Looking around Slough

It has taken me a long time to get started, I have explored several different ideas. One of the first was the Mars factory, the chocolate bars and the M&Ms in particular. But I got to the end of that road and started looking around again. I came across the Slough Trading Estate logo, very strong geometric in two colours - red and white. What caught my attention was the the round hole in the square blocks, how this hole framed the view and the view was constantly changing. But what really caught my imagination was that at times it almost looked like a dream catcher! So that's where I am at the moment, catching dreams on Slough Trading Estate!
Merete

Looking through some of my hand dyed fabric, I came across a piece that didn't really appeal, but which reminded me of autumn trees. I decided to "go" for it, and cut a section out that I felt looked like trees against a sky. The really green section was also cut out, turned on its side, and became the forground with grass and shadows. I had some other hand dyed cotton tucked away, in pinky orangy browns, and decided to use strips of this for forground trees. That's as far as I've got, but will continue to work on this piece to see what can be achieved.

I felt like playing....having fun, and wasn't too bothered about the outcome! I collected lots of leftover bits from other projects and "trial" pieces, jiggled them about to make a pleasing arrangement, and filled in the gaps with bits of hand dyed or silk painted fabric. These were all placed over some wadding, and then I quilted them down, and  covered the joins with black/purple wool which was machine couched down to cover the joins. Not a work of art by a long stretch, but enjoyable, and it has given me an idea for a future project!

I wish I'd taken a photo of the screen I made to print this. It's "breakdown" printing, and something I think I'm going to be doing a lot more of. I dropped lots and lots of elastic bands onto a sheet of clingfilm, placed my screen over the top, spooned print paste in two colours, petrol blue and golden yellow into the well, and then pulled my squeegee across four or five times to make sure the paste had really penetrated through the mesh. I carefully pulled off the clingfilm, but left the elastic bands on the screen so that the dye paste could dry giving me lots of texture. When it was ready, I used the print paste in it's natural colour, and pulled the paste through the screen onto dry, pre-soda soaked cotton until the screen had no colour left. You may be able to see from the photos, how each print has varied in depth of colour. Not sure what I'll do with these panels yet, but I do quite like the results

Starting with birds

Some research towards my piece - bird silhouettes and flocks. I recently found the Christmas card, made about 20 years ago.

The piece is based on the Bird Tree by Guiseppe Lund, and on the poem by Mohammad Hoghugi:

The distant cloud takes to its wings from light.
The flock of the sky birds take to their wings.
I take my wings from rapture.

stitching samplers

When we saw the handling collection boxes, the stitching samplers were quite interesting. I thought of them when I saw this at my sister's house recently.

maybe it will inspire an idea to follow as a take off on the sampler idea? This was something she bought  - made to look like an old sampler. I am sure this thought went through many a little girl's mind while she worked!

Taplow Vase- A secret book ?

 In my sketchbook for Art Co-op Sketchbook Project I did a double page spread for each month in 2010 so for November I wanted to illustrate  what we did in the last TVCQ meeting : making books and discussing ideas for the exhibition. Having already chosen the 'Taplow Vase' and interested in combining multiple viewpoints, I scribbled some outlines on a piece of tracing paper and folded it in 'secret book' format.

Love the results and  and currently trying different organdies , printing , drawing and stitching to see what happens.

Doll Corset

I have a bit of time this week, so I wanted to make some headway on my piece for this project.

I had already stitched up a sample of thread possiblilites and labeled it. Before Christmas, I tried doing a bit more stitching, but not really knowing where I was going, it didn't come to much.

One of the ideas I came away with after discussion at the last TVCQ meeting was about presentation. I didn't really want to do flat like a quilt, but I want to do Big. (Mind you, 'Big' in my perspective is probably not so big when it comes to the quilts some people make!) Someone suggested something which in my mind was translated to a sort of basket shape with the "corset" covering it. - well, not really a basket, but that is close to the image in my head at the minute.

As I have been thinking further,I like the scrips and scraps effect of the sample I made. Perhaps why the second piece I started didn't motivate me.

So, I came up with the idea of a Large corset with the stitched scrips and scraps adhered to it.

SO, in order to do that, I need the large corset shape. Yesterday I downloaded instructions from Drea Leeds site which has a Custom Corset generator. It is for a Tudor corset, but I have the photos of the dolls corsets to go by for shaping and for the boning areas. These doll corsets were not built with the hourglass shape, so the Tudor corset is a good start.
To use the custom corset generator, you have to type in measurements. I looked in my pattern drafting book (Winifred Aldrich - Metric Pattern Cutting) and used the largest size on the standard measurement chart. The corset generator uses inches, so I used my measuring tape to translate from metric to inches and filled in the form on the website which then was printed out to get the instructions for drafting it.

Today, I drafted the corset. I drew in "boning lines"...adding to what was on the dolls corset, as they needed less being small and also because they were only for shaping a cloth doll body. The placement and shape of the curve may change, but it gives me an idea.

So, now I have the pattern. It needs to be cut on the fold at the centre front, so this is half the pattern. I had thought to use organza for a bit of fragility, but the scrips and scraps will serve to give that idea. I think I will use calico because it will need that extra support.
I hope to use thick cording for the boning, but in reference to the reeds in one of the corsets, will use sticks for some parts which will then be used stuck into a base to mount the piece.

or at least those are the ideas at this stage - the whole of it might get even larger, but it is easier to make large when you have the shape to start with and if you are not actually worrying about fitting a human.

Making a start

I took as my starting point some sketches that I made at St Lawrence's Church, Upton and St Mary's Church, Slough.

I took a photo of the blue piece above and then manipulated it in Photoshop by copying it and combining several copies in different layers.

I enlarged a portion of this and made a collage.

Having made some books at the last meeting I experimented with some different shaped books including this one.

I have an idea of making an icon incorporating pieces of scrap - plastic, tops of wine bottles, anything else that I can find. This idea came to me whilst watching an episode of Time Team where they find pieces of discarded items which are now "treasure".

I plan to do some stitch samples next.