Effervescence II

Finished at last and this image shows my piece in situ at textile21's latest exhibition at The Whitaker, Rawtenstall.

The question I got asked the most is 'how did you manage to get it to stand upright?' And every man who studied it had to look around the back. The secret was an acrylic pole.

Here is a closeup of the detail.

Latest work

Been currently working on my latest piece of work for the Textile 21 exhibition in October.

 At the moment it is totally white silk. Both the fabric and thread used.

 It is called Effervescence II and is a development of my silk organza toile that formed part of the "Fashioned in Silk" exhibition of last year.

 

 The circles are the basis of this design and as they overlap they allowed me to develop layers that each display different techniques

I will cut away the outside of the design and then dye with procion dyes so that it will fulfil the brief of the exhibition and be Created in Colour.

Here I am free machine embroidering one of the circles.

Macclesfield Silk Museum Exhibition

Here I am pointing to the free machine embroidery along the hem of my silk toile.

This is the view during the evening of the preview. The lighting helped make the ethereal effect that we wanted to show off the toiles to their best advantage.

There are more images on Textile 21's blog

EMBROIDERERS GUILD TALK

I was approached by Chelford Embroiderers Guild to give a talk at the back end of last year and before I knew it I said 'Yes'. I started the process of writing the talk about 2 months before the due date of 16th May. It was a most enjoyable task as I visited many memories that made up my life and realised how rich it had been both emotionally and creatively. These aspects helped to minimise the negative physical blips in my life. Having taught for 30 years meant that the presentation held no worries for me but the content was the issue. I suppose most of us don't consider ourselves as experts and tend to hide our achievements making excuses before we even show our work. The ladies at Chelford were very welcoming and I was kept talking for over half an hour at the end with many members exchanging email addresses.
For a picture of the night go to http://chelfordstitchers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/margaret-steeden-moving-on-may-2012.html this was a piece of machine embellished velvet that is covered in bits from my bit box, I will do something with it one day!!!!

Busy at the moment preparing for Holmfirth at the end of the month, I have been making brooches this year from wool and charms, hopefully post some pics when finished. Also for Silk-n-Threads' exhibition at Bradbury House also at the end of the month. http://silk-n-threads.blogspot.co.uk/

Busy Month!!!!!!!