meshed shadows formed by the fabric and it’s fine black pins that anchor it in position.

The best shadows  obviously were mad when the wall or floor was close to the surface casting it …and the refreshingly bright blood-red piece by Micheal Brennand-Wood gave crisp grey snowflake patterns as an extra bonus.

Lace the Final Frontier, painted and stained aluminium :Micheal Brennand-Wood

and in the children’s activity area beyond the main hall there were lovely paper snowflake patterns hung on a washing line.

And it made the most ethereal and unusual shadows

But my favourite shadow was the strange almost mottled fish skin appearance cast by the unbelievable hand – cut paper lace panels, by Piper Shepard, that made a sort of triumphal arch between two tall and elegant pillars in the museum.

and here is the panel that made this shadow…

And if you feel that I have just not done justice to this exhibition, because I haven’t talked about the philosophy of either the artists’ or the curator’s decisions to make and show the work and I have missed the whole point – good. Go and see for yourself or if not, buy and read the catalogue :-Lost in Lace, written by Lesley Millar,  published by Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, ISBN 978-0-9570494-0-6 and let me know what you think.