Norman Window

Been remiss at not posting recently but life has a way of catching up with one doesn't it?! I am very focussed this week on getting my pieces for the Textile 21 Norton Priory exhibition finished

This is almost at the finished stage. I have been to organise a frame which should be ready on Saturday.

I have posted two pictures the first without flash and the second one with flash. I would say that the colour is some way between the two. The first one shows the navy background and how the reclaimed lace (with soldering iron) shows up. I lightened the window recess area and thankfully it worked!

See pictures on previous post for detail of the distressed edges. There is a Norman window at the Priory and the theme was 'Outside In' so it was crying out to be represented in some way. I have been very pleased with the way the Lutradur behaved it has been coated with many different layers of paint, acrylic and interferance and inks etc. It was a dream to solder and to sew.

Update on Norton Priory pieces

After a lot of thought I decide to use my soldering iron and attack the treated Lutradur. This enabled me to reclaim the lace shapes and distress the scrim areas.

I have chosen a dark navy polyester fabric for the base as it will show up the holes in the Lutradur. I have applied heat with my heat gun to get a great surface effect.

This is the silhouette of the Dill plant. The base is embellished velvet, the stems are painted tyvek and the seed heads hand embroidery.

Closeup of Seed head still needs highlights

Norton Priory Exhibition

The latest exhibition of Textile 21 entitled 'Outside In' is to be held at Norton Priory between 22 May - 14th July 2008. All 15 members have designed and executed new pieces based on the gardens at the Priory to reflect the theme throughout Cheshire this year 'The Year of Garden'.

I have started three pieces that have allowed me to create new surfaces/backgrounds. I can't see much else getting done over the next few weeks as I plough on with these pieces.

The first is an embellished piece on ivory cotton velvet. I have used lace, wool roving and silk tops, as you can see from this pic I played around with the arrangement.



This pic shows the finished surface before I started to create the silhouette design on top. It has been well batted down and the gummed silk has remained in relief giving a very pleasing surface pattern. The finished size will be 9x15inches and mounted around a frame that Hubbie doesn't yet know he will be making!

These are a variety of experiments to reproduce stems for my silhouette of Dill plants. Very long painted tyvek beads and painted machine wrapped cords. I will couch on both types to achieve the different thicknesses of stems.

This is the image that is my inspiration for my first piece.

The second piece is embellishing again but this time on layers of organza with trapped fibres. This pic shows the random placing of cut fabric and fibres before I embellished on my janome Xpression.

This pic is after I have embellished . I love the resulting crinkle effect . I intend to FME a closeup of the Flower head on this background. Following pic gave me this idea.

This is the start of my third piece. Lace and muslin on Lutradur after I have machined in place and painted the reverse in browns and oranges. (thanks to Carol McFee for technique)

Then I painted the right side in acrylics and interference paints.Love the shimmer effect of interference paintsFinished piece ready for the window design to be applied, haven't quite worked that out yet but think the Roman window shape at Norton will be cut out before I FME on the Lutradur.

This is the pic that gave me the inspiration for the window shape.

So back to it.............. having said that I am at a workshop with Jackie Cardy and the Macclesfield Embroiderers Guild tomorrow so it will have to all wait until Friday, then again it's my birthday so i hoping some of my 'friends' will be popping round or phoning up to take me out for lunch!!

I've heard back from most of my nominees for the award of 'inspirational blogs' and it is plain to see the positive effect it has on people as they realise how they an affect other bloggers work and life. A great idea to spread good will and creativity.

Lutradur experiments

I've been experimenting with Lutradur recently using the details given in the new ezin Fibre & Stitch. Carol McFee takes you through the process and some stunning results have been created by subscribers to this months edition.

This was the first stage, above, when scrim and lace was painted on to Lutradur, left to dry and then played with!!!

Here I painted the surface with a selection of metallic paints, the purple (blue in photo) was added to bring life to the browns and metallics. I squeezed Luminere paint straight from the bottle.


Then I FME over the top with metallic threads to highlight the shapes in particular the areas of scrim. I then painted over some of these areas again to give more relief.





This is the final result, unfortunately the luminere lines reflect the light too much giving a false impression, in fact the lace relief areas are more pronounced than the photo would lead you to believe. Now the exciting bit, what to make from this sample!