LOCKDOWN LANE TEXTILE ART

At last I've completed my Lockdown Lane piece of textile art, started as a response to the nature we studied on our walks during the lockdown.  It started on March 17th here in France and we were restricted to one kilometre of home and one hour of walking, this meant we walked a similar circuit nearly every day in different directions so that we got enough exercise to keep ourselves fit.

I soon started to notice the different flowers as they came into bloom and picked a few to take home and draw, as you may have seen  in the previous post, but also as the sun was very strong for a few days I started to make sun prints using acrylic inks and pieces of old sheets.  Very soon I had a stack of these pretty images and started wondering how I could use them. At the same time the Textile Artist.org group had started a series of video workshops and one in particular caught my imagination: Cas Holmes who showed us how to join all sorts of pieces together and stitch on top to tell a story.

Another workshop by Sue Stone suggested sampling various stitches to see how many different ways they could be used.  I've used a lot of chain stitch to depict these flowers on fine organza which I later cut out to applique to the main piece.

The dandelion is stitched on black linen using a single thread as suggested by Emily Tull in her excellent workshop on careful observation.

I had a lot of fun with the spider using a shiny thread on pale blue organza.

I love to see the different grasses as they grow and flower.

This is the start of the story in March when there were only a few flowers: wild garlic, primrose and violets, soon to be joined by the bluebells and celandines, daisies and dandelions in April.

The swallows came back in the middle of April and it's such a joy to see these acrobatic birds as they celebrate their return to their old barn where they nest every year.  The plantain flowers and cow parsley were joined by the ragged robins and scentless May weed in May.

One of my favourite spring flowers is the navelwort with it's tall spikes of pale green flowers that usually appear on the shady parts of the lane like slim candles. Red campion and foxgloves add some more colour to the banks in semi shade.

I added a winter tree at the beginning as there are no green leaves in the middle of March but by the end of three months all the trees were covered of course!

A few more little blooms from the meadow, clover and buttercup,  fumitory and herb Robert that pepper the sides of the road like little pink stars.

I hope you've enjoyed my stroll down our lanes and may even be inspired to try interpreting nature in stitch yourself.

Here are the instructions for sun printing if you fancy having a go.

SUNPRINTING

 

Have you ever heard of sunprinting?  No, neither had I till a few weeks ago when my friend in Sweden posted a picture on Facebook.  I had to have a go after looking up the process on the internet and I'm really pleased with the results of my second attempt after a failure the first time.

 

Basically all you do is take a piece of natural fibre fabric like cotton or linen and pin it to a board, then lightly wet it with clean water.  Mix a 50/50 water and acrylic paint or ink solution and paint it onto the fabric evenly making sure the whole surface is covered.  It's a good idea if the colour is quite dark and contrasts well with the fabric, like the blue I painted onto the yellow or purple over pale blue. The dark blue silk on the left here didn't work as well, especially as I over diluted the black ink I was using.

 

 

 Before you start gather a selection of flowers and leaves, making sure they are interesting shapes and a reasonable size to give an imprint and pin them to the damp fabric then put the board in strong sunshine for an hour or so till the fabric dries. The first time I did this I didn't pin down the flowers and there was a breeze so everything moved a bit!  Apparently the wet paint moves from the shade of the flower to the brightly sunlit part and leaves the imprint uncoloured.

 

 

As you can see from the top picture all went well this time except the dark blue but it will still get used for something in the future.  I have cut out the fabric now into squares and started to embroider them in the imprinted area.

 

This Love in a mist was the first one stitched while sitting in the garden with a fresh bloom as a model and I love the way it's turned out.

 

Here is the pale blue linen before it printed with some buddlea and hydrangea flowers as well as the love in a mist.  I started to embroider one of the hydrangea florets but it took ages so I think I might leave that for a while and try the buddlea next instead.

So what am I going to do with these pretty embroideries, make a patchwork, frame them, or turn them into birthday cards for my family?

You'll have to wait and see!