Posts filed under ‘Challenges’
2021 Round off
For the last 6 months of 2021, I was working 3 part time jobs as once gain the research project for the PhD stalled due to Covid restrictions and lockdowns. The jobs were interesting and all consuming so not much was created on the textile front. Here are a few items that were completed:
This year we resurrected the ATASDA VIC group under the enthusiastic guidance of Caz Rogers as Convener. Due to Covid restrictions, we met once a month on zoom and completed a few challenges and swaps. Below you can see the results from our latest challenge/swap which was for an ATC on the theme ‘girl power’.
I forgot to take a photo of mine before they were posted, however this is the base fabric before they were handstitched with v’s in a variegated thread. The base is needlefelted and Free Machine Embroidered (FME) with ‘suffragette’ machine stitched all over.
The previous and first challenge was about ‘My Place’
Mine was the gum blossom as we are literally surrounded by gum trees, not a good thing if a bushfire ever comes through! Below are also my set of gum blossoms ready to be finished off and posted to the swap partners.
To announce the arrival of the VIC group into ATASDA we held an Australia wide challenge. Each member of ATASDA was posted a sheet of mulberry paper to make into a Paper bag shaped Luminary. There were some quite interesting and beautiful luminaries created. ATASDA members can view these on the website members’ gallery. Mine was based on the endangered orange bellied parrot which visits wetlands close by:
My upcycle is based on an apron I found in an op shop. I coffee dyed the apron, cut it up and tacked on some ecodyed and printed fabrics. I did attempt some shibori stitching but the coffee wasn’t strong enough to dye it clearly. I will make it into a ‘button bag’ and use up some of my collection of buttons. Quite often if I am ecodyeing I will pop some of the dye liquid in a jar and add some bits and pieces like threads and buttons:
Lots of hand stitching to go.
I was struggling for inspiration with the items I was given for the name badge when I saw some Art Deco brooches that gave me an idea, just waiting for my dremel to arrive!
Treasure Trove Challenge
Another challenge I took part in last year was with ATASDA (Australian Textile and Surface Decoration Association) which included members Australia wide. Currently the challenge art pieces are on display at Epping Creative Centre and will travel to other venues as restrictions ease.
Members nominated to join the Challenge and were given a Challenge partner. Each person created their own ‘treasure’ in whatever textile medium they chose. The only limitation was a size one for posting. Once finished my treasure, based on a conch shell, was posted to my partner to create the ‘receptacle’ or treasure holder. You can view all the treasures and their receptacles on the ATASDA website galleries.
To create my shell I began with needlefelting, then wet felting to create the base ‘fabric’. The piece was free machine stitched, lined with natural dyed and twin needled silk, formed into the 3D shell and then handstitched and beaded.
Scraps and more
I am calling this one finished. Thank you Anne Lawson for the suggestions. I am very happy with this and need to stop before it becomes overworked. Knowing when to stop can be the most difficult decision!
I am calling this Phases of time 1 as I might revisit this concept to complete some more stitcheries of different shapes and sizes. Mostly completed from the stash except for a couple of sashiko threads in blues ordered online Wafu Works. This will be sent off to Rita of Gone Rustic in Tasmania for her ‘Marking Time’ exhibition.
Two more projects on the go at the moment:
Finishing a receptacle for my partner’s treasure in the ATASDA Challenge and
Continuing to work on an artwork for the 2020 Biblio Art Prize.
Design finalised for the piece inspired by The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey, just auditioning some metal threads.
Some dyeing and stitching
Here we are in another school holidays with a little time to create. I am currently working on finishing a ‘treasure’ for the Challenge with ATASDA. When I finish my treasure I will post to my challenge partner who will make a receptacle to contain it. All the treasures will be part of an exhibition in various states of Australia. ATASDA is an Australia wide group that encourages experimentation with textile art and surface decoration through social days, workshops, various exhibitions and challenges. Due to Covid many of these have been forestalled but in the background much has been happening. The website committee are putting the final touches to a brand new contemporary website, hoping to launch in mid July.
I am also preparing an exhibit for the ATASDA Bi-ennial exhibition at The Calyx, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. The exhibition, Interlude, has been postponed to the first week in November. For the theme I have been dyeing fine cottons and silks (fabrics and threads) to create a bojagi type cloth. The cloth will depict the regeneration of the earth between the five mass extinctions. It is designed to be both a warning to humanity and a source of hope.
Over the lockdown I enrolled in India Flint’s wonderful ISO class, In place :: sailing the armchair around the village well. It is/was a wonderful class that started as 23 days (continued well past that) and continues monthly at the moment. The meditative stitching/actions in this class are so very good for the spirit/soul in these very difficult times. Below is a journal cover I am continuing to stitch of an evening:
A tickle of feathers:
Just a little taste of where we sailed in our armchairs. Also in progress as slow cloths are a Wayfarer’s cloak and a cloth for a group exhibition in the new year.
