textiles

Colour, textiles, art – Sheila Hicks

I’ve already posted an article on Sheila Hicks earlier in 2017, but I just came across fresh evidence of her adventurous colour palette and soft touchy-feely art.  There’s a playful inviting fun in her Venice Biennale giant pompoms – see this 3 minute video:

 

and her simple but gorgeous wall piece in a formal company meeting room:

As you approach the work, you begin to see great subtlety in the range of coloured threads used – what looks like a block of the same colour becomes a mix, as you see it up close.

Advertisements

Time travel to Jane Austen – the Fashion Museum, Bath

The museum setting includes the Assembly Rooms in Bath – which often occur in scenes of Jane Austen novels.  At the same time, you can view the typical outfits which would have been worn at that time, in the museum.

Bonuses also include:

First Saturday of each month 10-30-12.30     Sketching morning (free with museum ticket – sktechbook and pencil supplied)

Second Saturday of month – 10-12midday Bath Knitting and Crochet Guild (free)

 

Tapestry kits – sew there!

I have a few of these tapestry kits still to do – well, one nearly finished, and two to, em, completely start.  But as they are kits, all the material and the wool to cover it is there.  Right there, ready for me.

So I really don’t need another kit.  Like this one I’ve just spotted – dang!

“Fireworks” by Sholto Dumlanrig  (this pic even better than the one in the catalogue as the yellow pom pom edging really makes it pop – by Sarah James.

C2ke0CWWQAMP3aC.jpg

 

So just to be sensible, I went to see if it was on reduced price in the sales section…. that didn’t help, because then I met other reduced price kits by Kaffe Fassett (the crab), Julie Arkell (the cow jumped over the moon), the classic tonal Shells on the Sand (Kaffe again).

Crab-cutout-173.jpg  Cow-Jumped-Over-Moon-173.jpgShells-on-the-SandNew-173.jpg

 

No, Mr Ehrman, today I resist the temptation.  But after I’ve finished those 3 cushion covers may be another story….

After all, there are colouring in books everywhere for adults, so why not the colouring-in with needle and yummy wool shades?

 

 

Creation and other designs – Alex Beattie (8 mins)

Alex Beattie is a needlework designer of tapestry kits – although coming from a background of illustration.

What I love most about both designing and stitching is the fact that you’re working with pure colour. There’s no mixing or preparation – it’s bright, jewel-like wools sewn straight on to the canvas. There’s also something wonderful about the simplicity of it. You take a handful of colours and a grid of (say) 150 by 150 stitches, and from that you create a whole story. In many ways it’s the limitations themselves which make the end product so elegant. Needlepoint as haiku.

Screen shot 2017-02-06 at 00.51.51.png Day 1Day-2-The-Firmament.jpg Day 2

Everything connects

Magie Hollingworth pops up again (see former post on 2nd Feb), with another delightfully thought-inspiring short video.

She trained in fine art, began making embroidered gifts for friends, developed tapestry design (which she finds “addictive”) and loves making papier mache as she hates throwing paper or anything out.

Sitting surrounded by her studio, she is able to point out how her shaped recycled paper sculptures link with her canvaswork and even the clothes she is wearing.

As an artist, she works intensively for a couple of weeks in one medium, then feels ready for a change and switches to another – or sometimes varies it in the same day.  But then finds the connections between what she is working on.