stitching texture...

as you will have gathered by now my dear patient readers I spend as much time as possible sewing, stitching, machine embroidering, creating, playing with fabrics and generally having a wonderful time...(housework what housework?!).. even better is teaching a machine embroidery Workshop and I thought I'd just share a little of what we covered at a recent one...looking at creating a textured surface...

I had 4 lovely and very creative souls with me, interestingly the Universe had kindly organised they were all students...one doing GCSE, two at A'level and one doing an Open COllege of Arts Textile course...amazing synchronicity!

as usual the immaculate studio prepared for my workshopees quickly bcomes a creative brouhaha...what a great word that is, no idea what it means but it seems to fit!

dear old bondaweb (ahem there are probably lots of other kinds of fusible fabric out there Ed)...that versatile "heat reactive, sheet of glue which permanently bonds one fabric to another when ironed"...aha but did you know it's really fun when you paint it? with watercolour, or acrylic or maybe fabric paint...

and then you can literally glue on texture by ironing on snippets of thread or fabric, then just add stitching...

mmm...pleased with these!

and then there's that weird stuff, Tyvek, described by Barnyarns as a "spun bonded polythene fabric that is non-toxic and accepts colour mediums, will shrink, bubble and distort when heated"...not half we say! Mind you it's not so good at the health and safety owing to fumes, so you must heat it outdoors. I don't personally use it a lot...but it is amazing...

here is some which has been painted

then heated...

stitched with snippets of fabric then zapped...

painted then stitched, you can see the fabric shrinking has distorted the stitching

On the whole though I prefer to use more fabric and stitch based ways and challenge my process and creativity to achieve the textures I want...

but it may still include some bondaweb...here used OVER lots of fabric snippets, ironed on then stitched...

and bondaweb underneath...

and there may still be some heating...I used to do this with a household paint stripper, all my degree work was done with me hanging around outside the door of my studio 'burning' my beautiful work with this device!

you'll be pleased to know I do now have a more specialised controllable heat 'appliance'...

eg for burning away a top fabric to reveal layers underneath...I have to experiment first to see which fabrics will melt away...

or for small pieces of fabric stitched on top and then burned away...so much delicious colour too...

you can see why I need a housekeeper, cleaner, gardener and cook...because doing this is just so much more fun!

Hope you've enjoyed the workshop...and maybe been inspired to have a go...

Emmax 

Friday night and I'm loving...

the cold weather, strangely, with air like a cool refreshing drink, real weather for October, no longer the warm Indian summer...the garden and hedgerows turning slowly to brown and bare, stripping everything for the winter's rest...

that being snug indoors is so welcome...after a blustery walk in the wind which clears your foggyness and gets the blood singing

that my studio is tranquil again after sharing for C-art with my oh so welcome friends and visitors, but now it's all mine to arrange how I wish, finding all my treasures after they were hidden away...and clearing out the bits and bobs I don't need or love any more ...so much easier when they're all neat in a box than spread out around all my tables...

that I had a workshop yesterday with 2 lovely ladies, helping 
them to be inspired and tap into their creativity, to get confident with free machining and playing with fabrics...and didn't they do well? 2 beautiful landscapes slowly emerged...

(please note usually an embroidery foot is used for free machining, but as neither had one they carefully stitched without a foot at all, obviously you must keep your fingers out of the way! also this doesn't go well with thicker fabrics, so they then used normal stitching witha foot on)

 

and it was a beautfully sunny day too with wonderful views over the fields and hills outside and inside a lovely view of art in the making!

 

first choose your fabrics, cut and lay out, pin then stitch...

hills and fields awaiting definition and detail...wait and see!

I do love a creative mess...fabrics, threads, books, samples, ideas, scraps...getting out the boxes of fabrics instantly brings life to the studio...making it a working space once more...

 

after a day's hard work here are Jennie and Sue's beautiful textile landscapes...  sorry don't think my photo gets the lovely dark blue shades of the velvet here so well, must be the moonlight!

hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Emmaxx

feeling orange...

must be something in the air...autumn is hinting it's here...misty mornings when you can't see the hills, a sense of peace and calm after the heady summer days, quiet birdsong, flowers still colouring the garden...but seedheads and dry grasses filling up the hedgerows...change is afoot 

and C-art has been amazing again, 2 weekends done and one still to look forward to...been so great being with Ian and Steph in the studio once more...making art and conversation

and I've taught 2 lovely machine embroidery workshops too...can't beat a little bit of furniture moving in the middle of C-art!

Stephanie has been printing away...I love watching the process of her inking and mark making and playing with line and texture...

from all these bits and bobs somehow in Steph's hands... magic happens...

and in between talking to all the lovely people, drinking tea and eating cake... I have been able to play with fabrics, thread and stitch...and I am glad that textiles and machine embroidery is what I do cos it's much easier to clean up than paint!

happy? I should say so! 

hope you have a lovely week...maybe you're feeling orange too?? 

Emmaxx

making waves...for C-art

where does the time go? sorry I haven't been here much, just had so much to do to get ready for C-art, strange how in a year my studio has filled up with so much stuff! Thank goodness for the beautiful clean new loft space above and a loft ladder...husband of great patience I salute you!It felt like moving house, but now we have room for 3 artists and room for lovely visitors...

The New Bookshop in Cockermouth is kindly hosting a C-artists window display...so thought I'd better rustle up something new...been feeling sea-ish since my return from Mull...

here's a run through of the 'how to create a wave' process...choose delicious fabrics, snip them up and lay them on a backing of old blue blanket, needle felt with my fab machine, then get free machine stitching with more stunning blues...now the tricky bit, turn into a tube, stitch up by hand...luckily it just fits on my machine so I can stitch over the joins to blend them in and afterwards the fun part adding a lacey wavy top using dissolvable fabric...

I do like a technical and artistic challenge...and actually I am pretty chuffed...it worked! 

By the way I am having a few issues leaving comments on your blogs since I changed my blog name, apologies, I do visit and love your blogs, I will try and sort it out..any ideas please let me know!

Havea great week, back with some C-arty pics I hope, have a great week Emmaxx