Slashing & burning with Alsyn
During the school holidays I had a little trip to Hobart for a 4 day workshop with Alsyn Midgelow-Marsden, organised by the Stitching & Beyond textile art group. Alsyn is from the UK, lives in NZ and is often in Australia to run workshops.
Alsyn was also at Ballarat in April this year (where I had a fabulous workshop with Claire Benn last year) however I decided on a change of scenery, Hobart is so easy to get to from Melbourne and I love visiting the city.
S&B are based in Hobart but welcome members from all over. To participate in one of their many excellent workshops you need to be a member (only $20 a year). I booked an Airbnb with a fabulous host in a beautiful old restored home in New Town, next door to the amazing Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens. I arrived a day early for the workshop, dropped my bags, walked along the track to the city, bought a green card from the very helpful Metro Shop and bused down to Kingston Beach to visit the fantastic store Wafu Works. I couldn’t go too crazy as my luggage was already full of paraphernalia for the workshop, however I did purchase a few little bits and pieces including some beautiful paper, a calligraphy brush, some grey boro thread, indigo fabrics and vintage indigo scraps.
The first two days of our workshop were spent working on techniques and building up samples. Lots of slashing-soldering iron, burning and heating-gas tea light candles, camp stove and blow torch, stitching and felting-needle and wet and colouring silk and metal. The final two days were to TIF (take it further) and develop the elements for a piece of work. Chris (one of the S&B organisers) suggested we may like to create an A3 piece to enter into the S&B Challenge exhibition which will travel around Tasmania (which is my aim). My inspiration for the workshop was this photo of The Bluff:
Thank you to Alsyn for a wonderful 4 days, I now have enough elements to make a series!
Also thank you to Chris and the other S&B members for their wonderful hospitality and organisation. I had a great time and will definitely return.
It’s beginning to feel a lot like Xmas
I have been housebound with my only trips out being to the hospital for the last 3 weeks following surgery. Due to ongoing issues it is not looking like I will be out of the house for another week. Luckily I am able to do little tasks like sitting and stitching and using the computer so not totally dire. Also I can water and enjoy all the beautiful flowers that are out at the moment including this amazing fuschia:
The GeeTAG group held their Christmas party on December 10th which I wasn’t able to attend, but Marilyn very kindly picked up my little pudding parcel for our stitching KK and dropped a new parcel back to me. The idea was to prepare a parcel of textile goodies in a colour scheme that could be used to create our last postcard (or book page) of the year.
I received a huge parcel in return and did curse the sender a little as I sat and unravelled all the threads and ironed all the sari silk pieces. However it did give me time, as I sorted and bagged everything up, to think about the bits and pieces and what sort of postcard I would make from them. I think I have channelled the thoughts of the giver.
I used inktense sticks to colour the background, which was cut from the calico bag the parcel came in. There was an organza star embellished sleeve included which became the stars in the night sky. There was an interesting piece of natural dyed cotton which became the stable.
The Magi is in progress: I will hand embellish all the beautiful sari silk pieces and other little treasures onto the pelmet vilene before hand stitching in place.
Also trying to get a few christmas gifts made in between naps.
TAST 2016
I am finally getting around to posting the first four stitches of TAST 2016.
Stitch number 1 for 2016 (but 24 on the total list) is interlaced cable chain. It sounds complicated but was easy to get the hang of and is a great filler stitch. I preferred the effect of lacing every stitch in one direction rather than every second stitch and then reversing to go back through again. My sampler fabric is some ‘mop up’ cotton over calico and the thread used is a variety of perle and crochet cottons.
Interlaced cable chain
Stitch number 25 is twisted chain and makes up the edging of the next leaf. I have stitched close together (rope stitch) and I love the texture of this using Perle 5. In the centre I have used stitch number 26, Arrow stitch, using perle 8, perle 5 and a lovely metallic cord.
Stitch number 27 is Bonnet stitch using perle 8. I found it difficult to get even stitching around the curves of the foot shape, hopefully this would improve with practice as I like the spiky effect.
Bonnet stitch
Catch up fabric swaps and ATC’s
This will be a double month catch up.
Generally I need to wait a few weeks to ensure the overseas fabric swaps (through Ning group Stitchin Fingers) have reached their destination before publishing details – I’d hate to be a spoiler of the great surprises we get when we open our envelopes. However, quite often I forget to take photos before popping them in the envelopes!
May prompt was ‘sewing altered’, a very broad range of techniques were possible. I decided to have a go at insertion lace using machine stitching and dissolvable. Strips of sari silk were pieced together before rinsing out the dissolvable and then machine stitching dyed cocoon strips resulting in a very landscape like piece of fabric. This result also inspired me to decide on making an entry for Bery Patchwork’s “Kimberley Dreaming’ exhibition.
June’s ATC theme was brown paper and foil so that also became my June fabric swap as well as it was a free choice.
