Making Textile Christmas Cards

I've been making my own Christmas cards for several years now and people seem to enjoy receiving them. An example of last year's is shown left.

It was made using transfer dyes on polycotton. I ironed on background colours lightly and masked out snow flake shapes when I added the final colour. Then I over-printed the shapes again. On some - I get bored doing the same thing 100 times - I added some stitch but they weren't so successful, I don't think. This was one time stitch seemed unnecessary.

Not sure what to do this year. That's the problem - thinking up a new idea each year .... As you can see in the photo of my workroom (in creative? chaos), I've been playing around with discharging star shapes into blue Quink ink on silk dupion or cotton (cheaper but not so nice) and then using an Art Van Go printing stamp onto which I brushed thickened bleach with a bit of old car sponge. Hope my husband doesn't notice its disappearance!

I'm always tempted to turn everything into a landscape so I've added a strip of white sari silk to represent snow. I've then over-printed with Lumiere Halo Gold  paints and a star-shaped Indian wood block. I quite like the effect - just not sure if it's all that Christmasy.

Will try out the idea on my resident critic when I've added some stitch. I'm sure there will be new developments as I go along. He'll certainly have comments to make! Just hope they're positive as I seem to be rather lacking in new - and practical - ideas this year.

Framing and presenting work

Margaret Thatcher
Weaving in a box-type frame

I'm organising a 'show and share' session next week for our WCE group, Great Western Embroiderers, about framing and presenting work  - cheaply. That, of course, is the catch. We all know of framers who will charge over £100 to stretch and frame an A4 sized piece of work (and they do a good job) but for our group that is just not worth while if they are to offer work for sale at a sensible price.

Trips to Hobycraft or IKEA are much more likely to yield realistic results so I'm searching out suitable examples and hoping to glean some more ideas from the group.

I'm going to show them how I do my shallow box-type frames for my woven pieces as my contribution. These are  improvised from a suitably sized mount, spaced from the work and reinforced by strips of foam core board which also edge the box part of the frame. I then attach the work to more foam core board covered with a light muslin and put the whole thing into a deepish Hobycraft frame. It is then backed all over with hard-board to give more depth for the work - quite easy to do and not requiring many carpentry skills but seeming to look quite convincing - and really cheap.

Sea Sampler - in a commercial frame

I'll also show them a photo of my Sea Sampler - commercially framed and behind glass as a gift for a friend - so we can discuss choice of the frame colour to harmonise with the work.

I know also that it will provoke much debate about using glass. Buyers so often seem to prefer things behind glass but I don't normally do that for my own work and won't be for our upcoming exhibition - I almost never do, in fact. To me, glass seems to put a physical barrier between work and the viewer. There is almost always too much reflection and it stops people being able to see the details easily. I like people to be able to touch my work, and to experience the tactile character of the textile.

I know that there is concern about work getting dusty but I don't really find that a problem. A gentle blow and shake seems to be all that is needed. A friend recently gave me what sounds like a great tip for cleaning unglazed textiles when they've been on the wall a while. She gets out her hoover, covers the metal end of the wand with a pop sock, tightly attached with a rubber band, turns on the hoover and moves the end gently over the textile, about 1 cm from the surface. Dust is removed and textile undamaged. She assures me it does work. Do I dare to try?

Workshop with Angie Hughes

I had a great day on Tuesday on a workshop with Angie Hughes in Lockeridge, Wiltshire, organised by the Marlborough branch of the Embroiderers' Guild. Angie travels all around the country giving workshops of one kind or another. I have previously spent two lovely weekends on courses with her at Farncombe Estate in Worcestershire. This day was as good as I remember the others being.

Exploring Velvet piece - so far .....

The workshop this time was called Exploring Velvet and we spent the day spraying with Dye-na-flow paints, discharging and printing white cotton velvet to prepare a surface for transfer foils and later for stitching. It was great fun and  I learnt a lot and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It's always fun to spend a day doing something you really enjoy with like-minded people.

The new thing for me this time was discharging the Quink ink we sprayed over the fabric paints with household bleach. I'd read about it but had never tried it. The results were spectacular and quick. I get impatient if I have to wait for ages for things to dry or for processes to happen when I'm trying something new so I found the speed very beguiling.

Exploring Velvet piece - detail

There were some interesting effects, especially where the Quink ink was sprayed on darker and the under-sprayed colours were stronger. The increased colour contrasts some other members of the group achieved were particularly striking.

