A little bit of stitch in progress

One of my hand dyed pieces, not from my recent foray, but from Christine's classes. Not finished by any means, but coming along

A feather on the breath of God

Nearly home again

I'm at the end of a three week break, my final week being spent with my Aunt Cecil in rural Oxfordshire. Those who pop by here regularly will have met her before, but here she is sitting by the river Thames, about to tuck into coffee and chocolate tiffin. This image, I hope, captures her sweet smile and marvellous sense of fun, quite undiminished by dementia.

I take pictures so that, when we get back home, she can see where we've been and what we've done, her memory being truly absent. It was she and my grandmother who inspired me to stitching many years ago, both being fine needlewomen. The skill has been passed down the family from my Great Grandmother Nanya's generation (and no doubt those who came before her), and Cecil talks of Aunt Annie and her exquisite smocking. I wish some of it had survived, but would guess it was needed to earn money. Aunt Annie lived with Nanya, who had been widowed in 1914, with three daughters in their teens to support and no means of income beyond their wits and feminine skills. They moved from Ireland to England in 1921'ish; their location chosen by the legendary pin placed in the map with eyes closed.

Coming from a family who have condensed into just me, Cecil and my daughter Jen this side of the water, I treasure those family tales and the opportunity to spend time with Cecil and share our joint past. On this visit I took a collection of old photos to show her. They have all come to me, as Nanya lived with my grandmother at the end of her life; I also have, and treasure, the letters she and my Great Grandfather wrote to one another through their courting days (a project for my retirement). Cecil was very anxious that I label all those images so "those that come after" know who they are. It got me thinking about the values we place on things. I know who those precious few blurred faces belong to; some of them I met, some I know because of our shared family tales, to me they are real people with lives and loves and interesting characters. Yet if Jen has children and brings "grandmotherhood" back into this diminishing family, these dear souls might be of little or no interest - just dated images in sepia and black and white. This is true of so many things that get handed down, their value is simply to those who know the who and why. Once those people have gone, what is to be done with them? I don't know the answer, but do recall collections of Victorian photos that we hold in the reference library I used to work in. We kept them without knowing anything of who they were, simply because they were old. I often wondered what was the point, but couldn't countenance throwing away images that were a window on somebody's past, albeit anonymous. What think you?

Natural Dyeing Workshop

I can't begin to tell you what fun I had last week, but I'll try. I went to a workshop being held at the Potters Farm Studio belonging to Claire Benn of Committed to Cloth. The workshop was run by Michel Garcia who's research into sustainable and benign methods of dyeing using natural dyes and mordants, I'd come across before from a various mentions in blog land and on YouTube. 

I had no idea what to expect, being pretty new to the whole process of dyeing fabrics. What I got was a week of fascinating experiments, made all the more fun by Michel's warm personality and quirky humour. He is an expert in the subject, having a background in both chemistry and botany, and took the group through the process step by step, to show us how different mordants react with different dyestuffs. We had three days of experimenting with fabrics, dyes, mordants and as many variations on those three things as we had time for and materials to work with, including going out into the lovely surrounding landscape and collecting fresh plant material to see what happened. His teaching process takes you step by step in a very methodical way, creating swatches of fabric with patches of each of the mordants and dyes so you can see exactly what you will get. The magic comes from placing a piece of plain fabric with splotches of mordant into the pot, and pulling out a multicoloured sample to use as reference. In the final two days we were introduced to the indigo dyevat (also known as the donkey), using resists and multiple dips in the to create a range from deep blue to white. We then applied mordants and dyes to get a full range of colours on one piece of fabric. It really was inspiring, and Claire's studio is a wonderful place to learn, especially as she generously gave us time after the formal teaching to finish off, or prepare for the next day. We were also treated to delicious meals each day to give us energy for our experiments. 

The rest of the class were all experienced textile artists of one sort or another so I felt very much the amateur, but the opportunity to spend a week with this group of creative people was a genuine pleasure and I learned a great deal both from Michel and Claire, and from watching the the way the rest of the group worked. It taught me that we are all different, and that there isn't necessarily a "right" way to be creative, just the way that works for you. 

I would love to say that I'm now going to put into practice all that I learned, so it sticks in my mind. However, life doesn't usually work this way. This week I am looking after my beloved Aunt Cecil while her carer is away and next week it will be straight back to work which, over the past several months, has been full on and left me coming home each evening with not an ounce of energy to spare. I'll store all the learning (and samples) up until such time as life settles down and I can give myself some down time to have another go, 

Here are a few images - just to give you an idea of what we did, rather than because I think I achieved anything wonderful!

The dye swatches - my reference charts

some experiments with screens various

some happy fishes

and a few bits of indigo shibori 

If you have the chance to attend either a workshop by Michel, or one run at Potters Farm, I'd really recommend it.

Label

This amuses me for two reasons

It is the label on the back of a wardrobe that has drifted down through the family from somewhen back. It is stuck on the rear of a gentleman's wardrobe, and was probably bought by my grandparents in the early years of their marriage. You will see its context in a future post. It is part of that distillation of things which comes when a frugal family, with rather old fashioned ways, keeps odd bits of furniture from generation to generation. That family trait always makes me smile.

The name on the label also amuses me - it says Lamson Paragon Supply Co. Ltd. London and includes a Patent number and other arcane bits of information. What amuses me is that this label now lives in a room in Paragon Cottage .....

Foggy moon

Measuring out

I'm really feeling my way on this, I've never made a bag before, but have quite a clear idea of what I want - a boxy shape with depth front and back to allow for the water bottle and small camera, not too wide, easy to get a sketch book in and out, lightweight.

This bag that I got in Istanbul is almost perfect, but the way it's constructed leaves stuff wallowing about in a rather unstructured space. It's also hard to get stuff in and out of, as the handle is part of the structure of the bag. this creates and awkwardness around the zippered opening. It's a good rough structure though, as it hangs to the right length across my body, and the wide strap spreads the 

weight. It's also good to get a rough idea of the dimensions as I can put a pin roughly where I'd expect the edge of my bag to be, then make a toile; meaning a trial in calico to test the shape and get an idea 

of scale.

I've also traced out the basics of the wing structure to get an idea of the separate elements and how they mesh together. Again, feeling my way vaguely forward, consulting the odd book occasionally!

So here's the plan

This is a design from the work I did in the summer on insects

based on a photograph taken years ago of a dragonfly casualty - blame the cats

and some fabrics dyed at Studio11 on the day we spent with Christine as part of City and Guilds

one watery and flowing, to evoke the nymph stage of the dragonfly's life, one crumple dyed with evocative shapes lurking in the random patterns. Beneath, a teal cotton velvet, garnered from curtain shop remnants, to provide practical strength for ... a sketcher's bag to hold sketchbook, pencil case, camera and water bottle

I'll create a front panel using the water ripple fabric with organza layered over and stitched into with the dragonfly wing pattern in couched and linear stitches. I'm also thinking of using wave stitch in the finely patterned areas to emulate, but not copy the cell structure. Then I'd do the rear panel using the crumple dyed fabric and hand quilt over those lines that evoke a wing shape.

The strap will go across my body and will be the velvet on the underside and a strip of the ripple fabric on the top to tie in with the embroidered panels.

I'll probably adapt the image below to a design like the one above, as it's more graphic and has a clearer reference to the actual wing shape - here played with in Picasa

Are you getting the idea?