“The brown paper bag is the only thing civilized man has produced that does not seem out of place in nature.” Tom Robbins
The ATC was created using the info in the tutorial from Sue Bleiwiess on making a brown paper journal.
http://www.artcampforwomen.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/07/paperbagjournal1.pdf
The brown paper was painted, crumpled a few times, rubbed with stamp pads, foiled and vliesofixed to tea dyed calico. The surface was FME’d using metallic threads.
The handles from the brown paper bags were also thrown into the tea dye bucket and then manipulated into celtic knots before being hand-stitched in place. Finally spangles were hand stitched in place.
I made enough of the brown paper ‘leather’ to also send off to my fabric ‘swapees’.
July ATC theme was the Australian Bush.
Although we are not living in the Aussie bush, our property is in a rural area which includes much native vegetation, as well as close proximity to a nature reserve (over the paddocks).
Within our boundaries I try to retain some ‘wild’ areas as habitat and protection for the many native creatures that share our home- skinks, blue tongue lizards and echidnas as well as myriad visiting birds and insects.
For this ATC I chose to depict our resident echidna, whom we unfortunately don’t spot all that often. The techniques include drawing/washing colour with inktense crayons, FME and hand embroidery.
Painting the echidnas
Now working on finishing my July/August fabric swaps: printing and another free choice plus August ATC swap: ‘chair’. All of these are at advanced stages and should be ready to send off by the end of next week.
New work, no photos
Hmmm, I seem to always forget to take photos before I send off finished work. I have decided I must get into the habit, as out of sight, out of mind and I forget totally about them!
On Friday I posted off my flag to India Flint’s ‘solace’ project, I used the sleeve of an Op shop linen shirt to cut out the flag shape and embroidered my words in silk/wool thread from Beautiful silks. The button and buttonhole were very handy for attaching the ties. There is still time to participate, here.
I have also sent off my finished dragon for Dijanne Cevaal’s Medieval Project. This is currently on display in Nantes, France and will also be on display in Australia.
I do, however have some photos from other exploits and stitching.
Over the Easter holiday break, Claudia and I headed off for a few days to the Dandenongs and Melbourne. I have not been to the Dandenongs for at least 25 years. We stayed at a great BnB in Olinda:
View from our BnB bedroom window
We stopped in Sassafrass on the way for lunch and a browse and also enjoyed the quirky shops in Olinda. There were a couple of great pubs in Mt Dandenong for evening meals, Claudia was in heaven in the vintage shop there as well. Within very close proximity to our accommodation we visited many gardens including Cloudehill– $10 entry and not very friendly or helpful but lovely gardens, RJ Hamer Arboretum, which was a wonderfully quiet walk among the trees, William Ricketts Sanctuary with all his magnificent sculptured carvings, the National Rhododendron Garden which was glorius in autumn colours and by far our favourite, Alfred Nicholas Gardens in Sherbrooke which were a wonderful walk along terraced paths but unfortunately the famous ponds were drained for maintenance works and the Karwarra Australian plant garden which was quite small but had a good range of native plants for sale.
We could easily return for another few days to visit all the gardens we missed out on seeing. I highly recommend a trip in autumn, a beautiful, mild weather time for travelling and viewing all the beautiful gardens.
Autumn colour Olinda
We stopped in Melbourne on the way back to see a few exhibits including the excellent ‘Exquisite Threads English Embroidery 1600’s – 1900’s’ at the NGV.
I loved the embroidery with Australian native flowers on this gown.
NGV
Last weekend our branch of the Embroiderer’s Guild held a little exhibition at Wintergarden for the Heritage Festival. We were asked to contribute a postcard on the ANZAC theme of ‘care and compassion’, this is mine here:
I used offcuts from the aforementioned Dragon embroidery fused to pelmet vilene to form the cross, symbolising the amazing work done by the nurses during the war (there is also a great exhibition at the National Wool museum detailing many of the contributions of women during WW1 which I visited last weekend). This was covered with organza printed with a map of Flanders in France taken from my Great Uncle’s Atlas published in 1920. I added the FME of a mixing bowl and spoon, some silk, organza and beaded poppies and some hand dyed wool knitted on the little chopstick knitting needles with painted air dry clay on the ends.
Now I am heading out to the ‘studio’ to finish off:
1. ATC’s for swap with Guild
2. Indigo dyeing for fabric swap
3. Pink trophy for Cancer fundraiser netball game
4. Notebook cover (below) for the stall at our bi-annual exhibition in October
Embellishment to be added, patterned Japanese fabric will be the lining
ATC and tiling
My November ATCs for the EGV swap have been received so here is the process I followed. The theme was music so I did an image search for soundwaves and came up with several stimulus photos. I had fabric from a resist dyeing challenge which had great patterning.
The fabric was ironed onto pelmet vilene and then FME with three different metallic threads to form the soundwaves
Next step was hand stitch, using a lovely hand dyed perle and space dyed silk perle. The stitch is Sharon Boggon’s TAST Beaded barbed stitch.
To complete I added ‘speakers’ using buttons and a buttonhole stitch covered washer.
The backing was formatted in text box on a word doc and printed onto canvas.
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