STACS

I was invited to give an evening talk and a day's workshop at Shrewsbury Textiles & Creative Stitch this week.

They asked for my talk 'Pathways and Towpaths' where I show my hangings, framed pieces, fabric books, sketchbooks and workbooks as I talk about the various processes and techniques I use in my textile and mixed media work.

I always start with the hangings rolled up and unfurl them as I talk about each one.  By the end the tables tend to look more like a jumble sale!  I always encourage people to come up at the end and touch the pieces and ask questions.

The weather on the Tuesday evening was particularly foul.  It was really difficult driving through the torrential rain.  Kudos to all those who turned up - actually about 90% of the group.  Well done ladies. 

The next day 9 lovely ladies attended the workshop.  I showed them my explosion books.

During the morning we made paper samples of explosion books, star books, Turkish Mapfold and Hungarian Mapfold books.  All involve careful folding of square paper.

In the afternoon most of the ladies made a master collage sheet.  This involved cutting or tearing bits of magazine or painted papers and glueing them onto an A3 sheet of cartridge paper.

I had taken a selection of papers for them to use as well.

They made stunning collage sheets.

Sadly I seem to be missing one person's collage.  Sorry to whoever that was.

They then made their card version of the explosion book while the collage sheet was drying.  After which they turned the collage sheet over and having made a square template drew 12 squares which they cut out.  Drawing the squares on the back stops people thinking about which bit would look good.  These squares were then glued to the book.

This last one didn't have all the pieces glued down.  Some of the others were not completed because the ladies wanted to do more to the collage sheet at home.

I was absolutely blown away by the books they produced.

Thank you STACS for inviting me.

Luscious Layers with Leah

Last week I spent three days at Littleheath Barn doing a fabric dyeing workshop with Leah Higgins. My inspiration was labels - the negative and positive labels we put on ourselves.  Not an easy idea to portray in fabric.  I found the first day a bit difficult because I couldn't see my way with it.

 

 

We started with scraping colours over each other to see what would happen.  Above is black with acid lemon and below dark brown & acid lemon. 

I wasn't getting the colours I wanted.  That evening I realised that the reason I was unhappy about the colours was because I normally work with charcoal, rust brown and lemon yellow dyes not black, dark brown and acid lemon.

The next two days were spent adding various layers through different techniques onto pieces of fabric.

I'm still thinking about how I'm going to use them.  Hopefully inspiration will strike soon.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Out and About

On the Sunday of our long weekend away, the younger Hoppers went to The Hole in the Wall beach whilst Roger and I went round the Booderee Botanic Gardens.  It was a very hot day and the Botanic Gardens were much cooler, thankfully.

We all went to Cave Beach.

On Monday it rained!!!  We all mooched about doing whatever it was we were doing!

We packed up the house on Tuesday morning and Andy drove us into Huskisson where we visited the Maritime Museum.  The kids had a treasure hunt to do and I took photos of a decaying boat.  As you do!

After lunch we went whale waatching.  Fortuanetely the whales put on a show for us.  I didn't bother to try to get photos of them.

On the way home we stopped off at a bike park.

The last 3 days of the holiday were really hot.  We made one last visit to the Wollongong Botanic Garden on the Wednesday.  There was a beautiful Arts & Crafts style building at the top of the garden.

We went to watch the eldest grandchild play in a soccer match on Wednesday and I went to see our granddaughter's gymnastic session on Thursday.  Apart from that we spent the last three days resting and reading and generally sharing life together.

On Saturday we got the train to the airport and our flight home.

Armchair travelling is over for another year.  I hope you enjoyed the journey.  I took over 450 photographs during the 3 weeks - I've only shared a very few over the last few posts.

Back to textiles next time 

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice