Ruth Issett - Crazy for Colour workshop

At the end of March, sixteen lucky ladies, textile artists, embroiderers, call themselves what they will, enjoyed two tingling days exploring colour alongside an expert: Ruth Issett. With Ruth’s tuition, guidance and encouragement, we stroked colour into cloth with brush and sponge and rolled print into the results.

On the first day, we worked with primary colours, applying colour to cloth with almost military precision, working with Procion MX dyes (mixed with solutions of urea and soda ash) and cloth made from natural plant fibres: silk, cotton and linen. When I first read Ruth’s book Colour on Cloth, some time ago, it all sounded so exotic, requiring unfamiliar chemicals in precise measured quantities but, like so many other processes, once the expert has taken you by the hand, all becomes possible. Gently mixing one colour into another, we bled them into the cloth, goddesses creating our own personal rainbows. Once we had investigated mixing the colours, discovering the range of hues and tones we could make, we were invited to explore more imaginatively, painting squares and shapes of overlapping and intersecting colour onto our pieces of cloth and applying the chemical water, in places, to achieve lighter shades. Each precious, newly coloured piece of cloth was then wrapped in its own cocoon (a plastic white bin liner) ready to be taken home.

Connected with Colour 1 - Ruth Issett

As instructed, I plunged my treasures into bowls of cold water, following the mantra: leave for ten minutes, empty the vividly coloured water, replace with fresh and leave again, repeat until the water is clear; squeeze out and dry flat. Iron when dry - not wet and not too damp! So, my kitchen/dining room was transformed into an altar of colour for the evening.

On the morning of the second day, we worked with Jacquard Textile Colour, first monoprinting. As I watched Ruth’s careful, detailed demonstration and listened to her explanation, I was only too aware that here was a real expert, one of the best in her field. I felt privileged, as always, when taught by someone so well-known for her talent, but painfully aware that what appeared so simple in her hands would be rather different for a novice like me. And so it was. I loved working with complementary colours, but not today. But, now I know how it’s done, I shall experiment on my own. In the meantime, we progressed to roller printing. I had tried this once before. It was introduced in another workshop as a bi-product of block printing rather than as a particular technique. Now I realise that the printing technique itself is important......and the kind of print block you use. As I relaxed into the activity and mixed the colours I like, I was pleased with the prints I made.

Shropshire Storm - Ruth Issett

Lunchtime came all too soon. Then Ruth showed and told us about her stitched samplers - all vibrant colours of cotton organdie she had dyed, printed, layered and stitched. Bold, bright and beautiful. She provided the embroidery threads, an eclectic collection that would challenge our ideas about stitch. We sorted, considered, cut and layered our coloured cloth, beginning to sew with simple, well placed stitches. Some beautiful pieces were begun.As a two-day workshop, this was well-paced and delivered by a very good teacher. By the end I was exhausted but full of ideas and enthusiasm to continue my own journey into colour, dye, print and stitch. My pieces of cloth have been arranged to make a hanging which I have begun to stitch by hand and with a machine, and the journey continues.

Visit to St Paul's Cathedral - Rachel Haver

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to be invited to look at the new Vestments at St Pauls. They have been specially made at a cost of about £20,000 and are stunning.We had arranged to meet one of the clergy who is in charge of the robes and he took us to a room not normally open to visitors. It was a large walk-in wardrobe with each vestment carefully wrapped in a large linen cover. One by one he showed us about half of them, allowing us to take photos, some of which you can see here. The lavish embroidery, gold work and jewels were stunning. Most patterns were traditional on silks with equally beautiful linings. Some stitching was done in India and some closer to home.As a bonus he also showed us some of the altar frontals, which were stored in a large chest in one of the corridors.The visit lasted about 45 minutes.

If you would like to see these you can arrange an appointment though the web site for St Paul’s cathedral.

Eliza McClelland - Beadwork on Canvas Day School

Well what a way to start my Embroiderer’s Guild membership! Eliza McClelland’s ‘Beadwork on Canvas’ day school was my first day school experience and it was a real inspiration.

With many samples and examples to look at Eliza introduced us first to soup, then worms and finally islands - I was beginning to wonder whether I’d signed up for some strange organic cooking lesson! We soon started beavering away on our own samples

Eliza recommended we started off sewing size 6 beads to make a 20x20 square on 12-holes-to-the-inch beadwork canvas. The canvas is quite stiff to start but gradually softens as you work on it; however it keeps its strength and is quite suitable for footstool coverings as well as softer articles such as glasses cases. We used short needles which proved far easier than traditional beading needles when it came to picking beads up and sewing to the canvas.

