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.

 

FLOODED WOODS

This month has been rather wet and there are many flooded areas all over the country.  We are fortunate to live at the top of the hill and don't see much standing water so when I spotted this view in the woods on our regular Saturday walk I had to stop and take a photo.

The sky looked wonderful reflected in the pool and I knew this could be the inspiration for a textile art piece.

The first thing I always do is to make a sketch to try and understand the layout of the elements of the picture and to think about how to set about portraying it in fabric and stitch.

I had a handful of fabrics treated with matt acrylic medium already painted with a home made mixture of natural ochre pigments from Roussillon and acrylic medium, just waiting for their chance to be used.

I discovered the treated fabrics adhered to each other with the application of heat so first I ironed the base layer of crinkly cotton fabric to some plain white cotton using a sheet of baking parchment to protect my iron.

I then built up the picture with an assortment of scraps cut from the remains of other recent projects.  

I should say here that nothing is ever thrown away in my workroom where I have a big bag under my table where everything is put to wait for re-purposing.

I machine embroidered the first layer of trees and grasses, then cut some more trees out of a lighter brown for the foreground tree trunk.

Lots more machining to give texture and complete the picture.

The back looked rather interesting too so I decided to use a translucent iron on interfacing for the title.

I edged the trimmed picture with brown overlocking stitch then went round again stitching on a length of brown woollen yarn.

The finished picture, photographed on my pine desk, measures 28 x 20 cms. 

 

TREES, TREES, TREES!

Did I ever tell you that I have always loved trees? 

I love to observe them in their natural habitat and to interpret them in drawing and stitch.

We have a deodara tree in our front garden, first planted about 15 years ago that is now nearly as tall as our house.  This year I decided to make images of it for my family Christmas cards.

These first two are free machine embroidered in three different greens on some sun printed fabrics.

This is hand embroidered in thick yarns on to a black linen background.

The background for this one is something I made a few years ago, dyed interfacing that went all crinkly and produced those lovely lines that look like a wintry forest.

Earlier this year during the lockdown I decided to make a little wall hanging from a photo of trees taken at an arboretum I visited with Justine last year, it's woven on a small pin loom.

My granddaughter Sarah is also passionate about trees so I made her a woven tapestry cushion cover with a forest on the front.

Last year I used another photo taken at Winkworth arboretum to make this autumnal tapestry.

This is an earlier attempt at embroidered weaving, it's a bit rough but was useful as a learning process.

When we go away in our camping car I'm always on the look out for interesting trees to depict in hand stitching, done while we're away as a sort of postcard to myself. There are lots more but I'll post them another day.  

Have a very happy, safe Christmas and lets hope for a much better 2021.

 

50 SKETCHBOOKS!

I can't quite believe it myself but I've just started my 50th sketchbook in 19 years.

I've decided to dedicate it to the trees in my garden which have grown up with us during our life here in France for the last 16 years.  I'm using an old spiral bound book which has had half of the pages taken out so that there is enough space to allow for extra pieces of paper and fabric to be added in.

I began with my favourite trees, the three silver birches in the front garden which we planted not long after we arrived in 2003.  I've drawn them many times over the last few years and now they are the tallest trees we have, enjoyed by all the birds that sit there to sing or watch the sun rise.

After an autumn shower the delicate hanging branches hold the raindrops that glitter in the sun low in the sky at this time of year.  I've captured this lovely sight on crumpled pastel paper in soft drawing pencils.

Then I made a stitched version of the view using a scrap of textured black fabric, layered with organza and stitched in assorted threads and yarns.  I love making French knots for the sparkles!

A detailed drawing of the delicate twigs with a background of distant autumnal trees.

I took a few photos one day and made this drawing, again on crumpled paper using graphitint watersoluble pencils.  It's surprising how many colours you can see if you look more closely at something.

This drawing is of a piece of bark that fell off the tree last year and kept in my nature collection drawer ready to be drawn when the mood took me.

I made this stitched version of the bark on a printed cotton scrap, layered with odd bits of silk and organza for the texture.  I enjoyed interpreting the markings in different coloured threads and couched on woollen yarns.

A few metres away from the silver birches stands the pine tree, which came home as a small lollipop shaped sapling in the back of the car.  Now it looks ancient with a thick trunk covered in deeply textured bark and wounds where we've had to cut off low branches.  I made this drawing last year, sitting on the bank next to the tree and using a fine black pen.

I traced the drawing onto white cotton organdie and stitched the lines in fine black thread.  There's a gap down the middle because I had to split the picture to spread it over a pair of pages.

I made rubbings and took lots of close up photos of the pine bark and here is my interpretation of a small section.  I find the shapes quite fascinating, those bits that look like nipples are where tiny twigs grew out of the trunk.

So of course I had to find a way to interpret this in fabric and thread and found some thickish black backed jersey fabric in grey and brown which I cut into shapes and appliqued together with various threads and couched yarns.

This is the embroidered cover I've made to go over the original book, bark printed fabric coloured with inktense pencils.  The writing goes vertically along the spine but I can't seem tomake this photo turn.

I have a couple more trees to draw and stitch so I'll be seeing you again soon.

Have a happy Christmas and an excellent creative New Year!

AUTUMN 2109 CAMPING TRIP

 

We had a good time in September camping close to home and our first stop was at St Cast le Guildo, not far from Dinard on the north coast of Brittany and only one and a half hours drive away.  The campsite was on terraces with lovely views across the bay towards the next headland. This is the view through our door on our plot where we spent a week, walking and getting together with our caravanning friends at the start of their own autumn holiday.

I usually gather a bunch of typical wild flowers to put on our table and here is the first selection.

There was a lovely coastal path around the beach at St Cast, lined with rocks and boulders, many of them covered with brightly coloured lichen.

The rock Samphire growing in the cracks was a lovely bright lime green that contrasted with the orange lichen and the dark grey of the granite rocks.

I decided to interpret them in a hand embroidered stitchpic, coloured with inktense crayons then stitched in various yarns.

This is a sprig of Eucalyptus I picked from a beautiful tree we came across in a park in the town.  The seed heads are an interesting shape, like little bells.

 

Our next stop was at Angers, a town we've often driven through but this was the first time we stopped to explore.  We found a handy campsite, only 3 kilometres from town with access to the wonderful cycle and footpaths that  lead along the rivers and through the countryside as well as into the town. We spent a couple of happy days exploring the banks of the river Maine where it joins the Loire .

 

The mistletoe covered trees have always fascinated me and after drawing them I just had to make this embroidery using various scraps collaged onto green linen.  There's nothing nicer than sitting in the sun after a tiring cycle ride stitching a new picture!

 

We had a brief stopover at Saumur and took a walk into town in the hot sunshine when we had to stop for a rest in the shade to admire the chateau.

Our final campsite was the municipal at Chinon where we've stayed many times before.  We were lucky enough to find our favourite pitch available with this lovely view of the castle clock tower above the trees.

 

I'll finish with this sunset view of the castle reflected in the river Vienne taken from the campsite, now you can understand why this is our favourite place!