Tag: bamboo

Embellishing

Embellishing was invented before the sewing machine as a way of joining fabrics without having to stitch, the textile fibres are pulled together by the action of the – very sharp – needles being forced back and forth through the materials.

I’m working here with silk, bamboo and cotton scraps, some of these are tiny or little swatches. The process is fairly quick, an hour or two is enough to create a piece suitable for the hare masks I have been making. The primary aim here is texture and the small amount of colours other than cream or white should help with that. The silk is making my hands feel er, silky which I guess is an effect of the way these materials have been treated in the finishing process.

The embellishing machine can have a maximum of five needles but I usually don’t have that many as I want more control of the appearance.

Tags art, bamboo, craft, design, embellish, hare, mask, silk

art

City Sunset

Almost all the pieces in the Meltdown series are reworked from earlier fabric work, I don’t throw much away. I try to avoid polyester but for shine it does get into the mix. Rayon (viscose) thread and cloth can be shiny and I use that where I can, although rayon sewing thread is usually thinner and therefore weaker than cotton or polyester, I don’t know why that is. Silk is best but pure colour scraps can be hard to find. Viscose in clothing is often silky and now frequently used for fast-fashion clothing, also used in place of cotton, it was developed in the 19thC as a substitute for silk but has many other uses. Being made from wood pulp it’s potentially an organic fabric but the manufacturing process is intense and involves a number of chemicals. As with bamboo fabric – also viscose – there may be potential for a more environmentally friendly manufacturing process.

There’s a long way to go in creating truly eco-friendly fabrics but hopefully manufactures will be motivated by the prospect of reducing costs as well as saving the planet. Recycling of viscose clothing is low at present, a large amount go to landfill.

City Sunset, Mixed textiles, 20x20cm, 2024.

I was not planning to name the smaller pieces but this one seemed to name itself. All these works are for sale, at a range of modest prices direct from me or via Artigo, Gloucester Road, Bristol.

Tags art, bamboo, embellish, embellishing machine, embroider, rayon, sewing, silk, stitch, sunset, textile, textile art, viscose

art

Hare

Summer 2022 I stayed on a willow farm in Somerset and bought withies and other fibres with a view to doing some sculpture. My previous experience with this material is that the whole project can quickly grow beyond first ideas and this happened again. I expected a smaller and much simpler mask but when the basic structure was made it seemed to demand more intricacy and detail.

I worked on it off – one of several projects – and on through last Autumn and into Spring this year and this is the result. The hare is supposed to be outside in my little garden but I haven’t got round to that, it needs a little shelter from the elements. Part of my reason for making this was to amuse my grandchildren and encourage them in artistic endeavours.

Hare, 2023, Withies, grasses and other natural fibres and found objects, 220cm x 90cm Chris Miller

Tags art, bamboo, banana, children, copper, craft, glass beads, hare, hemp, jute, mask, sculpture, silk, string, willow, withies, wool

textiles

Animal Masquerade quilt

Still sorting out work from a year or two ago, this quilt was made in 2018, there was also an artist’s book using similar mask images. The animals are all British Isles native apart from the grey squirrel, although that has been here for quite some time now. I haven’t done much work for the last two months and sorting out old pieces, repairing or completing them feels like a way back in to making some art. These are sketches of some of the mask images, drawn on a tablet, or drawn on paper and scanned and manipulated in Affinity Photo. The bamboo silk fabric was digitally printed and I also screen printed some tiles but the results were messy.

Many people have reported how the early part of the Covid crisis was a period of stimulus and creativity, I felt that but in the second UK lockdown I felt quite depressed, especially with our government incompetence and found work difficult. I did start work on a fairly large piece – another art quilt – but progress was slow and I have put it aside for a while.

Animal Masquerade, quilted bamboo silk, 120 x 90 cm, 2018

The next and final step is to make a border, this will need to be a dark material and quite wide I think. The quilt was to be a practical piece for a child’s bed but didn’t get finished and so wasn’t used that way. I try to use organic fabrics, usually from the Organic Fabric Co. in Wales but this isn’t always possible; I like bamboo because it is grown without herbicides or pesticides and is really versatile, takes dye and print beautifully and is widely available. The quilting (wadding) is also bamboo.

Here are some details.