2021 ROUND UP OF THIS YEAR'S TEXTILE ART

It's been about 6 months since I wrote a blog so I thought it was time to get together some of this year's weaving exploits.

I spent the summer being inspired by nature and the beach in particular, gathering shells and discarded fishing ropes and scraps of net after stormy weather.  I found a way to attach shells to cotton yarns with a hot glue gun so that I could incorporate them into the weaving which includes coloured nylon net from shower scrunchies and vegetable bags along with the washed fishing threads.

The second one is based on orange acrylic yarns and has more shells and a string of beads from old christmas garlands.  These two pieces are suspended on pieces of recycled curtain bars.

The shells also found their way into small tapestries.

These particular shells are small scallops I bought at the port and cooked for our lunch one day.

The seashells also got woven into strips wrapped around small tea tins to be used for gifts or pen pots.

The success of the shells inspired me to try adding scraps of tree bark into weavings.  It was quite fragile and bits kept breaking off but in the end it worked.

I bought a book about tapestry weaving and wove these tiny practice pieces as I read through the book.

More woven birthday presents for my family and here's my granddaighter's bag inspired by tree bark.

The front features the odd shapes that occur on silver beeches.

I made Sarah a mixed media birthday card incorporating rust dyed and eco printed fabric with real autumn leaves.

My nieces's cushion cover is woven in shades of teal and burgundy at her request in the saori style of ramdom weaving and backed with a gorgeous forest green velour fabric.

This is Esther's birthday card made with an eco printed leaf.

My imagination never seems to stop coming up with new ideas for textile art and now I've found another process to try out, eco printing which I'll tell you all about on my next blog.

 

SKETCHBOOK 38 FINISHED AT LAST

 

The scallop season has finished here now but for a few weeks we were able to buy the freshest seafood from our friend at the port. One day I asked her for a few shells to draw and she kindly washed a handful for me.

 

 

The flat side of the shell was perfect for printing with so I did a bit of experimentation using my own pigment paints to make these outlines before putting a tiny local drawing in the middle.

I found some decorative mouldings in a local store and used them to decorate the page by drawing round the outlines and then shading with my crayons.  A nice way to spend a cold winter's afternoon!

 

 

At Christmas I bought a couple of stems of fresh dates from the bio co-op which were delicious but first they had to be immortalised in the sketchbook!

 

I had a lot of fun collecting leaves and berries in the garden to make this table decoration for  Christmas with a fat church candle in the middle.  It lasted at least a week being kept moist and I'm sure some of the pittosporum twigs had started to grow.

 

I still put up the Christmas tree every year and use the mat my mother embroidered in Sweden when I was a baby to stand it on.  I have decided to pass it on to Jo now as she has her own home and a family to appreciate it.  I have drawn all the motifs together and I think this might make a good Christmas card, what do you think?

 

There's a saying that when the gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season, well around here it blooms all year and we always greet our friends and neighbours with at least two kisses on the cheeks!

 

We take a walk around the port at least once a week and I'm always on the lookout for interesting birds.  The egret is there all year round but his other ones stood out from the usual cormorants and gull with the crest on it's head.  I took a few photos and blew them up on the computer so I could identify it and I'm pretty sure it's a red-necked grebe.  I have seen it a couple of times now and have discovered it's quite a rare bird, normally seen on the east coast of England.

Sketchbook 38 is now on the shelf and I've started on number 40 which has a different theme but you'll have to wait till next week to see!

BLACK SKETCH CATCH UP

 

It's a while since I posted some of my black paper sketches so I thought it was time for a catch up.  This first one is a copy of a photo I took on the Isle of Sheppey when I was staying with Jo last October.  We were very lucky to arrive at the bird sanctuary at sunset just in time to capture this beautiful sky.

 

 

The hellebore I bought in Lidl before Christmas flowered for a few weeks but now it's outside ready to be planted in the garden.  I'll probably buy a couple more in different colours to keep it company.

 

 

The flowers gradually changed from white to green as they matured.

 

 

A couple of Saturdays ago we passed a clump of these butterbur plants, blooming profusely in a shady place at the side of the road. The fragrance is beautiful, similar to mimosa although the flowers aren't very showy they attract the bees and provide food at a rather difficult time of year for them.  The leaves were used in times gone by to wrap butter due to their size and durability, hence the name.

 

 

The next day we walked along the beach at Trègastel and around Ile Renote to see the damage caused by the storms. The sand from the beach had been blown up all over the promenade but at least there was no structural damage, unlike the last time a few years ago when the restaurant and the swimming pool beneath it were completely inundated and closed for 2 years to make the repairs.  I collected a handful of seashells to draw at home.  I noticed that the colour of the limpets varied depending on the colour of the sand they were found on.  One side of the island, facing the sea has golden sand and the other has white on the edge of the inlet.