Eliza’s main work is acting and she started beading on canvas to while away her many hours on tour when she’s not on the stage. She is self-taught and has created many wonderful pieces of beadwork in all sorts of designs and colour-schemes. She has been inspired by a wide spectrum of sources from Victorian hallway tiles to old patchworks and from flowers and insects to funky retro designs.

We had brought beads of all shapes, sizes and colours and Eliza also had a selection to pick from if we needed additional complementary beads.I joined the Embroiderer’s Guild in December, seeking ideas and inspiration and had decided to push myself out of my comfort zone by bringing beads in colours that I wouldn’t normally choose mainly oranges and greens with some aqua. This also meant that, if I didn’t like my finished work I could blame it on the colours rather than my workmanship. I made my initial sample square with a random ‘bead soup’ made by taking a pinch of 4-5 different shades of my colours and picking out beads randomly to sew onto the canvas using a half cross stitch. I find it quite hard to create ‘random’ patterns, usually preferring to use regular patterns and designs, so this in itself was somewhat of a challenge for me.The bead soups were enhanced by the sparse use of a contrasting colour, which really lifted the work and brought it to life.

After lunch we were introduced to more textured methods. ‘Worms’ were made by threading a few small beads onto the thread before going back into the canvas in a more random fashion, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally across the next sample square. A more regular stitch created a rope-effect, both offered an interesting level of movement to the work. I included the odd larger bead in a few worms which worked well.

Another suggestion was to use yarn to cover an area in stitches, then bead on top. Eliza showed us ‘Periwinkle stitch’, a lovely decorative stitch which provides a useful ‘hole’ that could then be filled with a bead. My favourite effect of all was the ‘island’, or ‘Pendant’ threading and I can see myself going mad with this in the future. This consisted of a mass of short stems of beads bunched round a small clump of larger beads (usually 3). The 3 large beads are attached in the centre first, then the dangly stems are added. These are made by stringing mainly small beads, followed by a larger bead, then finally a small bead stopper at the end; the thread is taken through all the beads, then round the stopper bead before going back through the other beads to create the stem, the thread is then sewn back through the canvas to fix it. I was itching to try this effect and managed to use a wonderful variety of larger beads and pearls to create a very pretty effect.

I’m really pleased with my final sampler, and have been inspired by the colours I’ve used. With just a few more beads to sew on to finish it I am now ready to bead the world!

Jill Flower - The Ruff Lady

As so often happens to embroiderers, Jill trained as something else before discovering embroidery. On the advice of her doctor, careers in interior design and horticulture changed to a City and Guilds Textile Course of four years which not even Jill could have anticipated would make such a difference to her life.

After time off and a re-marriage, Jill put herself in the hands of Gwen Hedley to produce beautifully textured machine-made bags which were exhibited at the V and A in London. A meteoric rise from prescribed cross-stitch, by anybody’s standards. This success was followed by a Diploma of Higher Education, a three-year university course during which Jill developed a delicate style of design that incorporated machine-made lace effects and architectural features (well-known from Jill’s past) but which needed a theme to make it"say something". A "story" is how Jill expresses this. The black-and-white notebook she showed us was sheer magic, started on holiday with a limited choice of mark-making tools, packed with luscious patterns and mini-treasures.

It was dear old Shakespeare who inspired Jill’s "story" with a series of three-dimensional interpretations of the seven ages of man in which she saw how her lace-like techniques, using ribbons of paper and machine stitchery, could be utilised in Elizabethan ruffs. Layers of re-cycled magazine snippets taken from the reading-matter of different age-groups are embellished and connected by threads and beads, tassels and tiny appendages to form circular ruffs, layer upon layer,linking Shakespeare’s well-known quotation about the stages of man’s life to the colours and textures that express the changing interests and patterns of time. The concept is beautifully thought out and cleverly executed, resulting in ruffs of various sizes that can be hung on busts, suspended from the ceiling, or placed in glass-covered boxes.

This idea has been developed, as you might expect,to produce a range of sizes, some as small as brooches, some tea-plate size, to make statements about the age, gender and inclination of the wearer with appropriate bits and pieces attached, words, names and dates.Except in form, no two ruffs are alike either in colour, content or message.

