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.

Wonderful workshop with Maggie Grey

Last Saturday Maggie Grey came to visit Context to give her talk entitled Stitches, Straps and Layers.   She also did a mini workshop for us in the afternoon.

The talk was very inspirational and I seemed to be making notes all the way through as I got ideas from what she had shown us.   As well as seeing all the work on the screen, Maggie had brought loads of samples and sketchbooks with her so we were able to see "in the flesh" much of the work included in the talk and in many of her books.   She was very generous with her knowledge and told us how she had put together her creations and where we could get the supplies for ourselves.

In the afternoon Maggie (and her 'willing' grand-daughter!) had put together for us some strips of silk rods which had been machined together on felt and were the basis for us to put together with insertion stitches.  We first buttonholed around each of the four strips, added any additional stitching we wanted and then, after stitching the pieces to soluble fabric, we joined the pieces together with stitching of our choice.  Mine were joined with a combination of faggoting stitch and herringbone stitch.

Maggie's husband Clive also came with her and he showed us how to make "twirlies" with wire which we used to decorate our strips.

Mine is all finished now but I want to mount it on a gold foiled background and as gold is the only colour I haven't got in my foil box, it will have to wait.   This is what it looks like for now and I will post a photo when it is finished and mounted.

 

 

As I said, I got lots of ideas so watch out in the coming months to see what I create!