'Cyrus'Cylinder'

Dear Reader I hope you will find this interesting; it is interesting for me to track how ideas for these two pieces came together. There is a group on Flickr called The Persistent Thread which encourages thoughts of how certain ideas are always in the background, even if sometimes one tends to think there is neither rhyme nor reason to what one is doing.

I recently stitched a piece based on the shape of a book spine, using marks in the snow as symbols. Watching the TV I briefly saw an image of Cyrus’ Cylinder in the British Museum and it reminded me of the shape I had been stitching. Thanks to the internet I was able to research its fascinating history. It is a pottery cylinder incised with an edict made by a Persian King after he conquered Babylon. There is some controversy over the claim that it is the first declaration of Human Rights. I jumped up in bed one Saturday morning, having already made the two pieces, to hear it mentioned in the news, as the Iranian regime would like to borrow it from the BM but politics seem to have intervened. There is a lot more to say about it, have a look at the link if you are fascinated.

I used a photograph of an old book spine which you may have seen here before. Old accountant pages in Copperplate had been used to cover the spine of the book. I added text using lines from Cyrrus ,some from the Bill of Human Rights, and some that I used to use with people in my work i.e. ‘You Have the Right to Make Mistakes’, ‘You Have the Right to say No’, these contrasted nicely with ‘The Right to Conquer Discretely’. Calico was coated with Ink Aid to print out the image.
I shaped the material using twin needle stitching. The piece had to be made to a certain size and I ended up making two versions of this piece as I wanted the threads to hang loosely at the edges.

Beads were made from old book pages, and eventually stitched in place with Cretan Stitch and stitches looping into the machine stitches.

I will tell the' secrets 'of the cylinder shape and the second piece in the next instalment.

Private View

Last night we went to the Private View for the ‘Made to Fit’ exhibition which is in the newly refurbished Willis Museum until mid April. I think there was a greater mixture of techniques this year, probably less prints than last year. Most of the work is for sale and at affordable prices.

The format works very well, which is that all works have to fit into a CD case or to exact measurements if they are 3D. I understand that a new format is planned for next year. I am not always pleased with my work when I see it displayed, sometimes, what you have angst over for so long can look quite insignificant – at least that’s how I sometimes feel – but on this occasion I am pleased with my work and how it came together.

I will be posting more about how the two pieces were made and the thoughts behind them.
The Italian meal afterwards was good too, although so rich that I had to admit defeat on finishing the Gorgonzola and Gnocchi.

A word about my Header. I thought some Spring flowers would be nice. The stitching was some of the first I did when I started to embroider. I am amazed by the detail, but pleased that I can feel that my work has progressed.

TECTONIC PLATES

TECTONIC PLATES
Originally uploaded by DBO PONDERS

TECTONIC PLATES EXHIBITIONAn exhibition of plate designs by UK & International Artists.Private View: 27th March 2010 4pm - 8pmShow runs until 3rd AprilLocation: The New English Gallery, Barlaston, Stoke On Trent, ST12 9DA

Includes work by my son DBO.

The novelty of winning.

' THE GHOST'

To cheer me up today I received an email from Heike Gerbig to tell me that I am one of three lucky people to win a virtual voucher towards a purchase from her new shop. You were asked to say what you would collect if you had all the money in the world, my choice was lovely handmade paper and hand stitched notebooks. I did make the point that I am well on my way to doing that anyway.

If you have not read her blog it is Gerdiary ;her handstitched work is beautiful in neutral calming colours. You can now browse her shop as well. I haven't bought anything yet, but I shall keep going back to get tempted.

I have been using White Matte Precoat InkAid recently and I must say it far out does Bubblejet Set for printing out images onto fabric. The only downside is that on calico it gives the fabric a quite rough not so pleasant finish for stitching.

The above image printed out wonderfully, the bit of stitching looking quite three dimensional and all the words legible. I currently like it so much I am recluctant to stitch on it; there is nothing to stop me making more prints, any size I wish. I am thrilled with the novelty at the moment, and of course with the novelty of being a winner.

What on my wall in March?

A little bit of everything of course, I was reading about Snippety Gibbet not being able to stick to a 'to do' list - I can’t really stick to one thing; I just get carried away by the next enthusiasm. I know I’ve told you before and really have to come to terms with it and be thankful that I can always find the next thing I just must have ‘a go’ at.