Jill spoke with a delightful modesty and self-depracating good humour as if she is still rather surprised by the success of her work. Even so, we were left in no doubt of her dedication and commitment to the kind of hard work necessary to achieve results which not only look good but which mean something too. I was particularly won over by the thought-processes that take an idea to another level of appreciation. In other words, "the story". Jill brought a large body of work to show us how this happened, each stage of which caused much interest, comment and admiration.

A very good article with photographs about Jill Flower’s ruffs appears in the Feb/March 2011 issue of WORKBOX,No.127

The Language of Flowers - Tanya Wood

Tanya has been fascinated with flowers from her childhood and they continue to be a source of fascination and inspiration. Flowers are nature’s jewellery with infinite varieties which she likened to picking from a sweetie box. They mean different things to different cultures and in Elizabethan times they represented coded messages.

She explored the meaning of some of her favourite flowers:-

Sunflowers, dwarf for adoration and tall for haughtiness
Daisy, white for innocence, red for unconscious, Michaelmas for afterthought
Iris, yellow for flame and passion
Lily, yellow for falsehood and gaiety, water for purity of heart
Roses, red for I love you, white for innocence, yellow for jealousy
Poppy, red for consolation, white for sleep, scarlet for extravagance.

Flowers were the inspiration for her pieces when she studied for her City and Guilds and she illustrated her talk her workbooks and artwork produced whilst studying. She had used variety of techniques and materials including appliqué, felt, organza, paper and dyes. One particular piece had been based on the Dutch artist Van Huysum(1682-1749) who had painted a vase of rare flowers including some insects such as butterflies and snails. Tanya had interpreted this into a modern piece of summer flowers which had been individually photographed and then ironed onto organza using iron-on T-shirt transfer paper. Hidden within the design were a spider and a few flies.

Art in Tenerife by Sue Crook

Tenerife may not be the obvious place you would think of to see modern art – we are more used to thinking (unfairly) about fish and chips and carousing Brits intent on a good night out and never mind anything else! Having visited over many years, I can report that there are some magnificent modern buildings, one of them being the Tenerife Espace des Artes.

What is more, on my last visit in February, there were 2 artists using textiles. The first: Juan Gopar, is greatly inspired by the sea, so I suppose the sight of nets should be no surprise, but he had made a colourful installation along one complete wall of muliticoloured nets. He had also used wrapping with fabric and ropes in a wall divider. The majority of his work involved wood, paint splattered boxes stacked from floor to ceiling and there were also some paper exhibits too.

There is currently a section set aside in the gallery for Artists in Residence. Here I met a textile artist: Juana Fortuny, who works on large pieces made entirely of fabric. Some are on metal, tent-like structures, others, simple frames but all are very large. She uses a brown paper "pattern" then affixes sheers to make her picture.

Gail Lawther Talk

It must be difficult to sit through someone else‟s AGM, and Gail did but as a complete contrast to our mundane (but very necessary business) we had a lively and entertaining speaker. She claims she only came to quilting by accident. Although always a stitcher, it was not until she was asked to write a beginner‟s guide to quilting in a short time that she even developed a method for the impatient quilter: stained glass quilting. She cut out shapes, pinned in place, then concealed the joins with bias binding, stitching it in place with a twin needle.
She showed us beach huts, doves, a mandarin duck, tigers, Celtic designs and a host of beautiful
quilts she had created. As time went on, she decided to use satin stitch to “cover the joins” rather than binding. The resulting dragon fly and peacock feathers were in a beautiful turquoises, greens, blues, purples etc.
She suggested that we visit Worthing Museum to view their crazy quilts (perhaps a summer outing??).
As well as the topics mentioned above, other inspiration has come from New Zealand (the Art Deco town of Napier and Maori patterns), Art Nouveau and Venice. He is often asked where she finds her ideas. Her answer: “Anywhere, and even a Travel Lodge!” She also mentioned botanical gardens, land and seascapes. A colourful semicircular piece entitled ““Peace” showed angels above Bethlehem, she had also reproduced playing cards, Clarisse Cliffe, the Willow Pattern, Charles Rene Mackintosh and Tutankhamen. She admits to sometimes stretching the imagination – Nessie in Loch Lomond!
Always giving a humorous note to her talk, she described a piece of a plant as fallopian tubes. She also found that batik was effective in representing “Tigers‟ bums”. She paints with Deka paints and uses 505 or a spot of glue to hold fabric in place.
Her main collection of New Zealand quilts is currently on tour and she offered to return with them in the future. Yes, please!!!