Fenland Textile Studio

This Blog is No Longer Being Updated

2015-06-16T22:14:00.003+01:00

I have decided to start a new blog attached to my website. Therefore, this blog is no longer being updated. You can find my new blog here.

Ailsa Craig Workshops

2014-06-07T22:01:00.001+01:00

Over the festival week all of the British tutors taught a wonderful range of workshops. As well as myself the wonderful Jennie Rayment, Paula Doyle and Gillian Travis taught and lectured.

I of course had to teach some woad workshops and the woad fabric successfully found its way over the ocean. These lovely and talented ladies (who were brave enough to stand before the camera) made up some large blocks (32" square) after considering the many design possibilities of half square triangles.

Maria made her block to measure 24" but still as effective.

On the only rainy day of the week I taught a dyeing from the kitchen cupboard workshop. We did this in the picnic area which was under cover. Thankfully everyone was well bundled up against the cold. It was a bit like camping though as the closer you stood to the camping stoves the warmer you got. We did have a good time dyeing fabric and threads a range of colours.

The results of a tulip petal bundle are below

The talented and brave ladies below signed up for a half day paper bird workshop.

This is a fun workshop and most people get to finish a wall hanging in a half day. You leave without a UFO!

Finally my favourite photo - a selfie take by Paula Doyle with Jennie in the middle and me on the left.

Ailsa Craig Community Quilt Festival - part 1

2014-05-26T12:38:00.001+01:00

This past week I have been honoured to be teaching at the Ailsa Craig Community Quilt festival in Ailsa Craig, Canada which has featured stunning quilts and teachers from Great Britian. I was joined by Paula Doyle, Jennie Rayment and Gillian Travis alongside Quilters Guild of the British Isles trustees and presidents past and present (Tina and Vivien)

The organisation has been fantastic and we have been treated like royalty. The whole village support the quilt show and quilts are hung in all the shops. The day before the show opened they have quilt airing which is quilts hung outside houses.

I taught a full week of workshops including one outside which despite being on the coldest and wettest day went really well.

I may have it written into my contracts back in the UK that limo transfer is preferred. This was the British girls by the limo before we headed out to Lake Huron and a talk by Jennie at a local Guild there. Visits to Quilt Shops are essential when in a different part of the world and the image below is The Marsh Quilt Store which is an amazing building.

I will finish this post with an image of the "Man Cave" , this was just outside the quilt venue in the car park for ladies to leave their men with magazines and hot drinks. There were however lots of interested men walking around the show. The covered picnic area where I taught my dyeing workshop was just behind this.

Swimming along nicely

2014-02-16T17:41:00.002+00:00

I feel a bit like a swan, I am gliding along and under the surface - the part you don't see is paddling furiously to keep up! Lots has been happening here since my last blog post some good, some not so good which has meant some things have had to be put on the back burner. I'm not making any promises to blog every week but will at least try and keep the blog up to date.

Two really exciting things are happening this year. In May I am off to Canada to teach at the Ailsa Craig Community Quilt Festival. I am really looking forward to this and have started to dye up all the woad fabric ready for the workshops. I am teaching two woad workshop using the versatile half square triangle block. I am giving a lecture in natural dyeing and teaching some mixed media workshops combining magazine papers and fabrics for small wall hanginging. I am also teaching a natural dyeing workshop outside so the heavy snow and freezing temperatures will have improved by May.

This year the talented Linda Seward is launching her new book. The Ultimate Guide to Art Quilt Techniques. I was happy to advise on the section about natural dyeing and will have a piece of my work in the book (how exciting is that) I believe that it is being launched in England at Festival of quilts in Birmingham in August 2014. From the limited pages that I have seen it is going to be a fantastic "how to" manual covering so many techniques.

In a shameless plug there are just two paces left for a procion dyeing workshop I'm teaching next month at my studio (12th March) It is aimed at all levels and all dye and dye chemicals are provided. Anyone want to join me? Check out the website for more details.

A blue week.

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A few weeks ago (where does the time go?) some lovely ladies spent a week at the studio working with woad. Woad is a plant whose leaves have been used to create a blue dye from Neolithic times.

We dipped.

And tied.

Unwrapped.

And hung things out to dry.

There was homework with fabrics and laces to rinse and wash .

The studio assistant was very bored as we were so busy.

