Quiet Before the Storm

Setting up the exhibition was a fairly speedy affair yesterday, Biddy as always was well organised and the fact that we were not hanging work  meant that the whole thing was set up within an hour. I was amazed at the sheer quantity of work that came in and the finished set up looked  abundant and sumptuous.

Several people from the village visited and showed a great deal of interest and it was good to see that there were a number of young people in attendance.

Today will pass in a flash - Father's Day lunch, (cooking as I write), then I will take my turn at the stitching table in the barn this afternoon. Wouldn't you just know it - awake with sciatica most of the night, I should feel tired but all the lovely things going on have me fairly wired today, I shall probably calm down a bit tomorrow. 

Calico Open Weekend

The signs are made, the cakes ready to be iced, the venue set up, all ready to go for an open weekend to showcase the work that we do under the leadership of Biddy Bruce. We meet in the beautiful St Botolph's Barn in the village of Helpston, where I live. We are an invited group of textile artists and embroiderers and will be working in the barn this weekend (15th and 16th June) showing past, present and ongoing work. 

In among all this preparation I am teaching eldest daughter the art of dressmaking.

We are starting, as you do, with the most demanding and complex pattern you could wish for. Luckily we have decided to make a toille before we use the good fabric, I'm actually making it from one of my vintage sheets. This will mean we can get the fitting right, make any adjustments to the pattern and hopefully understand the way the dress fits together before we tackle the expensive satin version.

I have never  seen so many tucks darts and twiddly bits as in this Vogue pattern, I'm sure all this attention to detail will make a very well fitting garment. I just need a bit more thinking time to work it all out instead of attempting it in the middle of a very hectic weekend. Grandsons and family coming for Sunday roast for father's day, which I will cook in between being at the barn and socialising at home. 

Happy days! 

Vintage Vibes

I had thought that today would be spent working in the garden but the North East wind sent me scurrying into the warmth of the workroom. It took me an hour to frame up 'The Garden at Number Six' and then without much thought I took a piece of white cotton from my stash. I cut it to the same size as one of my tables 60" x 30" and dipped it into a watery acrylic mix, faintly greenish blue just to knock the glaring white back a little.

I gathered some vintage papers  and some matte medium.

And randomly stuck some torn papers to the background.

I then stuck some stronger coloured circles of paper again quite randomly. I may want these to show through as a contrast in places.

The rest of the day has been devoted to laying, tearing, cutting pieces from my vintage stash to form a pleasing pattern.

This layering up will take at least another day and then I will start to invisibly stitch it all down. the next stage will be overprinting the whole piece and then in with paints and rubs. I think I will add lots of hand-stitching and maybe some free-motion machine stitch. Somewhere in the process I think I will lay it onto some soft batting. My aim is to keep the whole thing 'raggy' so that I can stitch with it bunched up in my hands. Damp stretching afterwards should square the whole thing up again.

 I want to keep it as pale as possible but I will need to put some soft tones in to give it some sense of depth. It's progress depends on the weather - I am definitely a fair weather gardener. 

The Garden At Number Six

I have been back for a couple of days now, most of which has been spent catching up with the garden. The builder in the bottom right pic is my husband, who over the course of this winter has dug out by hand 30 cubic yards soil to build me a sunken entertaining area, what a man! The frame for the steps has gone in today, the bark for the floor ordered and just 30' of trellis to make for the fence that will surround it. The fun will then start, we are attempting to build a pizza/ bread oven to fit into the grand plan, ready for Summer parties to begin.

I have also found time to rework several areas of this piece. It's not hard to see where the inspiration has come from, it's called 'The Garden at Number Six'. This is leading me towards the next phase of work. I know I shall be using a monochromatic palette over the next few weeks but I'm really taken with drawing and painting into my work at the moment, and Dionne Swift's course which I start on the 17th (Drawing for Textiles) will feed into my current ideas.

I have been making and repainting trellis for the garden over the last few weeks and my beads remind me of the little insect cocoons that I've found on the old fencing, so there it is, what I thought was a fairly abstract piece of work has it roots well and truly based in reality. 

A Wonderful Anniversary

 Husband and I have had the most precious day here in the Highlands, true - it's always an amazing place to be but yesterday was extra special. Our wedding anniversary dawned with sparkling skies and a beautiful warm breeze. We set out for the Gairloch coast  with a view to visiting the monument to the Arctic Convoys of the second world war. It sounds an odd choice of visit but it is an area of extraordinary beauty and tranquillity as well as a place of remembrance.

What we did not expect was to meet two kindred spirits on our journey in this remote part of the highlands. I    knew that someone I had been on an online course with lived out this way and we actually passed her home and studio. We called in on the off chance and I'm so glad we did, three hours later after a most convivial lunch and conversation with the most delightful and genuine couple of people, we left feeling that we were leaving old friends. It helped that by an amazing coincidence John had been to the same school as her husband and were able to reminisce about their school days. A new friend to share crafting with on my next visit in October.

We eventually carried on to the end of the peninsula and were pleased to find that several other people were visiting the monument (we are usually alone when we visit here) and to make the day even more special the wild orchids were in bloom. I never cease to be thrilled by the sight of them.

Just to outdo the orchids we also spotted the biggest bird we had ever seen - a Sea Eagle, which have recently been re-introduced to this area. They are huge and easily identified by their tail feathers and shape.

We came home to a wonderful meal of lobster and champagne, prepared by our lovely stepdaughter and husband and were so full with good food and happiness we walked down to the end of the loch with the black lab. and watched the sun set into the sea. A day to cherish and remember.

The Camera Lies

It's interesting how this has photographed, the camera keeps picking up the white grids, which in reality are much more subtle on the finished piece of work. You will have to take my word for it, it's no where near as lurid as the pics. suggest. I shall finish the framing this evening and then that's it work wise for a couple of weeks. Grandson's birthday Sunday, brother and partner arriving tomorrow for the weekend, packing for Ullapool to do and I have ignored it all, to get this piece finished.

 I shall have to get my act together pronto!

This is the garden table just outside my workroom.

We have just had a huge hail storm, I hope that means that some warm air has just bumped into the cold air-stream we have been stuck under this week. A lovely warm weekend is what we all need right now.

Complexity

This is a piece I have been working on since last Thursday - it came about from a stack of samples from my inspiration board. As I was clearing them away I was struck by the colour palette they had been worked in. Although they were widely varying in technique I wondered if I could create a cohesive 'whole' from them.

36" x 12"

I laid out the design very quickly, I knew I wouldn't have time to faff about with different ideas. I'm relying on over-printing, hand and machine stitch to bring it all together.I laid the design on a piece of wool so that I could use my felting machine to tack everything to the base fabric. Normally I would spend hours using tiny stitches to do this part but I want this piece finished before my trip to the Highlands so short cuts are the order of the day. The fact that these samples have been stitched to start with, means that the layers in this piece are building up very quickly. 

It hasn't told me it's title yet but I'm sure it will before I'm finished with it.