Tag: stitch

Categories
art

Oil quilt in progress

Oil quilt, detail, 60 x 40 cm

Most of the work for this quilt was complete months ago but current events are spurring me to finish. I’m mainly adding borders at the moment but there will be more work after that, pens and stitch and some discharge paste to remove colour in a few places. It can be hard to know when to stop! The original poem was written long ago, it’s on this site in artist’s book form.

Anti-art was a term adopted by the COBRA group of artists who formed in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam in 1945, as WW2 in Europe ended, a reaction to the horrors just experienced. Some of their work is at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amsterdam, well worth a visit if you are in that great city, I found it inspiring. The label anti-art for works that end up in art galleries is a good place to start a discussion about what is art (yawn) because as soon as a gallery is involved or the works are sold then it must become art of some sort. Perhaps if they had kept the work to themselves the group would have been labelled as producers of Art Brut, a form which doesn’t seek public approval or sales, generally.

There is a documentary currently (October 2023) on BBC iPlayer about the Dada movement, closely associated with anti-art.

Categories
art

Oil quilt squares

Each square is a little more than 20 x 20cm and there are more than 70 to make up four quilt panels. Quite a few have been made two or more times and as they are mono-printed and/or stamped as well as inkjet printed, sometimes drawn on, each one is a unique piece. They are also quilted and stitched, sometimes embroidered and that is also unique to each one. I’m not making a second quilt (yet) just want some squares for display and sale.

These are low-res scans, hopefully the originals look better. All work in progress, more printing and stitching isn’t ruled out. And borders have to be added.

I’ve used a free font (non-commercial) all through this work, called Action of the Time New™ by Galdino Otten, although in most places it won’t be recognisable as I have distorted the text, over-drawn, over-stitched and over-printed almost everywhere. It’s a great font family.

Categories
art

OIL quilt, work in progress

This fabric work which I last posted about in June is based on the OIL poem I wrote in 2010 at the height of the USA ‘surge’ in Iraq, the poem in artist’s book form is here.

Although the bulk of the work is done there is still plenty to do and my progress through the summer has been slow – I have to wait for ideas and they don’t seem to come as often as they once did.

OIL quilt panel, one of four, work in progress

The imagery is ‘busy’ with lots going on, but I feel it could be busier still, and darker, more painterly. I’m still thinking about the border(s), those will take almost as much time as the panels and like all framing they will have a big impact on the final piece.

Linda and Laura Kemshall are well known artist quilters of the highest standard, their book, The Painted Quilt (2007) is one I refer to frequently, especially for printing advice and although my style and content is far from theirs I aspire to the standards they achieve.

I’ve also found their sketchbook ideas inspirational and highly practical, design is at the heart of what they do. My own sketches, scans, screen grabs, pics and notes tend to build into massive files on my Mac and eventually deleted but some get saved on paper or cloth.

Categories
quilt

Quilting

I have been working on a new quilt for the last few weeks, until the weather became too good to stay home.

Work in progress – Oil quilt, 2023

This is a (low-res) pic of my sewing bench, work in progress. The quilt will consist of 72 printed, stitched and embellished fabric squares which are then quilted, stitched together and printed/overstitched again, until done. Most of the squares were inkjet printed, some printed with stamps cut from rubber or lino, some were also stencilled or hand drawn and painted. There are also other forms of printing such as collagraph.

Categories
quilt

Blue Moon, Kind of Blue or Moonflowers

Kind of Blue, Embroidered fabric, 135 x 52 cm,

This patchwork and machine embroidery quilt was made from a piece of patchwork originally destined to be dolls clothes, but I had so much that it had been put aside and forgotten. The quilting lines show in this picture but the metallic threads do not. There are a lot of shiny silver and blue metallics here and many of them and vaguly flower shaped.

The quilting lines are mainly broad curves, often inspired half or quarter moons or those slivers of the new moon.

Using Kind of Blue as a title feels very cheeky, but the Miles Davis masterpiece is often playing in my studio and the dreamy, sensuous curves of the music are always in my mind.

Moonflowers would reflect my hippy youth, back when work of this kind was unknown, or just consigned to ‘women’s work’ and ignored by the art world. Now there is a wealth of fabulous textile art, many examples may be found on the web.

Categories
Doll

Four Dolls

There is something I find satisfying and rewarding about doll making, although I can’t claim to know what that is. These four dolls are button-jointed in the Jan Horrox style, about 60 cm long, their clothes are made from embellished and embroidered scraps and may be much longer. The fabric scraps are often silk and satin and have many metallic threads but these shiny things do not show in these photos.

These dolls might represent both birds of the British Isles and the four regions, Scotland – Magpie, Wales – Red Kite, Ireland – Greenfinch and England – Tawny Owl. I think the Magpie, the first one I made might be my alter-ego, a Scottish Prince!

  • Tawny Owl
  • Red Kite
  • Magpie
  • Greenfinch
Categories
quilt

Fabric art

I don’t make many art pieces but I was sorting through my fabric and came across this forgotten piece of work that I had put aside for some reason, possibly a left-over from a double-sided cape of some years back. It was patchwork blues, slightly embellished and overstitched, looked quite attractive so I thought why not quilt it.

I found a length of black cotton just the right size, then a layer of wadding and finally some thin cotton from a sheet. There is a lot of silver thread used in the embroidery and the quilting but it doesn’t show in this pic.

I’m using a free motion embroidery foot to quilt circles and flower patterns, takes practice but gives me a distinctive style.

Categories
quilt

Rosie Lee Tompkins -Quilts

I just came across this online exhibition, BAMPFA Rosie Lee Tompkins which is available till July 2021.

Categories
textiles

Embellish and Sew

Finally finding some creative energy and some old pieces of partially worked fabric which can be worked on some more. One of the joys of machine embellishing is that there is no limit to the amount of layering other than the ability of the embellishing machine needles to pass through, without breaking. Another pleasure is the using up of tiny scraps which would otherwise just be waste. The needles do break from time to time and they are not cheap so care must be taken. I often overstitch or couched threads, silk or metallic, embroidery, wool &c. but the thicker they are the more likely to trouble the embellisher, so these are best added after embellishing. But as I am rarely satisfied I often return to embellishing after stitching. The possible combinations of colour, texture, fabric and other elements are of course infinite.

It’s quite tricky to get a good pic of the shiny fabrics and threads and this low res one is also a little out of focus, I’ve used a wide appature on a small camera.

This patchwork of embellished fabrics and embroidered threads will be made into a long dress for a 60cm button-jointed cloth doll, just visible on the left .

Also out of focus, unfortunately, but show the shiny stuff a bit.

Categories
Doll

Doll

Almost finished the owl doll, her costume is mainly silk embellished from scraps. The embellishing machine is great for using up even the tiniest of remnants and bits of thread.  Embellishing needles get used up (broken) fairly quickly so I always keep a stock.  Just a few final touches needed, her limbs and neck and around her face need to be darker .

Owl doll