Transported Art - Boston and South Holland

2013-09-02T08:39:00.001+01:00

Transported Art is a strategic, community-focused programme which aims to get more people in Boston Borough and South Holland enjoying and participating in arts activities. It is funded by the Creative People and Places fund from Arts Council England.

Since its launch in May 2013 there have been an amazing assortment of artists working within this funded programme to get people to engage in art activities. There has been music, dance, museums, mosaics stained glass, photography, knitting, choirs and so much more. I was selected to be one to the artists involved in delivering workshops as part of the consultancy event and last month in the two pop up shops in Boston and Holbeach.

The plan was to travel around the two areas with some hand crank singer sewing machines so everyone could have a go from the very young to the very young at heart! I decided to use woad to dye fabric to make the bags and corsages from. This is a traditional plant dye grown in northern climates which gives a blue colour and has been used for thousands of years. Woad was grown in Boston and South Holland until the 1930's. Throughout the programme so many people came up and told me their woad memories. Memories of Grandparents working in the woad fields, making woad balls, sitting on the horse used to pull the grinding stones as it was led away at the end of the day and memories of the devastation of a compulsory purchase order of farm land used to grow woad by the local council.

I went to music festivals, bird reserves, markets, school fetes and into already established groups.

The machines behaved themselves, the youngest was from1921, the oldest from 1913! Just like with the woad the sewing machines evoked strong memories in people. One man told me he had used a hand crank sewing machine during WW2 to mend uniforms. This got me thinking that all of my sewing machines had lived through the war, they have seen different sewing styles, and just how many people have turned the wooden crank to initiate sewing. Many people spoke of wedding dresses being make by hand crank or treadle sewing machines and lots of memories of playing with Grandma's button tin.

Throughout my project over 300 people made bags or corsages. I was thrilled when two young girls came up to me who had made bags a few weeks before when I was on Boston market. They had enjoyed using the machines so much that they had bought one from a carboot sale and had already made bags and cushions using tutorials from the Internet.

The machines were transported by car.

And sometimes by trolley.

The machines are now back in the studio for new needles and maybe a tiny bit of oil before their next adventure.

Festival of Quilts 2013

2013-08-19T11:52:00.001+01:00

I have finally done my unpacking from Birmingham and thought I'd share a few images. It was fantastic to meet so many people and have all my workshops full. It always amazes me how universal the language of stitch is no matter what the spoken language.

I was in the fashion show this year and made two outfits. The first was a representation of the local landscape. It was dyed with daffodils (the skirt), red cabbage and weld (the tunic)

The second outfit (and my favourite) was this woad dress. It was made from a burda pattern which had to be tweaked to fit my quirky body.

This was an image from Stitch for Texture which was a machine quilting workshop. We were lucky enough to have new Brother Sewing machines to work with. I forgot to take any images of completed samples though.

I taught two Design for Stitch using an iPad workshops, this was one of the designs from Sundays workshop. This is being taught again at my studio in Spalding on October 19th and there is one place left.

Finally two mixed media book making workshops. This are only an hour long yet a lot is packed in. I'm teaching this at the Knitting and Stitching Show in London in October. See you there!

From Within by Textile Lincs

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Words and pictures

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These are two of the photos that were missing from my last blog post. Despite all my good intentions I have found it hard to maintain blogging. DS2 has been very ill and we have been on a series of tests to try and find out what is wrong.

This was Zoe below making her cushion. I have no idea why blogger did not let me show these images.

Zoe, her sister Veronica and mum Ann outside the studio with their cushions.

At the start of May something exciting happened in Boston and South Holland. Can you guess where I was?

Making cushions

2013-04-30T09:03:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago I had three very talented ladies in the studio who all made a cushion out of a shirt. Two of them had only bad memories of using a sewing machine at school whilst their mum had using a sewing machine before for dress making.As Zoe had a "bucket list" and on that was making a cushion I was determine that she should go home with something she was proud of.

We discussed techniques and Ann decided to make a nine patch cushion front whilst Zoe and Veronica made raw edge appliqué cushions. The shirt front became the back of the cushion so we did not have to worry about fastenings.

Zoe drew out her own flower and then managed to sew around the edge accurately using both a hand and electric machine. Veronica decided to put a bird sitting on a branch onto her cushion front.

These were the completed cushions below. You can't see the tiny bird legs that Veronica stitched under her bird but she had excellent control of her sewing machine.

I was so pleased to show that sewing is not a scary thing to do but too many people seem to have very negative experiences that come from school. The best part of the day was when everyone said that they had to confidence to go and make another one at home.

