Written in stone

Have you ever considered the ground under your feet as a source of inspiration for stitching? Walking along the Cobb at Lyme Regis there is something interesting everywhere you look.

The Cobb is the huge breakwater which shelters the harbour at Lyme Regis from south westerly gales, made famous in The French Lieutenant's Woman, with Meryl Streep staring wistfully out to sea from its top. 

This set of steps to the top must have been there since Georgian times (probably before that even) when the book/film was set, and are every bit as precarious as they look!

There is a patchwork of Portland Stone forming the sloping surface, and the marks are fascinating - very reminiscent of stitched lines.

It's a kind of limestone, studded with fossilised shells -

these are known as Portland Screws.

Elsewhere the quarry marks are visible, looking like rows of French knots

and lines of quilting.

This is my favourite bit - rusty iron bars stitching the stones together.

Meanwhile round the corner, someone has pulled the plug!

Always plenty of rusty things to see ...

Hope your bank holiday has been just as inspiring.

Stamp collecting...

Over the last few weeks the Inspiration to Stitch students have been busy printing and colouring fabrics using a variety of techniques.  One of our favourite resist techniques at InStitches is flour paste, especially when combined with our best printing tool the humble potato masher!  Students are always surprised at the exciting marks made by the most domestic of tools.

Here's a round up of some of the tools and the resulting marks made using flour resist...

An everyday potato masher.

A scalp brush from the pound shop, twisted or stamped it makes a great mark.

Grandma's plastic doilies.  Tricky to find these days but cake decorating ones work well too.

Or try the local cheap household shops, this is a plastic table runner! 

Children's aisles in the supermarket provide rich pickings such as paint dabblers and bubble wands- thickened procion dye.

Whilst the DIY department has grout spreaders, dabbed or scraped the resulting mark is really interesting.

And even the pet department can suprise - okay, I own up, I actually got this horse stirrup from the charity shop ( yes really! I got it free because they only had the one....). Here Terry is using it to print with thickened procio dye.

And this rather alarming print tool is a cheapie foam hair curler used by Gill! 

If you've used something strange to give an interesting print mark do send us a photograph of it and the resulting print!

The sounds of mark making

What do you listen to when you are being creative - sewing, working in your sketchbook, painting or hand stitching?  Terry and I have quite different aural tastes.  Terry often listens to music 

whilst I mostly listen to spoken word, often Radio 4 but sometimes an audio book. 

But recently I've shifted my workspace downstairs into the conservatory (because my workroom is just too messy, but that's a whole different post subject for later!)

Working in the conservatory not only means I have a different quality of light - it's north facing overlooking the garden whereas my workroom is south facing overlooking the road, but I can also fling open the doors to the garden and let the outside soundscape into my working environment.  Suddenly I have another aural choice!  Bird song fills the room, but so does the shrieks of children playing, lawns being mown and, because of the glass roof, the sound of the rain falling.

This change in the sound environment has lead me to wonder what effect it will have, if any, on my mark making - by hand or machine, in stitch or pen.  Certainly the change in workplace seems to have energised the creative process (which, given the lack of enthusiasm of late, can only be a good thing!)

One textile artist who harnesses the creative forces of sound is Debbie Lyddon, who will be our guest tutor in June.

Debbie Lyddon: Marshscape Collage #9, Linen, wax, metal, linen thread

In her artist's statement Debbie states 'My practice aims to present a multi-sensory interpretation of my surroundings – one that can be seen, touched and heard.’ 

Debbie Lyddon: Soundmark Book, Handbound cover, watercolour paper, watercolour, pastel, graphite stick

Our workshop with Debbie promises a treat: You will discover new ways of inspiring your creative work by using the sounds around you as inspiration. Using drawing and stitch you notate and interpret sounds that she has recorded (and ones that you will create yourselves) to create an exciting new vocabulary of mark making. 

At the end of the day you will have a collection of experimental drawings and samples that reflect how you ‘see sound’ and you will have formed an excellent new way of approaching future work.

If you would like to join us then all the details can be found via the Textile Adventures link on our website: http://www.institchestextilecourses.co.uk/debbie-lyddon---seeing-sound.html.  I, for one, can't wait!

Playing with colour

We both create and use hand dyed fabrics in our textile work and one of our favourite techniques is painting with thickened dyes, often using resist marks, to produce unique fabrics.

Is there still time for tea?  Hazel

As we don't have a dedicated print studio we use portable print boards, balancing them either on trestle legs or the table top.  This gives us a padded work surface at the correct hight which makes the whole process much more enjoyable and prevents back strain.

If you want to make your own portable print table here's how:

you will need:

• a piece of chipboard (approx 1.5-2cm thick) cut to a manageable size - this is a balance between what you can lift and store easily (and get in your car), and a big enough piece to allow a reasonable size fabric to be printed - eg  1.2m x 80 cm would allow you to get 2 fat quarters or 1/2m fabric on it, but you might be happy with smaller than that (don't use MDF - it is very heavy!)
• enough synthetic material such as felt or old synthetic blanket (smooth) to cover the board on one side with a 5cm overlap all round (we use two layers of felt, but blanket is thicker so one layer would probably do). Synthetic is important - this layer provides 'give' and something to pin into, but mustn't retain moisture and get soggy as cotton would.  (needle-punched polyester wadding would work, but not the old 'fuzzy' type. eg     http://www.fabricland.co.uk/felt__1.htm - polyester felt £2.99/m)
• staple gun

Position the  board centrally over the felt or blanket and staple the overlap evenly to the back of the board - Start in the middle at the top, then middle bottom, then opposite sides, then work evenly round till it is all attached and stretched firmly and evenly.

