Geelong Fibre Forum - part the fourth

October 12, 2023


A small selection of work from our exhibition on the Friday night

Welcome to the 4th blog post this week. If you have missed any of the first 3, you can catch up here - https://hot-textiles.blogspot.com/2023/10/geelong-fibre-forum-part-first.html

It always amazes me, when you look around the class room the first morning of the first day of a workshop and there is nothing on the tables apart from the students bags and stuff. And then . . the magic happens.

This group was particularly special, they worked through everything I asked of them with good humour and trust. And boy were we rewarded. From The Journey and making blocks, through the 'backgrounds and prettys' technique to experimenting with the S133, Decovil 1 and Decovil 1 light. The heavier iron on interfacings.

Sally created the first of 2 3D forms that nested together very quickly

The second of Sally's structures

I have been experimenting recently with forming these interfacings with heat. Whilst they are not thermoplasts, basic curves can be created. I shared this with my group and they were up for the challenge. They were happy to play and see what happened next.

The chosen interfacing was cut to shape and then painted with dilute acrylic. It is important to dilute the acrylic. If the paint is too thick, it will will clog up the glue. Because these interfacings have a fusible side, the students were able to iron their decorated papers onto the fusible side. If you wanted to foil the non fusible side, you could just iron Bondaweb onto it and then foil that. I think the structures are successful as you have contrast - a plain side and a patterned side.

Julianne created 2 structures as well as a book cover.

It is always interesting to work with students who work in other disciplines as well as textiles. Julianne is a potter and is looking forward to combining textiles and ceramic pieces that will stand together.

This tall 2 piece structure by Julianne was a great experiment and shows just how tall a structure made from S133 can be before it starts to sag.


Juldi created the sections for her vessel

Juldi had some fabulous ideas and created some wonderful printing blocks. I am hoping she will send me images of the piece when everything is stitched together. It is going to look fabulous.

If you had read this far, you have probably got the the idea that I was very excited to be able to share my ideas and work with this group. It takes a lot to turn up to a 5 day workshop and not know what you will be leaving with . .

Simone was inspired by the twists and curves of gum leaves laying on the ground around the school we were staying in for the week. All of sudden - there was a pile of curved leaf shapes where Simone was working alongside Sally. Working together (with a little input from me) they worked out how to achieve the curves with the S133 they were looking for.

Simone created several large gum leaves with S133.

Varnishing the leaves in the sun

Which brings us to the group exhibition at the end of the week. There were 11 tutors teaching at the forum, and we all set up our students work for the big exhibition on the Friday evening. It was a fabulous event, lots of great work, excitement and colour. It is a great opportunity to show off and photograph your students work. I only had 1 particular challenge - it was difficult to photograph Simone's leaves. These images don't do them justice, but you get the idea . . .