You can read all about Zoe's day here

Walks, woad and books

2013-03-22T16:05:00.002+00:00

I have been a little bit neglectful of this blog recently. I must admit that I have been keeping Fenland Textile Studios page on facebook more up to date. If you want to follow me this way you can find me by clicking here

Things have been very busy and I took time off to take May for a long walk and to collect my thoughts. I live in the flat Fens and near to The Haven River. This river flows out into the North Sea and you can follow it all the way out until the land gives way to sea and marsh. I feature sky a lot in my work and walks like this let me study the sky. About an hour into the walk though we picked up a little dog. No owner, no collar just a little face looking up at us. He followed us for another 30 minutes until I turned round and then stayed with us until the car some ninety minutes later. I ended up putting him into the back of the car and driving to my local vet. I called this morning and the dog was microchipped. He had been missing for four weeks and was waiting for his owners to collect him. A good deed done!

On Monday I used a woad vat that had been simmering for a few days. I have some commissions to do and needed to dye some fabrics, especially white on white patterns for some workshop kits. For the past two weeks I have had an extremely good work experience student with me so we have made up kits for Festival of Quilts and the Autumn Knit and Stitch shows. I now need to put them in a safe place!

It is not very clear but the drips are falling onto some rag paper which I think I will use in card making or book making.

Last weekend I was at Olympia in London for The Spring Knit and Stitch Show. It was lovely to meet lots of new people in my workshops and around the show. The book below was made by a little girl who did it all by herself, we only helped with the iron bit. A definite start of the future!

Market Rasen Plank Festival 2013

2013-02-24T19:13:00.001+00:00

Just before half term I ventured north towards Market Rasen. I had been asked to do a school workshop as part of the month long arts festival in the town.

I worked with children from Year One to Year Six and all were very keen and enthusiastic. In the morning the children printed circle shapes with a range of lids. One very talented girl realised that she could mono print onto the lid before printing.

After a frantic drying session over lunch time the older children began to tie the layers together using buttons. There was something very satisfying about watching eleven year old's sorting through button boxes and picking out their favourites. All the children were so polite and really helped each other with things like needle threading. A great day was had by all. (Sorry I am not sure why blogger is insisting on having all the images at the end of the post)

Starting again

2013-01-23T22:33:00.000+00:00

Life has been pretty manic here with lots of hospital appointments with DS2, stitching teaching samples, Christmas... Well you get the idea. Today the quilt group met up in the studio as last week we had to cancel because of the snow. A very good friend came over this afternoon and the studio got a much needed spring clean and sort out (thank you Jackie).

There has been snow on the ground for the past ten days.

Last week there were some spectacular sun sets, this is the view from the window. By the end of the week there was fog.

No stitch photos but I want to introduce May to you. She is a cocker spaniel and has been with us for an amazing ten days. Today was her first time at the quilt group and she behaved impeccably.

I have no idea why one photo can be seen from the laptop yet when I view the blog from my iPad it just says photo. JPG. Anyone any ideas??

A bit of this and that.

2012-11-10T22:13:00.001+00:00

I am slowly catching up on things and thought I would share some. I have been doing quite a bit of dyeing for commissions and my own work. I love this fabric below which was wrapped in madder root and then steamed. It is much more red in the flesh!

Six weeks ago several ladies started a beginner sampler quilt course at the studio. The quilt below is Claire's first one and she also machine quilted it. The photo really doesn't do this Amy Butler fabric justice. There was also more contrast in the actual quilt than shows here.

These two pieces, both using naturally dyed fabrics have been in an exhibition at a local gallery.

For what ever reason (probably the photographer!) my camera doesn't seem to be giving clear images. This Blue "woad" Bells wall hanging was hand and machine stitched using woad dyed fabrics. It doesn't matter how many times I have made up a woad vat it is still smelly. No wonder Queen Elizabeth 1st passed a law requiring any woad factory to not be near a royal palace.

Today was spent at the studio making up kits for The Knitting and Stitching Show at Harrogate in two weeks. DS joined me to revise for some GCSE's that start soon. I had to be very quiet but I did get lots done.

By the end of the day I had 64 completed kits and just 32 to finish.

Stitching onwards

2012-11-04T19:24:00.001+00:00

You know how things happen, a phone call, someone telling you something and them life just seems to fall apart. Well that was five weeks ago and I'm back. I still have some appointments with DS2 at the local hospital to see a consultant and then decisions to be made.