Then all you need is a drop-cloth (old cotton sheet, piece of drill or calico) to absorb excess moisture and keep the board clean, and you're set up for printing whenever you want to.

The bear necessities of life?

I

Whilst we were upstairs teaching FMQ, downstairs there we strange body parts being sewn and stuffed....Keep on Sewing Retreats had it's own bear nursery!  

Senior midwife (!) was Simon Webb of Bunkerline Bears and over the weekend he helps many bears come to life.  

He'd also brought a few along with him and these were successfully adopted too!

Here's a couple waiting to go to their new home....

I wonder if Simon and his bears would like to visit us in Hampshire sometime soon?

Keep on Sewing!

If you read about our visit to the Forge Needle Museum you may have just been wondering what on earth we were doing in Worcestershire.  In fact we were teaching at a residential sewing retreat based at Hillscourt, Crofton Hackett.  Organised by Pam Neave, Keep on Sewing retreats are a long established and hugely successful with many of the stitchers coming time after time! 

We had two different classes on offer, Terry was introducing her class to the basics of free motion quilting whilst my group were taking the technique several steps further.  Unfortunately not many pictures due to someone ( who, I have assured Terry, will remain nameless so no one will 

know it's her...)  not only leaving her phone in the room but also not switching off my camera resulting in a flat battery.

However I did manage to take a few with my phone ( once I'd unearthed it from under a pile of quilts)  

The 'taking it further' group were making a series of identical small quilts using different techniques to see how they compared and what effects were achieved.

Based on my 'Afternoon Tea' series, everyone chose their own style of teapot and cup and used fabrics from their own stash.  See Karen's beautiful red china in the photograph above?  That's because she'd already been shopping at the InStitches sales table!  Great choice Karen!

Betty added extra detail to her tea set using a free motion stitched deign of her own, 

whilst Jean used some batik fabrics she had bought from Hannah's Room on the first morning.   

Take another look at Karen's picture,  see the white quilting gloves she's wearing? They're 'Machingers' and I too treated myself to a pair from Hannah's Room, www.hannahsroom.co.uk .Just brilliant for the FMQ job, giving you fingertip control without being cumbersome or bulky.  Easy to put on and take off they can be machine washed and I highly recommend them; they're going to be great when it comes to quilting my quilts for Festival of Quilts this year!

I did manage to photograph a couple of pieces of work by Sue, who'd been in Terry's group.  Inspired by the patterns she had learned Sue bought a couple of our kits and got busy after dinner one evening. That's the beauty of a sewing retreat....someone else does the cooking and washing up, leaving you all that lovely time free for sewing!  Here's Sue's sari silk scarf she made

and while she was waiting for it to dry she whizzed up three sari silk brooches too!

If you like the look of them then come along to our stand at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC, Birmingham this August ( more about that in future blogs, when we know more details) as we shall have both kits on sale.

I managed a little project of my own as well one evening

Based on the 'Sweetpea pods' pattern by Joan Hawley and measuring 4"x6" this clever little bag showcases my free motion quilting pattern and is useful too!  I am hoping we shall have some for sale at Festival too as well as some kits for you to try out yourselves.

Thousands of uses for millions of needles

We're up in the Lickey Hills for a few days teaching at a residential sewing retreat ( more about that later!) and found ourselves with a free Friday morning.  It was also raining (nothing new there then!). So we took ourselves off to visit here:

I've often seen it mentioned in magazines and thought I'd like to visit it one day.   Today was that day!

There was even a  welcome ambassador, who, on this occasion, was asleep on the job...

The museum was also hosting a small exhibition called Sew Small bythe Miniature Needlework Society international.  Most of the work was 1/12th scale and amazingly intricate, definately not for children to play with!  We were particularly taken by this pair of knitted mice, all 1 1/2 inches tall.  

Have you still got a Dean tape measure lurking at the back of a drawer?  I'm sure have have several, different coloured ones from my dress making days.

There were also vintage adverts for different types of scissors and

thimbles too.  But we were there to see the needle making process. Who knew there were so many different types?  Think of a job and there seems to be a needle to fit!

I've not really given much thought to my humble needle, but there are at least 10 stages in the needle making process and that doesn't include the inspecting, packaging and labelling.  

Made in pairs (as they still are today) needle making was a time consuming and complex processes with needle pointing the most dangerous but highest paid. Each step was manually done, usually in a workshop but sometimes completed by outworkers at home - often by the women and children.

I wonder if everyone had this as an interview test?

There was lots of information and exhibits from darners to

 

book binders and

intricate displays of everything else inbetween - surgical needles (gulp), fishermen's hooks, needles for making horses' tack to name a few.

And this tin?  Nothing too exotic, but I now know that cotter pins are for holding your pedals on your bike!

On our way out I spotted this rather smartly decorated sewing machine.  Does anyone still use a hand cranked machine I wonder?

If you fancy visiting the museum then all the details can be found here: http://www.forgemill.org.uk/