Busy Summer

It's been a busy summer but the most enjoyable day was on August 24th when my extended family celebrated what would have been my Dad's 100th birthday. We all got together, siblings, children, grandchildren, nieces, cousins and all their partners to remember Bert and all the happy times we had with him and my Mum Emily.

Here we all are after a good spread and lots of talking. The weather could have been better but it stayed dry and warmish.

Now that the winter is closing in, cold winds expected later this week I am thinking about inside activities. Textile 21 took the "TechStyles" exhibition down at Quarry Bank Mill last week and we are all busy preparing our next exhibition for Macclesfield Silk Museum in February -"Fashioned in Silk". See textile21.co.uk for details 

Quarry Bank Mill Exhibition

As a member of Textile 21 we have just finished hanging our latest exhibition at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire. The preview is on Friday night 20th September and then open to the general public who visit the Mill which is a National Trust property.

 The exhibition is entitled 'Tech Styles' if you say it quickly you will 'get it'. We wanted to celebrate the innovative use of technology at the Mill and the Greg family's legacy to the 21st century. Members have interpreted the theme individually to produce challenging and exciting tactile pieces. the exhibition runs until the 24th November 2013. The above image is a close up of a section of my piece 'The Humble Circle'. On this  section I have stencilled on a relief piece of dyed fabric in the shape of a cog.

 This is a section where I was able to utilise hand embroidery when attaching circles in various guises. notice the use of stencils to create the background.

 I used Markal Oil sticks throughout the piece, either with stencils or to achieve highlights.

 The fly wheel was transfer printed silk organza that was bondawebbed on to the background then embellished with free machine embroidery.

Not the best image of the finished piece but enough to get the idea. The finished size was 180x150cm.

 



 

Handed Down, Handing On

For the Textile 21 exhibition earlier this year there was a definite white theme going on.

 

I chose to use old linen and lace handed down by family members and the only colour came from the delicate brown of the teabags which I covered with silk organza.

 

This is the corner I was allocated for my finished 2D pieces

 the following three images show detail of the fan blades. All of which utilised old lace and they were embellished by hand and machine embroidery

 The next five images are closeups of the pillows I made from old table linen and lace.

 This is a small picture that again use teabags for the base and free machine embroidery embellishing of old pieces of lace.

 these three are closeups of the Tri-Tea-Tych where I again employed white embroidery on a background of teabags and silk organza

My aim was to produce pieces that I could hand on to my daughters not only from my generation but previous generations