After that, Angie showed us how to foil small areas of our work onto Bondaweb or Mistyfuse and various other fabric glues. As I think you can see above, for me, this was the least pleasurable part of the day as I found it quite hard to achieve a satisfactory effect. I found the very strong shiny surface made by the foils rather bold in comparison with my coloured surface which had turned out quite gentle in colour. However, for some of the group, it was the best part of the day. I guess it's all just a matter of taste and it was good to revisit the technique.

Applying painted Bondaweb or strips of silk instead of the foils was suggested as an alternative way of finishing off my work. I think I will try this when I finish my piece ready for a 'show and tell' display at the Marlborough EG meeting in the New Year.

Angie often offers this as a two day course with machine embroidery of the piece on the second day. As we had only one day, we now have to complete our pieces at home by layering with organza and machine stitching over the top. I'll look forward to it and to seeing how my piece turns out in the end.

Angie Hughes in her workshop
- taken from her website

Angie is a most entertaining and lively tutor with loads of experience and she shared all her knowledge with us most generously. Lots more details of her courses and her work can be found on her websites:

http://www.angiehughes.com/ and http://www.angiehughesonline.com/

... and there is even a photo on her home page of her with a piece just like the one she demonstrated for us yesterday.

NOT A BOOKWRAP - AND EXHIBITING IN MALMESBURY

As I've mentioned before, I exhibit regularly with Great Western Embroiderers, a group of stitchers who meet regularly in Cricklade, Wiltshire. We're a really friendly and happy bunch and our exhibitions are full of varied work for which we have built up quite a following in the area.

Working with the group gives me a context for my work and the impetus to complete work. Most things I'm happy with end up, usually in a frame, on a wall - so there are many fewer UFOs (unfinished objects) floating around in my work space... and I manage to sell some of them into the bargain.

Under Our Feet I - Strata

Being with the group also makes me extend the scope of my work and try out new techniques. Right now, I am focusing on a series of pieces, inspired by the mellow, sand-coloured Cotswold stone which is all around us here in houses, buildings and stone walls.

That test geology piece I intended to turn into a bookwrap has metamorphosed into the wall piece left, following hand stitching and friendly advice! I had always planned that it would go into the next GWE Exhibition in Malmesbury in February 2013 but it will be good to see it on the wall rather than wrapping itself around a book.

Under Our Feet 1 - Strata (detail)

It was amazing how the running stitch and French knots unified the piece, giving points of interest across it. I'm really glad I decided to handstitch before I edged it all and backed it to turn it into that book wrap.

Now to work out how to show it - in a frame, off the wall, or as a hanging, from a narrow perspex rod. In order to persuade someone to buy it, I know that a frame would be the best. People almost always seem to prefer frames. The only problem is that the work is of a non-standard size so a frame will have to be made - cheaply ... I will have to talk nicely to my resident handy-man about the house!

Sheep and Shepherd
Shirley Watson

I know it is ridiculously early to be thinking about exhibitions in February 2013, but if you plan to be in the North Wiltshire area at that time, we would be delighted to see you.  The title of our next exhibition is The Cotswolds –A Stitching Experience and it will run from Tuesday 19 February to Friday 8 March 2013. Full details of the venue can be found at http://www.malmesbury.gov.uk/townhall.html and a poster will follow.

Above is the image which will be used for our poster. It's a piece stitched by our member, Shirley Watson, using her Bernina computerised sewing machine with added handstitch. Shirley's work is always lovely and this piece captures the spirit of our exhibition beautifully.

Line, contrast and drawing without looking

I've recently come across a fantastic book on drawing (via Amazon the great enticer). Drawing Projects: an exploration of the language of drawing, is by Mick Maslen and Jack Southern. The book approaches drawing from, for me, really unusual angles, providing all sorts of activities for freeing up, trusting eye and hand, and developing types of mark and mark-making. There are also features on well-known artists to inspire.

I love to draw and often choose to work in pencil to create line drawings. For me, there is something delightfully spare and simple about using line to evoke a mood or a landscape. It highlights the rhythms of the vertical and the horizontal, the straight and the twisting, and the visual relationships between them.

This book has been great as I've been exploring line in landscape. One of the many ideas developed in Mick Maslen and Jack Southern's book is to draw without looking at the results produced on paper - you merely look very carefully at the object you are drawing and draw in response to what you see - no visual checking back or elaborating as you go along. All the time you feel very carefully what your pencil is doing and ask yourself whether what you feel relates directly to what you are seeing in front of you - but you don't look....