I have been doing lots of teaching over the past weeks both at the studio and around the country. I had a fantastic time at The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace. Both stitched origami book workshops were full and it was good to see some stitched up in the hour. If you are going to The Knitting and Stitching show at Harrogate in a few weeks I think there are a few spaces left for this workshop. I am teaching six workshops across three days so lots of kits to make up.

There has been a sampler quilt class at the studio for the past six weeks. I just love seeing how the same block looks in different fabrics. Karen's quilt is at the top and Claire's below.

My very talented group who meet at a Children's Centre have been playing with Shibori techniques. I'm sure that I took some of the dyed fabrics but can't find them at the moment!

I have also completed some stitched landscapes using woad and other bits left over from my larger landscape that went to Festival. I am off to see the exhibition tomorrow so will hope to take some photos. If you are fairly local to Lincolnshire it is at The Carre Gallery in Sleaford.

Sorry......

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be back soon.

Spurn Point

2012-09-23T21:05:00.001+01:00

There was a lot of creativity in the studio last week. I will share this in a later post though as yesterday I went somewhere magical to primarily see an exhibition by Alice Fox.

We travelled north over the Humber Bridge,

turned east and kept driving until we reached the sea. Spurn Point is a coastal reserve, 3 1/2 metres long and very very narrow in parts. It stretches out into the mouth of the river Humber and is now a Nature Reserve. The sea defences are eroding rapidly and you can see just how much they are breaking down and crumbling. The image below came from google.

The exhibition was in the old lighthouse. This was built in 1895 and closed in 1985. It is normally not open to the public.

I lost count of how many curving steps there were up to the top of the lighthouse but the views were stunning. This is looking out to the end of the Point.

Looking the other way, you can just see the skinny strip of land between the sea that (on a good day) you can drive on.

The lighthouse provided an amazing backdrop to Alice's work. She kept a blog about her time as artist in residence here. There are lots of photos of her work and the lighthouse.

I had permission to share some images of her work. This piece was 10 metres long and hand dyed using rusty metal found on the beach and wrapped round groynes. Some of it had been submerged by the tide.

Alice dyed silks and cottons. All the colours of her framed work, handmade books and larger Spurn Cloth just seemed to compliment the colours found within the lighthouse. I know from my own rust dyed fabrics that you just do not know the colours that will finally come out. Alice has published a short book detailing her time as artist in residence at Spurn Point. It has wonderful images of her work, Spurn Point and extracts from her diary. If you didn't get to her exhibition and are interested I think that you could contact her to buy this.

Just to prove just how fragile the beach is, these show just how close the tankers are as they travel in to port.

After visiting the exhibition we walked from the lighthouse right round the point which is when I took the two photos above, It was such a magical place, and you could really sense the power of nature especially when you turned onto the side facing the North Sea. The gentle waves on the estuary side became more wild, crashing into the already crumbling sea defences from the North Sea.

Indigo Blues

2012-09-09T08:33:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the sun shone on the Indigo workshop. As I arrived at the studio the grapes looked so enticing, real vibrant shades of green against the blue sky.

The Indigo workshop teaches you how to make up your own synthetic Indigo vat which can be used for both animal and plant fibres. You make up a bucket vat and a smaller jar vat. This is one of my favourite workshops to teach as I demystify the magical process of making up an indigo vat. If you have never seen fibres change from yellow/green to blue as they oxidise then come and do a workshop with me to join in with the magic.

This is Jackie with the bucket Vat.

As the day progressed the washing lines filled up.

I love the texture that Lis has got on this fabric with vertical and horizontal grids.

As well as fibres, the vat will also dye buttons, shells and other treasures. This collection belonged to Lis.

Pat and Kate did several pieces using a range of shibori techniques.

In the image above there is a subtle difference between the two dyed fabrics. The one on the lower right hasn't fully oxidised.

This is always a popular workshop and there are just four places available. The next Indigo workshop is on Saturday 20th April 2013. Contact me if you would like more information or book a place.

September.

2012-09-08T22:41:00.002+01:00

It has been a very busy Summer holidays which started with my Summer School.

A few weeks later was Festival of Quilts and below is DS's prize winning quilt.

I really enjoy teaching at Festival and having the opportunity to meet up with many friends. I took lots of photos of quilts but do not have any permission to share any on this blog. The bird house's below is one of the children's workshops designed by Karen.

After being back a day we travelled down to Devon for a week at the cottage. At this point the weather changed a little but we still managed some beach days.