I am coming to the end of my first term of Life Drawing and really enjoying it. I think it must be like golf. How? Well, each time you think you must get better and have cracked it, but next week the challenge starts again. This week we used large poster markers and a little bit of monoprint.

The SPLASH apron, in Alisa Burke’s style, is something that will be really useful. The sweetie badges were sent to me in my very first swap on the Internet, and I am ashamed to say that I now can’t remember the name of the person who sent them, but I still appreciate them.

'Made to Fit'

I’m very pleased this year to have had both the pieces I submitted for the ‘Made to Fit’ exhibition accepted. This is an annual exhibition, which this year will be in the newly refurbished Willis Museum. The exhibition marks the 14th year of the celebration of women’s work in Basingstoke. The exhibition was started by a local artist/print maker who sadly died recently.
My pieces are artists’ books. All the pieces have to be small enough to fit into a CD cover or made within very small dimensions. I will show you my pieces and how they were made when the exhibition takes place.

I have found two very interesting blogs recently. Firstly 'Woven Letters',where regular paper swaps are organized. I’m going to take part in the April one, which involves mini books.
Take a look. If nothing else admire the clever Header.
Secondly, 'The Altered Page' which has a section called Secret Sunday. Artists and fellow bloggers share their secret tips and techniques. Fascinating. I spent ages looking through all the posts.

I have added another workshop to HEN, 'Monoprint and Stitch'. Here is a link to the site:

http://handembroidery.ning.com/page/monoprint-and-stitch

A little bit of sunshine.

I have been working on my butterfly felt. The felt itself is very fine and probably I should have made a more substantial piece of felt; I didn’t have much energy when I made the background and I would have liked the colours to have been stronger. I used some metallic powder with Ormoline Medium to colour some areas on the wings and gradually added more outlining until they stood out a little better.

Finally, I added some words up by the tiny butterfly on the right,’ the elusive butterfly of love’. I did it quite quickly as a bit of therapy; I am reasonably pleased but its execution could have been better. I made two circles of felt as hangers which echoed the circles of stitching. The brick wall like part in the middle is in a dark green metallic thread.

Here is a small tip for those who you who do a lot of machining and may not have heard it before.

Two rubber doorstops under the back of the machine tilt the machine forward which is helpful to the back. Make sure the machine is nice and stable before you go into top gear of course.

Opportunities

The HEN embroidery site has a new on-line exhibition up and there are varied entries from a number of countries. See my links. Have a look and why not think of putting a piece of work in for next time. My entry was from my City and Guilds Course as it seemed to fit the theme of Winter Wonderland, and there had to be some reason why it sits in a box under my desk taking up space.
Another opportunity is here where you can enter a machine embroidery competition and every entry gets a small thank you from the organizers. I only just started and the entry date is early in March, but there is still time and it does give you a focus, or you may already have a piece which fits the remit.






The problem with my piece is how to define the butterflies now that I have free machined them. I have a number of ideas. I must admit that I have a phobia about butterflies, and in fact most fluttery winged creatures, so not a theme I would choose.
Thanks to people following my blog. I am sorry if I don’t get back to you, I do try.
To answer the question about Louise Baldwin’s workshops, yes I am sure she runs them regularly at City Lit...
The next mini workshop at Doodles, Tadley is next Wednesday and we will be working with silk carrier rods. They now have a good website with details of all their courses and the craft shop items.
I have just joined the ECHO group on Flickr. They have a bi-weekly theme and the current one is Juicy, hence my new header, 'threads that make my mouth water'. See the badge in the sidebar. Why not join in?

More Paper and Fabric Samples

On the last session of Louise Baldwin’s course the theme was distressed paper. We had suggestions, one being machining a grid on the paper and then crumpling it before rubbing areas away. I first heard of this technique from Val Campbell- Harding and like to think she first came up with it. It is fun and you can try it on a variety of different papers to make an open grid. In fact one of the first pictures I posted was of a photo album which I made using this technique; with the open grid areas layered on top of a newspaper which I had picked up in China Town New York.

This sample is layered over a piece of woven fabric and generally distressed to the point where I have forgotten exactly what I did. There is some dyed wool in there and some metal pieces.

The second technique was Faux Chenille but using paper for the layers rather than the usual layers of material. You machine the layers and then cut through to the areas you choose to have showing. This sample was also covered in wax. It opens up like a book.