In later exercises, you are allowed to 'take a sneaky look' at your drawing as it progresses, perhaps for example to work out where to put your pencil in relation to what you've already drawn. Even then you spend only perhaps 10% of your time looking at your results on paper.

Scots Pines and Silver Birches
by Loch Clarack, Dinnet, Aberdeenshire

I've been drawing in this way recently, both in Scotland, and also since I got back last week, using some of the photos I took while I was away. The pine trees and silver birches are always so drawable. They provide such good contrast for drawing - and also for photography.

Pencil drawing of birch trees and view across
Loch Clarack - drawn taking a sneaky look

The scots pine trunks have a controlled, architectural quality about them. They are strong and straight and branches are sparse so there is a long length of trunk and few low-growing leaf branches to obscure the view of them.

In contrast, the birch trees are fragile and random, reflecting the wild and unchanging nature of this landscape. Their leaves are fine and delicate and the slim trunks and branches twist at unusual angles and lean and interweave.

I have tried to capture all these qualities, especially recently the brittle branches and delicate leaves of the birches. Suggesting their haphazard nature was especially difficult.

Tree outlines Glen Tanar, Aberdeenshire - much drawn without looking,
but I allowed myself one or two sneaky looks

It is impossible to draw every tree trunk, branch or leaf but this approach has seemed to help me suggest the mood and the random nature of growth, if nothing else. Whether I've achieved this in the drawings in this post I'm not sure, but they've been a pleasure to do.

I suspect, like all other art work, it's work in progress ...........

The Dee Valley in Autumn

We've just come back from ten lovely days in Scotland, staying in Kincardine O' Neil on Deeside, west of Aberdeen. The Dee Valley at this point is wide with fields running down to the river but the mountains gradually encroach on the agricultural land as you drive up towards Braemar and beyond, until the valley climbs and narrows to become moorland.

Autumn at Brig O' Feugh

We've been many, many times to this part of Scotland and I have a large bank of photographs to remind me of the beauty of the place. It's never far from my mind and images of the area seem to find their way into all my art and textile work, one way or another.

This time, we stayed close to home and revisited many of our favourite local places. The colours were working their way up to being truly spectacular, with the help of heavy overnight frosts - although we had to return home this time before the process was totally complete.

Rosebay Willowherb
near Kincardine O'Neil

Rosebay Willow Herb
colour inverted and enhanced

In the woods near the house where we stay, there is always a clump of Rosebay Willow Herb under the pine trees on the track down to the river. In autumn, it turns to a glorious, but subtle, range of yellows, oranges and pinky browns and has beautiful soft cream wispy seed heads. I took more pictures again this year - the colours always seem slightly different - and have had fun enhancing and inverting in Adobe Photoshop, giving thoughts for future stitching .....

Loch Clarack looking west

Long shadows enhanced
and colour removed in Photoshop

On another lovely sunny afternoon, we drove west to Dinnet, up the valley, and walked along the side of Loch Clarack to Loch Kinnord. The colours and especially the shadows cast by the scots pine trees in the gently slanting sun were wonderful. I've seen (and photographed - and blogged) similar before but this afternoon seemed especially beautiful and the shadows particularly crisp.

Silver Birch trees near Loch Kinord

I also love the silver birch trees around the loch and we found some twisted lichen-covered trunks, sitting in pools and casting fascinating reflections. At risk of being repetitive again, I had tree trunks like these in my mind's eye when I worked the hand-stitched piece I posted in July.

Dead Birch tree, Loch Kinnord

Further round the loch is this dead birch tree. I recently manipulated the photographs I took when we walked this path last year. The tree was silhouetted against the sky and taken from several angles. This was the inspiration for hand stitching on a transfer dyed ground. I always like to have what I regard as 'stitch doodles' on the go and this was one of my most recent. I'm not sure it's one of my best pieces and I've yet to finish it but it was great fun to do and reminded me of this lovely place.

Dead Tree - Loch Kinord
Seeding stitch on transfer dyed ground

So much of what I do seems to be inspired by memories, in one way or another. Now, perhaps, I'll begin to consolidate my photos and memories from this visit - drawing, painting and creating paper images before I stitch - I can't wait... I'll post some of the results in coming weeks....

PS At the risk of turning this blog into a travelog, if you visit north east Scotland and want to follow this walk, details can be found at http://www.royal-deeside.org.uk/rdvillages/dinnet4.htm. It's a gentle, generally flat, wander from loch to loch and from one lovely view to another - beautiful....