People and Places at The Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch Show. 17th - 20th March

  A detail of Susan's magnificent quilt depicting the classic image of the Irish workmen sitting along a beam on top of the Rockerfeller Center in New York.

There was me, all excited about showing you my students work at the NEC - and I forgot to show you mine!!

Susan Chapman and I had a gallery space at the show entitled People and Places. Susan loves observing people and you will no doubt be aware that I love all kinds of Nature and Her textures.
It is a good thing that Susan makes large quilts, because surprise, surprise, I didn't get all the work I thought I would do, done.
 

 

The beginnings of the hanging . . Susan up a step ladder.

It was great to get the chance to spend some time with Susan and enjoy her fabulous work. I love how well observed her figures are, deceptively simple, but showing the stance of a person with a glance - a great skill.

 

Everyone loved this quilt, nearly everyone recognised where the image was from.

 

Susan's latest group of figures are workmen.

This young man was my favourite.

Susan and I are hoping to develop this line of work and have a larger joint show in 2018. Watch this space.

It was a wonderful opportunity to  have a reason to actually make and finish some work.
My work was on a much smaller scale - it was more of a transition than a finished body of work, but I did discover a new technique, which I will be developing further as and when I have time. And I will be making time from now on. I am cutting my teaching right down next year.
This is a wobbly, slightly out of focus video of my part of the gallery.
 

You may know that I have a passion for 3D, I don't have time to do enough experimenting. I managed to get two 'wraps' made for the show. You can't really call the vessels as they don't have bases. They are transfer foiled, laser cut and laser engraved S133. A heavy iron on interfacing. I definitely want to spend more time on this line of work.

My good friend Wendy Dolan had a stand opposite our gallery, not only was it great to have a chance to catch up with her, but she also leant me her trainers to help my 'wraps' stay upright. I haven't quite mastered that yet!!!

I have been playing with a new fusible web that can be painted and printed on as it doesn't have a backing paper. Great for overlaying. These four canvases are as far as I got.

Layers of printed and painted fusible web decorated with gilding flake, mica flakes and hand stitch. Mounted onto canvases.

Those of you who have been following my exploits during and since my trip to New Zealand in January, will be aware of my love of baby wipes!!! I use them to clean my printing blocks. I was so pleased with the baby wipes I ended up printing and re printing on them and totally forgot about my 'proper' printing.

One of the baby wipes mid stitch. 

 I chose 12 baby wipes to stitch into . . 

The baby wipes mounted on canvases.

The baby wipes that weren't exciting enough to be interesting by them selves were made into an applique piece. This piece is called Lesson Learned!!!! I am forever reminding my students to leave enough space around the edge of their work to mount or wrap the edges around a canvas. And what did I do???? Work right up to the edge. I was enjoying having time to stitch in the sun in New Zealand and totally forgot about leaving space. aaRRGHHHH!!

A detail of the applique.

I hung the piece unframed and the edges unturned as a lesson to everyone who had a look at the show. It caused a few laughs.

My spiral stencils have been very popular and it was good to have a chance to show what I had done with my KK Glue and the stencils.

This was made with my large stencil, it is 24" x 24".

KK Glue, silver and pink foil and pink hand stitch.

Onto black cotton.

 

These are smaller versions of the image above.

The top left is gilding flake then gold foil on the KK Glue.

There are step by step instructions here -

kk-glue.com/ 

My little prints of a line of stones caused the most interest. The work was created on a workshop with Gwen Hedley.  www.gwen-hedley.co.uk
Gwen is a fabulous tutor, allowing you personal development within the workshop. She is both an inspiration and great fun!!

Being 'just' samples, again I hadn't worried about leaving enough space around the edge of the prints for framing . . .

The work hung together.

The prints started with a line of stones . . .

Which were drawn and roughly painted . . .

I then made printing blocks from the drawing . . .

 

The top 2 blocks are made from self adhesive foam on foamboard,

The bottom block is made with string and double sided tape.

 

One of the first prints on viscose satin. 

I love the matt surface of the acrylic paint against the shine of the satin.

 

Starting to cut back and rearranging the cut outs.

Note how tight the print is to the edge of the fabric - Doh!!

Layering a print on cotton organdie with a print on viscose satin.

The finished print, stitched and framed.

 

It's amazing how 'just' a sample can become something special when it is stitched and framed.

This print is Anne Kelly's new book Textiles Nature.

How exciting is that?

So - my Places in the gallery turned out to be things that I had picked up in Places that I had visited, no one seemed to notice . . . 
It was wonderful to have work to talk about to visitors and friends at the show. I am going to do more . . . and more . .  and . . .


One of the very good things of doing shows, is the opportunity to catch up with friends from all over the country.

 
Claire Muir (Nutt), Wendy Dolan and Susan Chapman.
Great friends of mine.
I shall be with Wendy and her lovely man rob at Excel next week. Our stands are next door to each other.
 

Sorry this has been a long one - I was obviously in the mood. Hope you found it interesting. I am teaching all weekend and will post about it next week. I will pop some pics on Facebook as we work.

Have a great weekend. 

***

 Hello Diana - 3 weeks to go ish!! Poor Les . . . 

Hello The Divine One from Manchester with the exciting news.

Hello Tod - was talking about you today, will hopefully SPEAK to you very soon, love you baby. 

x x x