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shibori happy

There were some coloured dyes at the "Kendal Green meets Shibori Dyeing" workshop this morning (with Donna Campbell at Kendal Brewery Arts Centre) – but there was an indigo vat too, so I just used that – too good a chance to miss. The workshop was only two and a half hours long and went all too quickly but I came home with five samples and I’m pleased because I really tried to plan the way I tied and folded the cloth and I like most of the results! The only one that didn’t really do what I wanted is the striped one, which was concertina folded with lolly sticks and then wrapped. I was hoping the lines from the wrapping would show up on all the blue stripes – I think I should have left more of the fabric sticking out of the resist. I didn’t take along my fabric manipulation experiments in the end, I’m going to dye those at home later on.

I especially liked this effect which was from making three small pleats in the fabric and overstitching through all the layers.

And this, which is a combination of paper clip clamps and a wave pattern gathering stitch. One thing I learned is that it’s much easier to gather the fabric well with a proper strong thread sold for the purpose. The one we were using had come from Callishibori as had the indigo.

The Motto festival of which this workshop was a part is on in Kendal till September with lots of textile workshops and events at the Brewery Arts Centre and in the town.

Mechanical Drawing – the Schiffli Project

That’s the title of an exhibition I’ve just been to see at Farfield Mill. The last working Schiffli embroidery machine in the UK is at Manchester School of Art, and for this exhibition fifteen artists worked with the machine, creating pieces that are both hand drawn and machine embroidered.

While I’d heard of the Schiffli machine, I had only a vague idea of the process – it’s actually a pantograph principle where the artist draws the line large using a hand-held device, moving across their design and clicking wherever they want the needle to enter the fabric; and the machine, which has 86 needles, reproduces the line in miniature many times across the fabric.

Each small movement of the artist’s hand is there in the stitched line, so it has a very human quality, a feeling of directness and immediacy. As each needle can hold a different coloured thread, or variations on one colour, or every thread can be the same, or some needles can be left unthreaded, there is potential for exploitation of tone, colour and pattern on a grand scale.

I was very impressed both by the impact and scale of the work, and by the quality of the exhibition. The textiles were well displayed with plenty of light and space; there were samples available to touch; and in the background there was the constant rhythmic sound of the machine at work (the sound was an element of one of the works – Kate Egan’s installation ‘Stack’), which added another sensory layer to the experience. It was a really engaging celebration of a fascinating machine that’s clearly cherished and enjoyed by those who work with it.

It’s difficult to pick out just a few pieces for a special mention… I loved the colour and movement of Rowena Ardern’s ‘Endangered’, which used the repeats created by the machine very effectively; I enjoyed Jill Boyes’ careful exploration of effects made possible by the Schiffli; I was moved by Jane McKeating’s poignant and humorous rag books, drawing on her sketchbooks from a period after she suddenly became single; and I would have loved to go home with Stephen Dixon and Alison Welsh’s ‘Armchair Politico’, which was both beautiful and thought-provoking.

The catalogue is excellent, with several essays, plenty of images and detailed text, and a DVD about the technical processes (which was also on show at the exhibition).

exhibition catalogue

Mechanical Drawing is at Farfield till 29 June and is also travelling to the Macclesfield Silk Museum and the Knitting and Stitching Show. Really worth seeing if you can; if not, all the pieces are represented online, along with excerpts from the catalogue, and a short video, at
http://www.miriad.mmu.ac.uk/craftdesign/schiffli/.

TIF Challenge March 2

It’s April already and March has… gone – I’m not sure where. I don’t really think I’ve risen to Sharon’s challenge to pay attention to the tiny details during March, but as the month dashed on I thought about dots and spots and decided to try a small piece of shibori, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I tied some buttons into hand dyed muslin, bound some points around them and then bound the ‘tail’ at intervals. I soaked it in soda solution for a while…

… then dyed overnight in Procion MX marine violet…

… and ended up with this …

It was exciting to see what emerged, and I’m glad I managed not to abandon this month’s challenge altogether. Shibori is definitely something I want to explore and learn how to do properly. It was magical – and fun :-).

TIF Challenge January 3

I spent some time this weekend sampling and exploring my ideas – I was planning to stop with the visual journal and not make a textile piece but one is emerging anyway. Here I’ve tried out some ways of representing the darkness. (The idea I’m starting from is admiration of people who’ve “confronted their particular darkness by allowing something bright and fierce and tender and courageous to grow in their lives”.)

I found that hemp yarn, though difficult to knit with, leaves behind lovely curls and tendrils when you unravel the knitting.

I decided to weave a base fabric of colour and brightness, and I think I’ll use an overlay of painted scrim or plastic netting for the element of darkness. Painted with acrylic or ink it keeps a shape and can be shades of black and grey – I want it to net itself over the coloured fabric like some dark, strangling thing – it should have an ugliness yet the overall effect be one of beauty. I’d like to use the plastic netting because it has intrinsic destructive qualities in the environment, the way it literally overwhelms living creatures. But I think the scale of it is too big. I have smaller nets but they’re more stiff and difficult to distort and I want the darkness to gather in some parts and be stretched thin in others. I should play around with that a bit more, but time is short….

This is the beginnings of my fabric. The warp is wire, and I plan to use the ends to form tendrils of colour growing out from the centre, through the netted darkness, an affirmation.

TIF challenge January 2

I’ve got my first ideas down in my sketchbook.

One of the images that’s playing in my mind is tendrils, and serendipitously we were tidying up a mass of clematis this afternoon so I rescued some to draw later. The next step is to do some painting and drawing and think about what aspects to focus on and what textile techniques will lend themselves to expressing them. The only thing I’ve decided on so far is to knit something dark, maybe with wire, and see how introducing colour/light will transform it. I want to end up with a series of related samples in a visual journal format that is integrated and ‘designed’, at least more so than my usual messy random sketchbook work.

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