Brass and silk

It is high time I started to practise my metal-working skills again so I decided to start small, cutting out a rose leaf shape from sheet brass and piercing it with holes before I textured it with the hammer.

Then I used some green perle and using the holes, put in the foundation stitches for a woven spider’s web which I worked in a gorgeous variegated pink and green silk ribbon.

It worked out perfectly so I had a green centre shading out to the deep pink edge. I neatened it up with a piece of pink kid leather over the back and added a jump ring to turn it into a sweet little mixed media pendant.

One of my Christmas presents was a Dremel engraver so I had a bit of a play with that, first using one of the included stencils to add a rustic star shape to a piece of sea glass which I then turned into a pendant.

Then I moved on to a piece of reticulated brass which I created on the silversmithing course I took in Sheffield a few years ago. I had deliberately worked the reticulation from either end of the piece of brass in order to leave a smooth bridge between them for some text. Finally, I had the tool to add the lettering!

I used uncial script and the H of ‘haven’ looks a bit like an R, unfortunately, but I really like the way the engraver worked on the brass.

I turned this into yet another pendant and gave it a lovely vintage sari silk strip ribbon to hang from in crimson and gold.

My other Christmas present thanks to some vouchers was a doming set and I was dying to have a go at doming some old coins that I’d accumulated. Tiny bronze British decimal half pennies seemed to work best and I combined one that I’d hammered into a hemisphere with a ‘cornflake’ of reticulated brass that I’d also domed. I drilled them both through the middle and chose an odd stud earring with purple diamantes like stamens of a flower to connect them together.

I’ve got a piece of fantastically patterned gilding metal to which I hope to attach the ‘flower’ which I can then turn into a brooch. It’s been good to play with metal again!

Read Full Post »

Lush, plush and crush

This was the intriguing title of our full day workshop with Josie Storey at Embroiderers’ Guild last Saturday, so armed with some very lush velvet and the usual sewing stuff I headed off without any real idea of what I was going to be doing!

The technique we were going to be playing with involved ironing prepainted bondaweb onto velvet and then using the stickiness to embellish with anything and everything to create a rich textured surface.

I started with some gorgeous Oliver Twists hand dyed velvet called ‘Stormy Seas’ and so I had to go for wave shapes,

with silk waste, carrier rod strippings

and scraps of painted melted plastic.

By this point I’d decided this was going to be the next piece in my travelling book, so when I got home I layered it up with wadding and calico and quilted round the wave shapes with my sewing machine. From this:

to this:

No hand embroidery – yet…

Read Full Post »

Crazy patchwork bead

I saw the idea for covering a large focal bead with crazy patchwork some time ago and it was something that I knew I wanted to have a go at, but it wasn’t until I found a very large wooden bead a week or so ago while hunting for something else that I had my chance.

First I pieced together some scraps of silk in greens and browns.

Then I used feather stitch in single strands of brown silk to secure the patches to the calico backing and started to embellish the first patch with spirals of kantha stitch in a variegated blue-green-brown silk thread.

It looks more blue in the photos than in real life.

Just need to work out what I’m doing on the other sections now. As it’s going to be a pendant drop, I want the embroidery to be flat, rather than raised, which counts out several favourite go-to stitches!

Read Full Post »

Travelling Books Project

I’ve been looking forward to the January meeting of our branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild as it’s the start of our travelling books project. I’ve always been interested in the idea of round robins and I’m really looking forward to not only getting my own book back in 6 months time, but also to stretching my creative practice by working in other people’s books within their rules.

We’ve all started with a spiral bound A5 sketchbook to which I need to add a cover, especially as I managed to drop some chutney on it from my lunch… I’m going to have a welcome and guidelines page on the back of the front endpaper and then there was a spare page facing, so I’ve started to put my name and quick contact details there in Zentangle style. (There are full contact details on the inside of the back cover)

Then I started on my first piece. I’ve decided that I’d like a theme to my travelling book and so have chosen one close to my heart – the sea. This of course, led to play-time with the bagful of glass I beachcombed from Polperro last summer.

 

I’m sure you’ve noticed that there’s something a little odd about some of the nuggets in the photo above. If you look closer…

 

…there are imposters…

…in hand dyed silk and indigo shibori cotton.

The background fabric is a lovely natural coloured scrim and I plan to use pulled thread work around the pieces of ‘sea glass’ and ‘pottery’ to give the impression of them being scattered in the sand of the beach.

Read Full Post »

International Blog Hop

I was delighted to be tagged to take part in this by the very creative, talented and witty Iz, from Threadnoodle and it was lovely to welcome people who had popped over from her blog. So this week is my turn to talk in a bit more depth about myself and my creative process.

I live in North Lincolnshire in the UK although I’m originally, like Dickens’ David Copperfield, from the little village of Blundeston, in Suffolk. Among other things, I’m a writer, a jeweller and textile artist. But not necessarily in that order.

1. What am I working on?

Erm… everything? I have a second book of short stories and a novel both on the go as well as an article which has been back-burnered for various reasons. There’s a box of partly completed rings,

pendants and other odds and ends which need finishing.

Journals, books and altered books,

kits, summer holiday diary fragments,

the crazy patchwork cushion for my son,

felted and goldwork brooches,

 

my hearts commission,

my rusted fragments art quilt…

…you get the picture. I long to have a go at everything and greedily want 36 hours in each day to try, test and explore my latest passion to its full extent.

