Half finished treasures.

Those of you who read the blog often may have noticed that there is a lot of procrastination and lots of play going on here. In the background I have some ideas for the next embellished piece but somehow can’t quite start on it, perhaps after my holiday. A couple of years ago I dyed and printed some fabric with thickened procion. I started a quilt but then just stopped.

 I think the machining just got too tedious and the purple dyed backing too over the top. Well over the last couple of weeks I found someone who I think will benefit from the gift of a quilt and so got it out of its box. Like so many other neglected pieces there was actually very little to do to finish it off.

 I also decided to make some labels. Did you know that there is a whole Pinterest site devoted to making fabric labels, well here it is.  I sketched mine on the ipad and then printed them out.

 One thing I have noticed is that both the ready for printing fabric and the dylon dyed fabric backing are so difficult to get a needle through. Not something I would want to do regularly. But now it is finished, I am pleased. I hope this may inspire you to get out one of your neglected half-finished treasures and bring it to life.

More Gelli plate.

It’s so hard to resist playing with the gelli plate, and really why try. Jane Davies has recently shared her masking process here. She takes it a lot further into her collaged artwork.

 I used liquid acrylics on watercolour paper. I have a new roller now and have promised that I will not abuse it,as it works so nicely.

 I took a photograph of part of a print and then added text using the ipad. I then printed that part out on vellum and collaged it onto one of the prints.

 My son is just about to move into his new (I'm so envious) loft studio and so I gave it to him as a sort of studio warming card.

More colour added.

By the way a big thank you to those discriminating people who have recently bought my blurb book.

'Garden Doodles' for the Sketchbook Challenge Blog.

'Garden Doodles' for the Sketchbook Challenge Blog., a photo by stitchworks-jackie on Flickr.

See the Sketchbook Challenge Blog for more posts about this month's theme.

'WE Love Your Books'

POINT is the theme of this year’s ‘We Love Your Books’ exhibition. I am pleased to say that images from my book are included in the exhibition which is solely on line this year. You can view the selected entries, I understand that there were over a 100 submissions, here. Well worth taking a look. More details of the contributors will be added later. It is amazing to see the results of people’s imaginative response to the theme, and some of their skills make me envious. I particularly like the metal book and often wish I had more skills in the soldering, metal smithing area.

Many people seem to have gone in the same direction as myself and thought of point in terms of the folds made when you manipulate paper. There are quite a number of stitched fabric books and some cross stitch; there is even a felted book. Points of a compass and maps are also popular interpretations. There is a flag book with pointy bits. There is a concertina book of drawings of insects, which is really clever as when you look closely you see that the drawing is made up of tiny dots, pointillism.

I used a Turkish Map Fold format and drawings made using acrylic ink, which I then photographed and added some text etc. on the ipad. I also used an app called ‘Book Creator’ to make an interactive book which includes some short video clips of the stages and the decisions made in making the book. These are a two clips from the interactive book.

'All about POINT' from J Bowcutt on Vimeo.






'All About POINT' 2. from J Bowcutt on Vimeo.

Looking through the Archives.

I was wondering what to write about this week when I was overcome by nostalgia, hence the look through the archives, not just of work but also of people remembered. When I see a ‘new’ technique demonstrated or read about one, I often think of a former tutor of mine. I think how much she would have enjoyed the process or, very often, that she showed me the same technique years ago.

 That person is Val Campbell-Harding, who died some years ago and who wrote what many will still consider to be the bible for machine embroidery, ‘Machine Embroidery, Stitch Techniques’; unfortunately mostly  in black and white. Just think what she could have produced with the current wonderful close up full colour photographs. 

Those of you who remember her will I am sure agree that she was not the easiest of tutors in many ways, but she had the sure knack of pointing to an aspect of work which one had done and knowing that that was the bit that you should pursue. I just felt like remembering her today and taking a look through my archives, and marvelling at the patience I had at the time.