This is a tiny photo of the album I mentioned. The sky has some wonderful colours in between flurries of snow, and its difficult to get good photos today so this is an old photo. At least I feel that my photos have improved. My other excuse is that I have been in bed for two days with the lurgie. I can’t wait to have some energy again.

Want to have a go at this?

When I was in London I bought a bag of scrap papers from Faulkiners. This week I decided to put some of them into a small sketchbook. If you would like to have a go at this project here is how I did it. It’s not meant to be perfect.

1.Find a piece of fabric from your stash, mine is batiked and painted graffiti style ala Alisa Burke. It has been on my wall sometime. You can use any piece which has some marks you think would encourage stitching.
2.Find a variety of papers and measure the size of cover needed. Mine is about 13 x 7 1/2inches.You will need a sympathetic backing fabric and a piece of wadding.
3.Make a sandwich of the fabrics with the wrong sides together and machine; leave a small gap for turning. Clip the seams. Turn to the right side and push out the corners with something pointed but blunt, like a knitting needle. Machine the gap closed.
4.I have just rediscovered my cording foot, so I used this to put a line of two threads round the edge and over the part where I had sewn over the gap Just zigzag over a thread if you don’t have the foot. As my fabric is about Questions, I added some not v. good question marks with the cording foot.

5.Decide how you will add stitch. I mainly used blocks of Cretan Stitch to echo the graffiti look. The fabric could be stitched first, but I think it is a sort of organic process that sort of grows as you begin to literally get the feel of the chunky book.

6.I made three holes in my papers and cover and joined the paper with pamphlet stitch. I didn’t worry about the grain of the paper being parallel to the spine, I just went for it. I left the end of the thread on the outside of the cover and tied it; you could add a bead but I decided this would get in the way for using the paper to sketch.

7.Nearly there. Make inner pockets as shown for pens and postcards. I machined mine but for neatness they could be over sewn.
8. I added two leather ‘flaps’ because I also got some leather off cuts in my scrap bag. They could be made of the main fabric.
Now all I need to do is actually use the book!

Buttons

If like me you are a fan of buttons, especially old ones, I’m sure you would find these fascinating. At a stitch and chat group I go to someone was having a clear out and I could not resist these finds from the button tin, although I have no idea how I will use them. They are particularly nice because they are so minute, which doesn’t really come across in the photo, about a centimetre and less. Thanks to ThingsHandMade for this link to an exhibition about button and button phobia- yes, it really exists.

The same group has had a display of journey quilts at the new home of The National Needlework Archive, which is now based on the former Greenham Common Airbase site. From their web site it looks as if they plan to be very active with exhibitions and activities over this year. I still have a piece from Poetry in Stitches on tour and it should eventually end up in a waiting room somewhere; I said I did not want it back so I have no idea of its fate. For anyone in the UK you can obtain a book of poetry and then choose a poem as a theme for your stitched piece. There is a competition and then the pieces are bound for public waiting areas in hospitals etc; more details on their web site.

Just over a week left to book up for The Hurst Textile Workshops. 0118 9812918

Cornflakes

The topic for this week was ‘Plain weave card, paper and mixed media with stitch’, for some reason I never really get on with weaving strips of fabric and I struggled a bit with the class. For the first time I got to use a heat press which was daunting at first but really is just like a huge iron and fuses the plastic layers together. I used it on the second sample which has a background of a frozen chip bag and some strips of metallic pill wrappers. When the samples were finished and framed in my sketchbook I learned to love them.

We also used the cording foot, which was good as I have had one for years and seldom used it; the yellow and orange wool are applied with it.
This week has been good, as I was back to work on Monday and also started a Life Drawing Class. I was so pleased that it started as the tutor didn’t have enough people last term. If I had not done the access course I would never have had the confidence to have a go. I also taught two people how to make felt, a successful and enjoyable session in which they made a piece of nuno felt and a piece with additions of ribbon. So that is the good news, but as I write the field opposite is white with snow once more!

Painted Papers

These are another couple of samples from my recent course. The idea was to take in an image, paint papers and then layer marks to make interesting surfaces for stitch.

I enjoyed the course but I feel there was a gap about how to move these samples along, and how to develop ideas. Perhaps that is just my mood having been snowed in for weeks. This is what it look like from my window in deepest Hampshire. Very pretty, but I've had enough now.What wimps we must seem to those of you in areas with hugh snow falls every winter.

