Retrospective 2

Back in the late 1980s, I was one of the original members of the East Grinstead branch of the Embroiderers Guild and during the time I was a member we had an exhibition at Hever Castle.

We spent some time before the exhibition drawing, painting and photographing at Hever for inspiration for the work we were to exhibit.

Some of the piece I created are still in my possession and definitely on my list of "will not be disposed of"!

The first is yet again a piece of canvas work.   The bag was based on a tudor bag design and comprised of two circles that interlocked.  The canvas work was worked with fabrics and threads that I dyed myself but also included some machine stitching as well.  The strap and tassels used the same dyed threads.

I loved this bag when I made it and I still love it as much today.

 

Another bag I made for the exhibition was inspired by the tiled roofs of the Tudor Village that is behind Hever Castle.

The "tiles" were made from dyed silk that had been embellished with machine embroidery which trapped fragments of other fabrics.   The tiles were then cut with a soldering iron and then stitched to a base fabric before the bag was constructed.   The strap was made by machining over a cord base and the button in covered in the same fabric as the tiles.

Once again, I love this bag as much today as I did when I made it.

Thread and Shutter Exhibition

Once again Thread and Shutter are holding an exhibition at our local theatre, The Hawth.   We would love to see as many people as possible at our Meet the Artists days so hopefully you can make it.

Thread and Shutter

We return to The Hawth for our third exhibition of new and exciting textiles and photos.

There will be hand and machine embroidery, quilts, felt, mixed media and collage together with inspirational photos.

  22nd November – 11th December 2015

at The Hawth, Hawth Avenue, Crawley,

West Sussex, RH10 6YZ

  Monday - Saturday 10:00 - 20:00

 

Meet the artists:

Wednesday 25^th November 10:00 - 13:00

Saturday 28th November 10:00 - 16:00

Wednesday 9^th December 10:00 – 13:00

 

Admission Free.   Free car parking.  Disabled access.  

Further details:  Lynn Collison  email - lynncollison@threadandshutter.co.uk

www.threadandshutter.co.uk

Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace

Once again I made my way to Alexandra Palace for the Knitting and Stitching Show which really is one of the best shows and a must for anyone interested in any textile art.   This year I was once again joined by my daughter Karen and for the first time Granddaughter Eloise joined us.

I spent the morning looking at the Galleries with my Thread and Shutter friend Jacquie and what a treat we had.   There is always a great variety of textiles from the 'normal' to the 'bizarre' and everything in between.

My favourite had to be Kate Jenkins and her Kates Plaice, The Stitchmongers, a creation of fishy food in knitting, crochet and stitch.  If you missed the fishmongers counter it was probably because there were crowds in front of it!  I managed to get a few photos just to give you an idea.

Another of my favourites was Sue Dove whose had hand stitched creations made me really envious.  She also had her sketchbooks to look at and to say a loved them is a bit of an understatement!

Her work had a freedom I strive to achieve myself but rarely succeed.  I spent some time talking to her and her words of wisdom just about convinced me that I should accept that I have my style and maybe I will not be able to change it.   I was left feeling that I will spend more time working on sketchbooks for a while and see where it takes me.

Unfortunately photos were not allowed but you can find examples of her work on Pinterest.

There was of course many other exhibits that took my eye and of course many suppliers that took my money, but these two had the greatest impact on me.

Inspirational day out

On Tuesday I went with Jo and Jacquie, my Thread and Shutter friends, for a lovely day out at Hall Place in Bexley.   We all have birthdays around the same time so make a point each year of having a day out to celebrate.

Hall Place has a lovely bright Galley which this week had an exhibition of work by Textile Studio.  There was a wide variety of various textile work including embroidery, patchwork, felt, mixed media and knitting, so something for everyone.   I found many of the pieces very inspiring and it triggered off several ideas that I hope to incorporate in my Seen From Above series.  While we were there one of their members, Brenda Parsons, was stewarding and just chatting with her was an inspiration in itself.

Following a visit to the café for a celebratory lunch, we walked around the gardens and greenhouses which were again most inspiring.    We all agreed that we would return another day and another season.

    

    

    

Thread and Shutter exhibition

The Thread and Shutter exhibition at The Hawth in Crawley comes to a close tomorrow after two very successful weeks.   We have had loads of visitors, many having signed our visitors book.   We all spent the day there last Saturday and had the chance to chat to many old friends and newcomers and the feedback we had was very positive.

It makes all the hard work very worthwhile.

Just a few general shots of the exhibition.

