Knitting AND Stitching....

and so much more...The Knitting and Stitching show at Harrogate 2013 was a joyful experience, all the better for going on a Sunday when it was quiet and you could see everything with ease! so here for you in the comfort of your own home...no travelling required except in your mind... a taste of what we saw...

Mandy Patullo's wonderful thrifty artwork handstitched to perfection... 

 

 

again handstitching but this time with printing, some small and some huge abstracts from the landscape by Dorothy Caldwell..love the texure of her stitching here

Bobby Britnell and Ruth Issett side by side, so different but equally inspiring

how's this for a sketchbook?!

and stall after stall of colour, texture and creativity...and sheer hard work!

a stop for lunch in the opulence of the Grand Theatre, where Husband of Patience sits with his newspaper and a cuppa when he's had enough! and the Man count was quite high this year...

lots to look at and absorb...and lots of tempting things to spend your pennies on!

got some beautiful yarn from this original stall run by a young lady at Lily and The Dub!

one of my favourit parts is seeing all the students work, full of imaginative use of their medium, in a contemporary way which is so fresh

I've always loved the K and S show, but even more now I go with Daughter Mine, who has a shared love of all things textile...and we have a really good family time together! She's just done some wonderful work for her Textiles GCSE mock...and I could easily see her artwork here!

thanks for all your kind comments and donations for Gwendoline, we hope soon to have a new donkey companion for Ned, who in the meantime is getting lots of extra ear tickling and carrot and apple treats...

for those who missed my last blog post, this is Gwendoline and we are raising money for The Donkey Sanctuary in her memory, click here if you would like to make a donation...thank you

have a quiet week...there's plenty of time before it's Christmas...honest!

Emmax

stitching texture...

as you will have gathered by now my dear patient readers I spend as much time as possible sewing, stitching, machine embroidering, creating, playing with fabrics and generally having a wonderful time...(housework what housework?!).. even better is teaching a machine embroidery Workshop and I thought I'd just share a little of what we covered at a recent one...looking at creating a textured surface...

I had 4 lovely and very creative souls with me, interestingly the Universe had kindly organised they were all students...one doing GCSE, two at A'level and one doing an Open COllege of Arts Textile course...amazing synchronicity!

as usual the immaculate studio prepared for my workshopees quickly bcomes a creative brouhaha...what a great word that is, no idea what it means but it seems to fit!

dear old bondaweb (ahem there are probably lots of other kinds of fusible fabric out there Ed)...that versatile "heat reactive, sheet of glue which permanently bonds one fabric to another when ironed"...aha but did you know it's really fun when you paint it? with watercolour, or acrylic or maybe fabric paint...

and then you can literally glue on texture by ironing on snippets of thread or fabric, then just add stitching...

mmm...pleased with these!

and then there's that weird stuff, Tyvek, described by Barnyarns as a "spun bonded polythene fabric that is non-toxic and accepts colour mediums, will shrink, bubble and distort when heated"...not half we say! Mind you it's not so good at the health and safety owing to fumes, so you must heat it outdoors. I don't personally use it a lot...but it is amazing...

here is some which has been painted

then heated...

stitched with snippets of fabric then zapped...

painted then stitched, you can see the fabric shrinking has distorted the stitching

On the whole though I prefer to use more fabric and stitch based ways and challenge my process and creativity to achieve the textures I want...

but it may still include some bondaweb...here used OVER lots of fabric snippets, ironed on then stitched...

and bondaweb underneath...

and there may still be some heating...I used to do this with a household paint stripper, all my degree work was done with me hanging around outside the door of my studio 'burning' my beautiful work with this device!

you'll be pleased to know I do now have a more specialised controllable heat 'appliance'...

eg for burning away a top fabric to reveal layers underneath...I have to experiment first to see which fabrics will melt away...

or for small pieces of fabric stitched on top and then burned away...so much delicious colour too...

you can see why I need a housekeeper, cleaner, gardener and cook...because doing this is just so much more fun!

Hope you've enjoyed the workshop...and maybe been inspired to have a go...

Emmax 

making waves...for C-art

where does the time go? sorry I haven't been here much, just had so much to do to get ready for C-art, strange how in a year my studio has filled up with so much stuff! Thank goodness for the beautiful clean new loft space above and a loft ladder...husband of great patience I salute you!It felt like moving house, but now we have room for 3 artists and room for lovely visitors...

The New Bookshop in Cockermouth is kindly hosting a C-artists window display...so thought I'd better rustle up something new...been feeling sea-ish since my return from Mull...

here's a run through of the 'how to create a wave' process...choose delicious fabrics, snip them up and lay them on a backing of old blue blanket, needle felt with my fab machine, then get free machine stitching with more stunning blues...now the tricky bit, turn into a tube, stitch up by hand...luckily it just fits on my machine so I can stitch over the joins to blend them in and afterwards the fun part adding a lacey wavy top using dissolvable fabric...

I do like a technical and artistic challenge...and actually I am pretty chuffed...it worked! 

By the way I am having a few issues leaving comments on your blogs since I changed my blog name, apologies, I do visit and love your blogs, I will try and sort it out..any ideas please let me know!

Havea great week, back with some C-arty pics I hope, have a great week Emmaxx