The Day Service Centre where I work two days a week has been closed and my car snowed in. I have been to another course and spent most of the week’ ifing and butting’ about whether it would be cancelled and if I went might I get stranded. As it was in central London there was no problem at all on Sunday and thanks to my husband I had a lift to the station and back. It was great to be out and about and with people.

Felt

This small felt bag was made just before Christmas, and as you see I have been braver and made it without seams and still managed some free machining. The colour is probably more delicate and prettier than the photos show.

It’s basically merino with silk wisps and some beading. I don’t have my two previous bags and brooches as they were given as gifts. I did my best to give some handmade presents, which included three key rings made out of pieces of mecano by Reform, and a moleskin zine self published by an artist whose drawing I admire. Other presents came from Charity shops.
One guest gave us a pot of delicious homemade Beetroot and Orange Chutney in a lovely decorated jar complete with designed label.

I know most people are too far away but just to let anyone interested know, I am organizing three workshops at The Hurst, Tadley(0118 981 12397) starting on Saturday 6th February. They are linked and will be about designing an embroidered panel using ethnic textiles as a design source. My tuition on HEN is ongoing, i.e. you can join 'The Painted Kantha' or 'Printing with Found Objects' at any time.

Paper and Fabric

As promised, a couple of samples from the Louise Baldwin class at City Lit., this was the Paper Rolling and Binding session. As you can see, I got completely carried away, finally dipping my samples in Soy Wax, stamping and spraying with my newly acquired products and generally going right over the top.

Bits of dyed fabric, chocolate wrappers , tomato paste tubes and a goose feather all feature here. The spray ink is by Craftynotions and is called ‘Shake‘n’Spray’; it is quite expensive but has a nice lustre.

I have used Soy Wax for a recent workshop and although great for washing quickly out of fabric, and being better for the environment than other waxes, I don’t really like the smell and it seems rather soft for any collage/ embedding type work.
More snow is expected over the next few days. I am looking forward to getting back into routine now, and so fed full of turkey that we may have fish and chips tonight!

What's on your wall?

'and the winners are'.

Chosen by that random number generator the winners are:

corduroy cat

Please contact me by e-mail (see Profile) and I will forward your prize which is:

By the way if the lace get squashed in the post you can restore its shape by a very gentle iron under a cloth.

Heloise

Again please send me your details and your prize will be sent:

Congratulations, and thanks to all those who were interested to enter.

Mixed Media

As I mentioned I am part way through a five week evening class on Paper and Mixed Media Surfaces. The tutor is Louise Baldwin whose work I have admired for many years and some of you may have been lucky enough to see her exhibition at the Knit and Stitch Show this year. On the first week we were provided with some very tactile neutral coloured paper from Falkiners to just cut up and stitch as we liked; I feel sure that ordinarily I would have still been preserving these lovely paper and just getting them out of the drawer for the occasional stroke. On the second week I went to the British Museum before the course and happened across a shop full of rubber stamps,inks, magazines and just about everything one doesn't really need but can hardly do without. So I bought some spray inks and a handwriting stamp, which as you can see I then began to use on all my samples.

One of the things I like about the course is that there are lots of interesting samples which provide ideas for future experiments. Some people on the course had never used a sewing machine, and others had not free machined, and I must say that I think they were very brave. Some of the samples are folded and pleated to make them articulated; others are stitched shreds of paper with machining over the holes. One surface was made by crinkling up tissue and machining over the top to produce a new textured surface.

Don’t forget the giveaway is active until December 8th.
This is a link with free video demonstrations by textile artists which is interesting, and originally appeared on Sky TV(Talking Threads).

Blog Give-away.

This is my first give away. Firstly, it’s aimed to thank all the people who have joined my followers list to keep me Blogging, especially those who have said ‘hello’. If I don’t always get back to you it’s usually because there is some problem in finding your site or other hang-up
Secondly, it is hopefully to promote the Hand Embroidery Network’s new on-line courses. I have had fun and some hard work writing two of these and there is already quite a variety from which to choose. They are live now and start on November 21st.
There will be a forum area where feed back and discussion can take place.

If you want to take part in the give away, which will be a small piece handmade by me, please say ‘hello’ and even better also take a look at the HEN site.
I will make the draw on December 8th and you will need to check back then to find out if you are a winner, of which there will be two.
I will be using a random number generator, so no favourites.


I promise it will not be Baked Beans.