Embroidery Taiwan-style

I've just got back from Taiwan where as ever I had an eye out for interesting textiles. It seems like every street corner has its own temple and they are often decorated with sumptuous embroideries on and around the 'altar', in bright colours like yellow and gold. There are also workshops and shops dedicated to the creation of these cloths although we only managed to find one - where the owners were out on the street working on a dragon motif.

As well as dragons, lions, phoenixes and other exotic fauna covered many of the temples, not just on the textiles but the roofs, pillars and walls, and the whole spectrum of bright, saturated colours was used. It was beautiful stuff and I did try and take photos and make drawings (as per my resolution to keep a notebook!) so hopefully when I clear some time I can create something with a chinese bent.

Caught with Camera at the K&S Show on Saturday

That was a great day at the K&S show – thanks to all who came for your great company. I took lots of (indifferent) pictures as record shots – to tell the truth I was a bit shy about taking any pictures even when I had asked permission and I nearly dropped my camera when, as I framed up the third knitted flying duck, a stern voice behind me ‘Hey, no photographs PLEASE!’. I muttered nervous apologies only to find the voice came from a giggling Jennifer – I should have known!

So, here are a few pictures – just a selection of the many exhibits that appealed to me. Obviously, the Julia Caprara exhibition was truly gorgeous but I'm guessing everyone took piccies of that so I have only included one of hers here (at the top - not a typical one, as far as that exhibition showed).

Knitting and Stitiching expo

Hi all, I have uploaded some photos onto my blog for you to look at, I will also try to upload a few onto this blog, however, I have got stressed enough uploading them onto my blog!

Please take a look they came out quite well

Anita

http://englishtudorrose.blogspot.com/

Oh! What fun I am having!

Following my experiment in trapping and sewing down various coloured and textured yarns under some organdie, I am on the next chapter of the ‘Beginner’s Guide to Machine Embroidery’ and having great fun. This piece starts with cutting scrunched up pieces of various coloured and textured fabrics into scraps and pieces and dropping them on to a plain fabric background; catching them down quickly with some plain stitching – in gold thread in this example.

Then, using various metallic and fancy threads and variable widths and lengths of zigzag stitch, the pieces gradually become a textured, coloured montage.

The instructions include ‘when you think you have done enough stitching, just a little more is required! Add a few more lines, ensure all the fragments of applied fabrics are secure and stitched down, then add one more line of stitching – and it will be finished’. This has a familiar ring so maybe it will become my mantra.

I think I have some more lines to do consider this just a work in progress.

Talking Textiles

On Wednesday we went to Braintree for the first time to visit Braintree Museum and the 'Talking Textiles' exhibition put on by EAST. There is a charge for entry but Iwas able to go in for half price due to my student card!

The exbition is in quite a small space but it is not overcrowded and it is full of interest. everything is beautifully and professionally presented.

I liked everything in the exhibition but if pressed I would admit that my most favourites were the pictures worked by Delia Pusey on home made paper based on myths and legends. They have an oriental/fairytale feel. The work of Libby Smith is collaged with words and layers and very much appeals to me. Both of them did work that I would have liked to have done, so much so that I bought a small piece by Delia; an impulse buy I will not regret!

Carol Dixon displayed work based on her grandfather's shed and Lorna Rand had made kimonos using graffiti photographed in Prague and transferred onto fabric. Both are themes I am interested in and I was lucky enough to be able to have a long chat with Lorna about her work.

The exhibition closes on 16 October and I would thoroughly recommend it. (Warning to my fellow stitchers, the exhibition contains tassels! very good ones too.)

I also went to the Warner Textile Archive. I was able to look again at work by EAST based on the archive which was at the Knitting and Stitching Show last year. I had a quick look at the archive but it was overcrowded with a group having a guided tour. the archive closed for the year on 30 September and re-opens in June 2011

Photographs to Fabric Class - Textile 'Quilt' piece

Well, I did promise to show you all this when I finished it so here it is.