   

   

   

   

 

Two Journal Quilts

I have pushed on with my Journal Quilts hoping that I will have them ready for the Thread and Shutter exhibition in November.

Continuing the "Inspired by Art" theme, the October quilt was inspired by the Henri Rousseau painting "Tiger in a Tropical Storm".   I used bonded applique and free machine embroidery to create the foliage for which I used a variety of dyed fabrics including velvet.  This was then machine quilted in diagonal lines to give the impression of the rain.

 

 

The November quilt was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night".  I monoprinted the 'swirls' in blue ink on to yellow background. The lines were then picked out with machine couched dyed threads and machine quilted lines in gold and yellow.   Some star sequins were added to finish.

 

 

 



 

 

 

Festival of Quilts

Had a great day yesterday at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham.

As always we never quite get the balance of traders/quilts right, probably spending far too much time shopping and not enough time looking at the quilts.  Having done some serious shopping first, we did spend time looking at the quilts in the Contemporary and Art Quilt categories.   I'm sorry to those that like traditional quilts (and I do still go back to the comfort of a traditional quilt) but other people's trad quilts do not do a lot for me.   I can appreciate the craftsmanship that has gone in to the making of them but not much else.

Once again though I did question why some were included in the Contemporary Quilt category as they seemed far more traditional to me.   Looking at the winners in the Contemporary and Art Quilt categories, I think the judges thought so too and stuck to the published criteria.

I've picked out a few that caught my eye....

Christine Heath

Sandra Grusd

 



 

Kate Crossley

The winner of the Contemporary Quilt category was Tuula Makinen, a well deserved winner.  The photo does not do justice to the range of fabrics used, some of which were transparent.  It certainly put a completely contemporary twist to hand pieced hexagons.

 

 

 

 

The Art Quilt winner was Jill Exell's Flight.   It has all the elements I would love to achieve in my work and totally achieves all the maker wanted.

 

 

I also want to include Sandra Meech's Triptych that was shown in the Through Our Hands gallery. I've always admired and loved her work and one day would love to do a workshop with her.

 

 

All in all a great day and yet again I left saying "next year......".  Who knows, perhaps I will enter next year as I have so much time on my hands now.

Festival of Quilts

Looking forward to visiting the Festival of Quilts at the NEC on Saturday with my daughters.  It's several years since my last visit so I have my shopping list ready!   Hope to get lots of inspiration from the quilts as well as all the goodies on sale.  It will be a long day but hopefully rewarding.  Watch out for photos and news at the weekend,

How shameful!

I am ashamed at just how long it is since my last post!  I could make all the excuses under the sun but I won't waste my or yours.

Here's a brief update on the last 7/8 months, not necessarily in the right order!

April saw another exhibition by Thread and Shutter, this time at our local Library in Crawley.   The exhibition was a fantastic room with great light and a professional, purpose built gallery hanging system (not without it's problems until we got the hang of it!).   Our work did look great in the location and although we did not have as many visitors (our fault because we did not publicise the exhibition enough) those who did come were very enthusiastic about our work.

Here are a couple of photos  but you can see more on our website - www.threadandshutter.co.uk .

Most of the work on display was from our previous exhibition last November but there were several new pieces as well.

The first two are a continuation on the theme "Rust Meets Water" which was our opportunity to combine my rust work with Jo's water work.

This was based on Rick Timms' convergence quilt method and incorporates some panels printed using a Thermofax screen after combining the panels.

This combines my favourite media - needlefelted fibres and embroidery which was then mounted on a quilted fabric which had been dyed in the theme.  The embroidery extends on to the background.

The next collection was based on a photo of Brian's of the Grand Prismatic Springs in Yellowstone Park, USA.

Brian's photo - with apologies if I've ruined it by changing the resolution!

The first piece uses three pieces of fabric, dyed especially for the work, with added lines of machine quilting and some threads and fibres machined in too.

Yet another piece of embroidered felt, this time a piece made by wet-felting.  This was made when Jo and I had a 'play day' making felt and dying - I will report on this over the next week.

This was strips of sari silk needlefelted to a felt background and then embellished with embroidery stitches and buttons.

This was again sari silk needlefelted to a felt background and then cut up into squares on the cross and reassembled.  Embroidery stitches and gem stones were added to each corner.

In May it was the Ruby Wedding of our closest friends, Tony and Christine.  Using the same method as the last piece above, I created a framed picture for them using red sari silk.  

So you can see I have been busy and creative since my last post!

There is more so hopefully, now I'm back, I will post some more over the next week and then continue to post more regularly in the future.