My latest obsession is upcycled jewellery, whether replacing broken/damaged elements with beads like this vintage necklace…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

or adding textile elements – felting and beading…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

… embroidery or patchwork.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love being able to make something from bits that someone else has discarded as worthless. Little things fascinate me too, and each of the projects is so small that I can be almost finished before I start to get bored. I really admire people with the stickability to work on large ongoing projects, but that’s not me. Whatever I do tends to be small, detailed, and precise, whether it’s stitched into fabric, wrought from metal, words on a page or even part of a show in theatre. For me, the devil (and the interest) is in the detail.

2. How does my work differ from others in its genre?

That’s a difficult one. As regards my jewellery, with its mix of metalworking and fine embroidery, I’ve certainly never seen anything quite like it. There are other artists who create  jewellery with textile components, but it seems to fall into two categories – fairly traditional jewellery shapes such as earring drops, pendant and rings set with pieces of textile work, or textile work with metal findings to make it into earrings, pendants, brooches etc. I do both…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…but prefer to do neither

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I suppose that everything we do is unique, but at the same time, everything we create is the result of our experiences. I’ve often thought that if we could break down the DNA of a piece, trace its bloodline of influences and inspirations, it would be fascinating to see precisely how it was born from the tiny fragments we draw from so many things we’ve seen, done and experienced.

3. Why do I create what I do?

Every project gives me pleasure to work and it also gives me pleasure to see how it is received by other people but essentially I create because I need to. Like so many creative people, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t create, from wobbly junk models and roughly stitched dolls’ clothes to furnishings for my doll’s house and stories set in imagined worlds.

It’s my way of responding to something of the beauty in the world I see around me, my way of revelling in the power of fashioning something that is mine alone. I bend the media to my will and I say how it turns out – mostly!

4. How does my creative process work?

The first thing to fire it off is usually a single item but it can be anything: a bead, a thread, some fabric, a fragment of something, an image or artefact. The alliums piece below was the response to the challenge, ‘A flower beginning with ‘A’ for an Embroiderer’s Guild competition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An idea from a curtain I saw on a course

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and an image from a dream…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It can be a very dangerous process to sort through my stuff – I get sidetracked onto new projects very easily!

In terms of how things then evolve, I let my creative subconscious do a lot of the work. Usually I have clear idea of the starting point and an image of roughly what the end point will look like (I write like this too). Then it’s a case of starting and seeing how and where things go. If I get stuck I just walk away for a while and its unusual for that break not to have straightened things out in my head.  If I’m lucky, things work out as well, or sometimes even better than I’d hoped. If not, then it’s good to learn from your mistakes and chances are, I can always turn it into something else one day…

Phew! I think that’s the wordiest post I’ve ever put up! If you’re still with me, then please go and visit my two nominated bloggers.

Firstly, Debbie at Debbidipity. I met Debbie at our Embroiderers’ Guild when I joined several years ago and we’ve been good friends ever since. In the last 5 years, as a mature student, she’s done ‘A’ levels in Art and Photography and then followed them up with a Fine Art degree at Hull. She likes to experiment with all sorts of media and her inspirations are rooted strongly in the natural world that she loves.

From the local to the other side of the pond and Penny at Art Journey. Penny creates wonderful textile artwork in areas that I don’t tend to dabble in but love to look at – punch-needle, doll-making and beading are some of her latest delights, and I consider myself very lucky to have Valentine, one of her wonderful unique dolls sitting on my shelf watching me as I type.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the next stage of the bloghop!

Read Full Post »

Playing

There is no textile holiday journal this year. Unlike other years I had no plan and rather than make a chore out of something I love doing, I decided to just take things as they came. If I embroidered, then great. If I didn’t then that was fine as well.

So I played – occasionally. The base for this fragment was the paper case from a chocolate. Even after I’d eaten the chocolate I found I was still turning the flattened case round in my fingers, not ready to screw it up and throw it away. So…why not play?

Base fabric of a scrap of African cotton print with organza over the top. Silk throwsters waste inside the paper case, running stitch and couching in stranded silk.

I had fun.

Read Full Post »

New toy

I bought this from eBay a few weeks ago, but thanks to the reports, followed by updating the children’s target files, inputting the data online, filling in their pupil progress reports and number crunching percentages to show how many are on target, not on target, on target compared to this or that target group…oh yes, and teaching, of course, that thing I actually trained to do…

Sorry, rant over. Where was I? Oh yes. I bought this from eBay a few weeks ago:

But, due to reasons listed above, I’ve only just got round to playing with it. Melting fabric onto other fabric to create little experimental samples; just up my street.

Two layers on this one, over a sun print of a washer.

Bored with patterns now. What about using the tool to cut some shapes out?

This ended up as sort of a spider. I love the way the tool sliced through this synthetic satin.

 

Back to patterns.

Then I started to stitch into them. Just playing, echoing the spots on this abstract pattern with french knots.

The scrap of black silk matka behind shows through as a strong black line around the blocks of colour.

Layered waves with some couching.

I saw a lovely and unusual book of quilting samples on Pinterest and I really want to have a go at doing something similar with these little trial pieces.

Read Full Post »