Graduate exhibition at Hampton Court Palace

I have finally managed to post.  I am currently in London, awaiting a tour that is going to take us to see tapestry weaving in and around London and France.  But I arranged to come to London before the tour starts which has turned out to be fortunate as planes are not leaving Melbourne at present - at least Qantas flights are not.
When doing my homework before leaving, I discovered that the graduate exhibition for the Royal School of Needlework was going to be on the very weekend I arrived - at Hampton Court Palace, no less.  So I made my way there in great excitement.
The work was varied and inspiring.  There were 15 students exhibiting, some on whom will go on to do a 3rd year of study. 
I was extremely jealous when reading the visual diaries and saw that the students had been able to visit the Victoria and Albert museum, palaces, and other historic sites as part of their research.  It brings home how far away Australia is from the rest of the world, and how we lack the access to such wonderful treasures.  Jealous, jealous, jealous!

I was allowed to take photos, so here are a few.

I loved this one, it is rye knots, a technique similar to a tapestry knot.

Beautiful fabrics and colours.



June meeting for ATASDA

The meeting was held on Saturday and we got to see the travelling suitcase show of The Maharaja's Garden.  It was great to see the items in person, so to speak.  We had the chance to look closely and to handle a few of them, when wearing gloves.  The exhibition is divided into two parts and we got to see the Saffron suitcase.
There was a great variety of techniques on show and many different interpretations of the theme. Congratulations to all the people who contributed and thanks for the opportunity to see it.

We were allowed to take photos, so here are a few shots.  For more, and better, pictures, go to the link above.

Free motion embroidery made up a beautiful background.

Woven piece with varying warps and wefts.

Craft as meditation

I am reading The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock.  It is about a woman born in 1700 who started doing paper collages, with some other media included, the first mixed media artist.  I found a good quote in it

Craft is engaging.  It results in a product.  The mind works in a state of meditation in craft, almost the way we half-meditate in heavy physical exercise.  There is a marvelously obsessive nature to craft that allows a person to dive down through the ocean of everyday life to a seafloor of meditative making.  It is an antidote to what ails you. ... One can lose oneself, even in paint-by-numbers, and the loss of the self within safe confines nurtures the imagination.  To ornament one's existence, even with six paint-by-numbers paintings, is a key to understanding one's personal wealth - and acknowledging that wealth in others too. (p298)

I refer to this as I have been using my game to make some mandalas.  My game is a bit like painting by numbers as the colours and shapes cannot be changed but I can still design different mandalas (or images) within the paramaters allowed by my pieces. I have found that I want to build more and more onto my original designs, as well as change them by turning pieces over to see what will happen.  It is amazingly restful.

I notice that this book was published in Melbourne, by Scribe Publications Pty Ltd.  It is a very heavy book to hold, the paper is all shiny and must be of some very dense paper.

Interesting show about the Australian Tapestry Workshop

Having missed the show on Art Nation about the Tapestry Workshop I couldn't resist looking at it here.
The sound tapestry was amazing, it was a theremin instrument.  I would like to know more about that.  Here is a link to it in action, being used by Chicks on Speed.
I had heard of the theremin before, in relation to Dr Who and the new version of the theme.  There are links to more info about the theremin if you follow this link.

Contemplative art

As I have said, I am making a game based on a maths activity that I used to use with my primary school grades.  But I am finding that it is good for adults too, especially ones who like making mandalas.

The Pattern Blocks will not make rectangles, if you use all the shapes, and tend to take you into mandala territory, especially if you do not have a plan in mind as you start.
So my game is proving to be a good contemplative activity.
When I was teaching, I loved the activity and the way it could be used by the children to produce all sorts of examples.  I don't think I would have thought of making this version if I hadn't loved using Pattern Blocks myself.

I have only used 5 of the 6 shapes (I didn't use the triangle) but it looks like more because they are double-sided.

This is the same design as the first image, I have simply turned over some of the pieces.  You can see a small piece waiting to be used.

The same piece, added to.

The same as above, just some pieces turned over.

Patterned Pattern Blocks

I have just noticed that I haven't posted for over a week.  Whatever happened to my resolution to post at least once  week?  Obviously, I have been busy - or uninspired.  I'd rather go with busy.
I have been working on our Play theme and have come up with something that is, once again, related to my past teaching life, as well as my love of textiles.  In fact, this one is also rather closely related to patchwork.

I have made a set of pieces that are based on the Pattern Blocks that we used to use at school.  I have had fun going through old photos of patterns the children made as well as finding sites online in which you can manipulate the shapes to make your own patterns.  Great fun.

But I wanted to make a game that is more tactile than going online and that plays with colour and pattern more than the traditional Pattern Blocks.  So I have made double-sided fabric ones, to give some extra options.

It has been fun choosing which colours to use, what patterns to choose, how to put them together, etc.  And I have been able to use up some of the fabric stash that comes under the heading of 'why did I buy that??'.  They are lovely fabrics, just not the colours and designs that I usually use.  They have been perfect for this though, offering some very bright and cheery options in my game. In the samples you can see here, I have used fabrics that I already had, I will admit to buying some 'out there' fabrics for my prototype - I may post some pictures of those later.

Sewing on Plastic 2

As I had enjoyed the different outcome when sewing onto PVC plastic, I thought I would play around with it a bit more.  The bag project seemed like a good idea.
We had to research the history of bags and I found interesting information about the use of pockets that ladies in Britain tied around their waists.  Initially they were worn under their skirts but later they became a fashion accessory and were decorated.
I have always loved crewel embroidery and Jacobean designs, so this was a great chance to indulge myself.
I found lots of examples of Jacobean embroidery online.  I also researched some books and found that crewel embroidery does not refer to the style of stitches or embroidery, it really only refers to the use of wool as the embroidery thread.  Apparently crewel embroidery can use a large variety of stitches that appear in other sorts of embroidery, it is often the first sort of embroidery mentioned in embroidery books because it uses so many different stitches.

Anyway, I decided to run with this.  Part of the assignment was to marry the old with the new, so I decided to do free motion machine embroidery.  I have not used a different thread in the bobbin but decided to try this time.  I used some of my tapestry wool, it was a perfect thickness.

I made my design and traced it onto some dissolvable fabric so I could have a symmetrical design - no way could I have done that free-hand on the machine.
I used water soluble pens from Crayola but the colour did not wash out completely in a couple of parts and has made the wool a bit murky.  I will try to use a better pen next time, if there is a next time.

The original idea was to have a pocket, or bag, that has a clear front so that you can always find where things are in your bag. Initially, the pocket was going to simply be the plastic front and the cloth back but then I thought about the need to have some things that you might not want to have on public view, so I made a separate section at the back.  It even has a pocket for an iPhone.

So far the design is not completely practical but practicality was not the point of the exercise, so I am not worried about that.

I am pleased with the design and how the wool has come up. Of course, it is not in the same class as hand embroidered crewel work but it was fun to do and I might do more and get better at it.