Look What I Found!

I have been doing some tidying of my studio recently, partly due to having taken soooo much stuff to the Laura Edgar workshop at Ballarat and needing to put it all away again. I decided to be tidy and put my stuff in 'sensible' places, accessible places. Wonder how long that will last. And if I will be able to find everything.

While I was deciding where some of it should go, I came across an old piece that I had started after an Olga Walters workshop - years ago. So long ago I can't remember the actual date. Maybe the 90's, early 2000's?

It was when I was first taught some of the possibilities of Vliesofix and was encouraged to be more adventurous with free motion stitching.

It has some fabric that has been fussy cut (very fussily) and then placed on the backing. All of it is commercial fabric, I don't do a lot of dyeing of my own cottons. It has wool batting/wadding (I never know what we call it in Australia, I think we use both terms) and backing fabric. It is really a rather traditionally constructed quilt, just not the usual proportions.

It is currently lying on my cutting table, while I think about whether to work on it, to continue to play with some of the techniques I have just learnt with Laura, and which I need to try or I will forget them, or whether to actually get out the tapestry loom.

Too many choices - hope they don't freeze me!

Laura Edgar workshop

I have to post today, the date is so interesting - 8/4/16.

Fortunately, I have been to the Fibre Arts event at Ballarat, so I have something to say.

I attended Laura Edgar's workshop. It was based on seascapes, or so I thought. I don't know if I read it incorrectly or if other people just wanted to do landscapes, but some people did some wonderful scenes.
These images are from the exhibition on the final evening. A lot of them have minimal stitching on painted fabric. They have turned out beautifully.

I stuck with seascapes.

I also stuck with the image I have used before, for tapestry and for a small piece I did recently. I had thought to donate it for the raffle but have kept it as I want to develop more work based on the technique I used to make it. So it is still in my studio.

The work I did in Laura's workshop is rather different. We used a lot of synthetic fabrics, acrylic paints and much more hand sewing than I am used to. The hand sewing produces a different texture. I did do one piece using both machine and hand sewing and the machine definitely flattened the area I worked on.

Machine and hand sewn

The other pieces I produced are hand sewn and much more textural. It was lovely to sit for several hours a day and just sew - I doubt that I will do that at home. There is too much else for me to be doing.

Hand sewn

Hand sewn, some free motion sewing on dissolvable fabric to make small pieces to add as texture.

Laura did some demos of her technique and I can see that I will have to practise it a lot more. The painting of the background, or of fabric that may be overlaid, and perhaps burnt, needs more experimenting. She produces lots of stormy scenes. She says that is because she is from the north of England and the seas and skies are darker. From her work, I assume they rarely see the sun.

It was a very enjoyable week, relaxing and educational.