DS took lots of photos in preparation for his GCSE photography course,

I did still have time for a little dyeing with some weld.

Yesterday there was a very successful landscape workshop using transfer dyes at the studio. Today the sun shone as we played with indigo vats. I will post more on that tomorrow.

Festival of Quilts 2012

2012-08-18T22:40:00.001+01:00

I have been in Birmingham at Festival of Quilts since Thursday. I have just one more Quick and Easy session to teach then a little shopping.

Hopefully a photo of my quilt is attached which has hung relatively ok. The best news though.is that DS won third prize for his quilt. More to post once I am home.

Concours d'elegance

2012-08-05T22:25:00.002+01:00

Well I didn't want to keep you guessing for long! I was making a concours d'elegance costume for a friends daughter. I would be the first to say that I do not really work in 3D nor dress make but I was really happy with how it turned out.

This is Archie who was going to be ridden for the first time in this competition. Archie is a bit of a pro though as he has won lots of rosettes when ridden by Jake (Bryony's brother)

The pink fabric became a skirt, the table became a "pretend horse" when I checked for measurements.

Nothing like the real thing though. Archie was very patient as we tried on the skirt as it had to fit under Bryony's feet and over his tail. On this picture I hadn't sewn on the grey trim. The grey and pink were chosen to match a riding hat.

This is the completed costume. There is grey trim along the edge of the skirt and some lead curtain weights just to make sure that it didn't blow up and spook a pony.

She is wearing a grey military style jacket which was "doctored" I added grey trim along the collar and at the cuffs and neck a blouse was cut up for extra ruffs. To top it off she had a pink cravat made from the skirt fabric and wore my cream leather driving gloves . She looked very elegant.

I even managed to teach her mum, and my friend Fliss how to make a corsage. I made one for Bryony's hair and Fliss is making one to be attached to Archie's bridle.

This is Bryony at the show today. She came 5th in her first ridden show.

An idea

2012-08-04T08:52:00.002+01:00

You know how an idea starts? That first thought, the what if? Could it be achieved? Well I started something new which involved -

Six metres of pink fabric, pink and grey trims, seven metres of lead curtain weights and a pony!

Can you guess? Just off to complete this project and then I will share.

And Finally...

2012-08-04T08:39:00.003+01:00

After a full week of putting colour into fabric on the last day we looked at discharging colour. these three products were used, Finish dishwasher detergent (5% bleaching agent), Jacquard discharge paste and deColourant paste. All three looked identical in the pots (thick white paste) so on the initial samples some very clever ladies wrote F, J, D (why had I never thought of that?)

Discharging colour from fabrics is never an exact science and as predicted some fabrics discharged at quite a fast pace whilst others remained dark.

You can discharge colour from any fabric, it doesn't have to be black or navy. This dark burgundy below was printed on with a shell stamp to remove the colour.

After playing with the pastes and a magnificent faith lunch organised by the students we moved upstairs to make a quick sketchbook cover.

They were all fantastic and this one made by Wendy shows off some of her shibori painted fabrics. Blogger has just turned this sideways so just tilt your head!

If you want to join me next year for a week of dyEing, painting and creating your own unique and individual fabrics then just contact me for more information.

Summer School - Day Three & Four

2012-08-03T08:32:00.000+01:00

Day three and the sun continued to shine. We explored a relatively new product called cold water batik wax. This looks a little bit like PVA glue and was able to be brushed and stamped onto cotton

Once dry, which was very quick today we painted over the top with procion dyes.

These pieces were steam fixed to both set the colour and melt the wax.

Wednesday afternoon saw everyone painting their own threads to be used in future projects with fabric paints.

Thursday was painted shibori. We used a pole wrapped technique and then applied fabric paints for some stunning results.

Everyone created so many fabulous pieces of work that a longer washing line was needed. This just doesn't show the colours achieved.

In the afternoon we explored the effects of adding fabric paint to a stitched and quilted surface.

Summer School Day Two

2012-07-31T21:34:00.001+01:00

Last Tuesday was another hot day and we managed to again be outside. This time we used transfer or disperse dyes. These are dyes that are painted onto paper and then ironed onto polycotton or synthetic fabrics. The heat transfers the dyes and you end up with much brighter results than you get on the paper.

We used the painted papers to make some book covers for some hand stitched books.

The books below were made by Wendy. I love her skinny book with a pencil attached.

Day three tomorrow.