Wondering……….

A few months ago I made a pennant as part of the Cultural Olympiad organised through Quilts 4 London. As the Olympic opening ceremony approaches I have been thinking where my pennant is now and to whom my pennant now belongs.

The Quilts4London Project started in June 2009 with an idea to produce something as a gift for all the athletes taking part in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. It soon became a National project as lots of creative types, children and adults alike made pennants to help reach the target of 14,000 pennants needed to give one to each competing athlete.
The pennants have been displayed and exhibited in a number of locations across the nation and at the games themselves leading up to the opening ceremony. The exhibitions have almost finished, with the final one currently running at The American Museum in in Bath until the end of this month. I’m really trying to find a day when I can go along and take a look but the school holidays are here so proving tricky.
17,000 pennants have been made to date and so the target has been exceeded. It has been a major project for all those involved taking many hours or organisation and preparation and I for have one enjoyed taking part in community project of such scale and only wonder now which athlete will go home with my pennant …….

I made mine from up cycled damask napkins which were hand dyed in reds and oranges and then torn into strips, crossed over and stitched in place with machine satin stitch. The colours were much more intense than in the photos, it’s the flash I think but it shows you what I did. I also printed a personal message on the reverse as a little inspiration.
If you want to read more on this project and see pictures of some athletes receiving their pennants then here’s the website link.

Website- http://www.quilts4london.org.uk

Blog- http://www.quilts4london.org.uk/blog.html



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Art in Action, Waterperry House and

Gardens, Oxfordshire, July 2012

Wow, what a day ! My first visit to the Arts and Craft Festival and how I wish I had been for all the other 6 years that I have been living close by enough to visit. The show is held in the grounds of Waterperry House in Oxfordshire for 4 days each summer and has been for the past 30 years. Artists and designer-makers demonstrate their work alongside selling their work hence the name “Art in Action”. I was slightly overwhelmed by the volume of huge white marquees each hosting a different art or craft discipline ranging from Textiles, Printmaking, Sculpture and glass and Ceramics plus many many more. Plenty of opportunities to buy goodies to use in my work too so I’ve failed on point number 2 in my AIMS !!! They also run some practical courses which are a great chance to sample something new. I had intended to do a Digital Print on fabric class with Ruth Brown but the tickets could have been sold 10 times over it was that popular so I opted for my second choice, Intaglio Printmaking with Annabel Boltsa for 2 hours and only£8 – can’t beat that for value !

One of my favorite textiles designers was at the show, Dionne Swift and I was lucky enough to attend one of her devore workshops in May. Devore has very much been her signature technique for many years and more recently she has developed new techniques and ways of working – such a talented lady and a true inspiration to me. I indulged in a little something to display proudly on one of my walls too!

Below are some pictures of the print I made – we worked very quickly and had only 30 mins to do our design so I made an abstract pattern just to see how the process and technique worked. Right now these prints aren't relevant to the textile work I am doing and therefore not even this blog but I wanted to include them as everything is a creative learning process and Its my intention to go back and do some hand stitching and machine stitching on these when they are fully dry and see what more I can do with them….. Watch this space for updates!!





Making the plate



The fine lines were made with a “needle” – a fine tipped pointed pen really. The more textured areas were made using a cotton bud and methylated spirits to remove the black ground on the plate. 30 mins isn’t long when you have to think quickly what to do so I was happy with what I managed.



The big reveal of the first print.

It can only get better ! …….

I thought I would share this with you……this is the first screen print I ever did and it dates back to the 80’s – not sure if it was the OND or the HND when I did  it but mum had kept the whole 3m length piece of fabric and I discovered it when sorting out some of her stuff. She kept all sorts as memories but why she kept this I don’t know, it’s truly awful !! What was I thinking with the colours??? I only hope there was a print paste restriction in the studio and I had to use whatever was already made up !!! But, whilst it doesn’t put my artistic talents in the best light I did think that it only goes to show we get better with age as we develop our skills …..please enjoy the laugh!!

So lucky with soy resist compo !!

Wow! How lucky am I? I ordered a copy of Lisa Kerpoe’s resist techniques as a little gift for myself intending to try out some of the intrIguing resist techniques and I was entered into a competition to win a scarf…… and I did !!

Here’s the scarf – so inspiring to get out the treacle and self-raising flour I can tell you. The book looks really interesting so I will review it properly once I have savoured every page.  

Here’s the link to her technique examples on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisakerpoe/sets/72157630377097606/

and to her book

http://www.visualtextureonfabric.com/about%20the%20book.html