Sneak peek

Here's a sneak peek at my latest textile piece

 And here's another part of it

It doesn't look much in these photos and I haven't shown you all of it.  There's a lot more machining to do.  And hand stitching!  And cords!

I've set a 2-3 week finished deadline so you will get to see the whole thing by the end of August.

Hopefully!

Thanks for being here today
Bernice

 

More layers of text

In my last post I showed you the fabrics I had printed.  I also dyed two other pieces of calico.

I dyed this piece to use for a different non-text related piece of work - a companion piece to my river hanging.

I used the same colours on another piece of fabric.  I wrote on it first with masking fluid - the sort used by watercolour painters.  This will be another piece in my series based on chains. I used my pantoum poem: Dancing in Fetters

Unfortunately the masking fluid doesn't peel off fabric like it does off paper but that's okay.  However the second problem was that the lettering doesn't show up with the ochre dye as it's too pale.  You can see it if the fabric is held up to the light but the hanging is going to have wadding and a back.

I drew round the letters with an Inktense pencil so that once the wadding and back is on I can see where to stitch.

Next job is to start on this piece of work and use the fabrics from my previous post.  I have two more days of Summer School this week in which to get going.

Thanks for being here today
Bernice

The Story of the River

What a journey I have been on over the last three months.

Regular readers know that I usually blog twice a week.  This year I have managed one post: Lets Start a Conversation.  In that post I told you how I was stricken with anxiety attacks and unable to do much creatively.

In order to finish the textile piece I had started in mid-December I attended two studio days at Littleheath Barn, taking only this piece to work on.  The choice was to sit all day doing nothing or actually working on the piece.  I did the latter.

Towards the end of February I managed to do some handstitching at home without too much anxiety.  But there were days in between when I was paralysed by anxiety and unable to pick up the work.

Last Friday after another anxiety attack midweek, I finished the piece.  And miraculously, all anxiety left me completely and I have experienced the best week of 2024 so far.

But let me tell you about the background to the piece before I show it to you.  I have had this picture of a river in my head for around 55 years.  I know! A long time.

When I was at teacher training college in the late 1960s, one of our assessments was to write a cross-curriculum project introducing a piece of classical music to 7-11 year olds.   I have no idea how I came across this piece of music but it has appealed to me ever since.

Vltava is the second of six symphonic poems by Bedrich Smetana.  He described it: The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Studená and Teplá Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer's wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night's moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John's Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Elbe.

Inthe 1990s we were singing 'The River is Here' quite often and I had this picture in my head of making a textile piece about the journey of a river through rocky land, desert and into lush greenery.

                

I eventually made the piece as part of my City and Guilds course.  I dyed various types of fabics and cut them up into rectangles and sewed them onto a backing piece.  I really didn't know much about dyeing at that time.  Whilst I finished the piece I was never totally satisfied with it.  I felt the greens were all wrong but didn't have time to do anything about it.

It hung in my office when I was a church administrator but when we closed down the office I threw it away.

Both that piece and the new piece was inspired by Bible passages:  Ezekiel 47:1-12 and Revelation 22:1-2.

So drum roll please!  Here's the finished piece:

It is 20 inches wide and 56 inches long.  As a river it would perhaps read better in landscape format but that would need a really long batten and would present a difficult storage problem.  And although my husband thought it was about a waterfall, it isn't!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Studio Day

This week I went to Littleheath Barn Studio for a Studio Day.  This is where you take your own work to do and get the benefit of Liske's advice when you're stuck.

I started work on this new piece by 'painting' the fabric with thickened procion dye.

 

 

This piece is based on verses from Ezekiel 47:1-12 about the river flowing out.

 

I left it rolled up in plastic for longer than I usually do but still lost quite a bit of the green at the bottom and the rust at the top.

 

In the afternoon I made this grid based on the Australian Connections research I've been doing.

And later this week I worked on this sample from the Maps & More workshop the previous week. It's not particularly satisfactory so it will no doubt be put into my sketchbook.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Call to Adventure #8

The challenge for the week was to spend time in or near water, to watch how it flows around obstacles, and to photograph it in different guises.

Roger & I went to Charlecote Park on a rather blustery day.  We walked through the parkland past the lake and down to the river.  It was a dull day apart from the odd break in the clouds so the photos are fairly monochrome.

 The sun's reflection in the reed bed.

 The wind was making waves on the lake

 Tree reflections in a muddy puddle

  The river

 Water falling down a steep weir

Flood water draining away

 The foam in the river

A shallow weir with much more water flowing over it

The wind playing with the water

Looking down onto the weir

The water in this stream was flowing left to right but the wind was rippling the water right to left.

Looking down on the water from a bridge

Despite the wind and the lack of sunshine this was an enjoyable exercise in looking at water differently from the way I normally photograph it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bernice