It may no longer be quite obvious but the photographic areas are of a shingle beach with wooden breakwaters in the near and middle distance plus various bits of flotsam and jetsam including sticks, fishing yarn and some rag-like fabric (could be some dried form of seaweed).

After sewing the printed pieces together and/or on to the backing fabric – mainly with zigzag stitch, I sewed round some of the breakwater posts and stuffed them from the back (as we have been taught). I then made some machine cords with the threads from the backing fabric, the pale blue linen and the cream open-weave scrim that I had frayed. These cords have been used to edge parts of the pictures and, with couching stitches, to make the circular texture bottom right. I have done some free-stitching into the circular image on the bottom left, used a automatic machine faggoting-style stitch to add texture to the blue linen frame at the top of the main picture and added a piece of soft, frayed, open-weave cotton to echo the rag-like seaweed.

I have learned a lot from doing this; that it’s fun to play about just for one’s own satisfaction, that it would have been better to do more stitching before backing the piece and to make sure that the stitching I did was properly finished off. I had to make some repairs after the wadding and backing had been attached and I didn’t always place the various elements down in the right order. But I am quite pleased with the result and may well do some more.

The Raphael Tapestries at the V&A

I impulse-booked myself in to see the Raphael Tapestries from the Sistine Chapel at the V&A last week (admission is free, but you do need a time slot). Until 17th October they are on loan and are being hung next to their corresponding cartoons which are on permanent display. I'd seen the cartoons before but seeing the tapestries right next by brought them to life. These things are huge - the room must be a couple of storeys high and it's needed, and the colours and gold thread have survived just well enough that you can imagine how imposing and impressive they were when first constructed half a millenium ago.

What should have been obvious, but came as a surprise, is that the tapestries are mirror images of their cartoons. I think I knew the 'front' faces down/out during construction from reading 'the Lady and the Unicorn' by Tracy Chevalier, but I hadn't thought it through. I've wanted to have a go at tapestry-weaving for a while but never got round to it (too many semi-skilled half-finished projects under way already - I need focus!) and this has made me think again. There was a 'taster' session on offer at the Knitting and Stitching show but I'm too late now - next time, perhaps. Although anything I make has got to feel unsatisfying having seen these. I fully recommend the exhibition if you get a chance.

Whilst I was there I popped up to the textile galleries. Most were disappointingly shut, so I couldn't pop in to see if 'my' needlepoint is back from conservation. But I did look at the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, and I hope it's not disrespectful to Raphael to remark I almost liked them more. They are on permanent display so the room was pretty much deserted, and the colours have survived pretty well. You can also get right up close and see the weave, which is amazingly detailed. The scenes are just as you imagine from a children's book of medieval stories, with intricate headgear and flowing dresses, and little stories being told out all over each piece (what is that man doing groping that unenthusiastic-looking damsel?). Again, if you're in the vicinity, be sure to pop in. No photography was allowed in the Raphael room, so I'll post a pic of my favourite little dog from these tapesties below (this picture may not be used for commercial purposes).

The Just Us textile exhibition in Ipswich this week

I went along to St Peter’s on College Street this lunchtime to see the Just Us textile art exhibition and was warmly welcomed. This exhibition has been put on by two members of a Textile group called Fabric Fusion: Sue Cranwell and Madelaine Nightingale, who both studied City & Guilds Embroidery under Isabel Clover several years ago.

I really enjoyed a very hands-on experience at their exhibition – I can recommend it; small but really beautiful. You might like to take a look at some of the work by members of Fabric Fusion on http://www.fibrefusion.org.uk/ I talked to Sue (who happens to be chairperson of the local regional Embroiderers’ Guild) about how we feel the need to continue to motivate our group without the discipline of a C&G qualification – she said that their Suffolk College study group met in the holidays too (so we are on the right lines here!) and made some useful suggestions about ways to focus ourselves.

I am thinking that I’ll go along to the next Embroiderers’ Guild meeting on 13th October at the Rushmere Community Centre on Humber Doucy Lane, Ipswich, and maybe to the AGM on Saturday 16th October at the same venue. I am not currently a member so I may join – the AGM is the start of the new membership year so that would fit well.

The Just Us exhibition is on through to Sunday 12th September – part of Heritage Weekend in Ipswich and, on Sunday, will include the Ipswich Hospital Band at play in the church – free admission, 10am to 3.30 on Saturday, 10am to 4.00 on Sunday.

Crazy Patchwork

I made this as a Christmas present for my son and his girlfriend, at the time i did not realise it was crazy patchwork.

Vintage Household Needlework Tool

Esme’s mention of a tool for making netting that has passed down the generations reminded me of a recent acquisition of mine. My cousin has given me a “SPEEDWEVE” darner that belonged to my grandmother. My mother always said that if my father ever expected her to darn his socks (or if he grew a beard) she’d leave him, so that may be why it was her sister who first inherited the Speedweve. The consensus is that it was made in the 1940's (near where I lived when I was at college in Manchester in the 1970's) and I notice that one of these tools has been listed on the BBC A History of the World objects by Blue Town Heritage Centre (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/yEdSeY1tRQmDB9DZkLVt0Q which shows quite a good picture). Mine is similar, complete with box and instructions. I haven’t had a try yet; wondered whether it would be good for making woven squares (for patchwork?!).

Embracing the Imperfect...

After three years of work and almost a quarter of a million stitches I've finally finished my needlepoint project. It's inspired by something I once saw in the V&A which sadly is no longer on display. I feel I've learnt an awful lot whilst I did this, about matching and contrasting colours as well as holding large pieces clean and secure whilst working on them over a long period of time. And I think it's been quite inspirational to my little niece who has loved holding and arranging the bobbins of cotton thread.

I started in the middle which in a way is a shame - I did all my learning about colour there and so the biggest mistakes are there. I learnt quickly not to unpick - the weave is just too small - so all the bits I got wrong are there in all their glory. And I think it was a mistake to use tent stitch, which brings me onto my next paragraph.

The finished work is well out of 'true', so I've blocked it using the instructions in 'Crewel Embroidery' by Jane Rainbow. (There are alternative instructions at http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~rtusler/stitching/blocking.html). It took two of us a fair bit of effort to pull the thing as square as I've shown it and nail it in place and it's still far from perfect. And I've discovered that the ostensibly 'fast' cottons (to 90 degrees) will bleed slightly at room temperature - luckily only into the ground. I'm not keen to do this again! So I've decided to embrace the imperfect and stop fretting. I have a nice piece of deep red silk that I'm going to use to mount it and the sides will just have to be slightly off true. I intend to use my newfound 'log cabin' skills to do this....

Encyclopedia of needlework

For those of you who have not heard of the Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont, it is a fascinating insight into needlework techniques, covering stitching, crotchet, macrame and lots more. It can still teach a thing or two even though it was written in 1884. Now it is available on-line
http://encyclopediaofneedlework.com/

Inaugural post

It's been a bit of a journey, this embroidery lark. Not only have I had my preconceptions and expectations of needlework pushed and pulled every which way over the last year but now I'm forced to embrace 21st century comms! Today I'm suffering from 'to-do' list paralysis: so much to do before September term starts (including a lot on my 'personal projects' list) that I can't decide where to start. So I've done what many a needlework enthusiast does: I've got a handlful of fabrics out and am contemplating them wistfully without wishing to cut.

Today I think I will try and crack on with 'log cabin' or 'cathedral windows'. I've found a couple of websites which take you through the techniques and are useful, and I've had a look on google images and can see it's OK not to use plain fabrics for the log cabin (I believe we call this 'pushing the boundaries'!)

Here are the websites I found, for those interested:

http://alternative-windows.com/patchwork-cushion.htm
http://gourgette.wordpress.com/2009/05/11