Some of my previous work

I thought it was about time that I posted some pictures of my previous embroideries done a couple of years ago. The first exhibition I was in was a bit daunting, as I had only just finished my City & Guilds, and wasn't sure which techniques I wanted to explore. I made a fabric book for my final piece which had lots of hand dyed fabrics and threads, and I knew I wanted to carry on using them. I had also explored the use of 'funky foam' to give a raised surface, so my first two pieces (which hang as a pair) used both hand dyed fabrics and funky foam. The designs and colours are based on patterns found on traditional bags from Afghanistan.

Detail below of 'Afghan 1'

'Afghan 2' with detail below

In both of these embroideries, I have used chain stitch, straight stitch, seeding, couching and French Knots. They are mounted onto artists' canvas.

The other technique I found interesting was making coiled fabric vessels from strips of dyed muslin wrapped around plastic washing line. I went to a class by Helen Deighan, and went mad, making lots of vessels in different sizes, including several Christmas presents for the family!

My favourite vessel is shown below, and I think I want to make a really big one (about 2 feet tall!) as I still want to play around with this technique.

Exhibition update!

The textile exhibition by "nine" only has a few more days to run. It will now be open on Sunday 20th September as well as Monday to Saturday 10am -4pm. Come along to see more work from our talented group!

 

We all made a doll based on the 9 Muses, and they are all very different!

A piece of work from each member of our group shows the diverse styles of textile and embroidery within the group, although we do seem to be biased towards the colour blue!

Pictures are not the same scale, but you can get an idea by the size of the bricks on the wall.

                                       

 

I wanted to put the artist's name under each exhibit, but as I'm new to this "blog thing", I haven't quite worked out how to do that yet, without completely mucking up the layout!

Maybe by the time we have our next show sometime in 2011, I'll have mastered it.

Making Our Mark - A Textile Exhibition by nine

After nearly 2 years of planning, we finally put our exhibition up this morning! It's only our second exhibition, so we're still fairly new to this kind of thing. However it looks a lot more professional than our first exhibition in 2007.

'nine' was formed in autumn 2005, by 9(!) friends who had spent the previous few (or many!) years studying for our City & Guilds Embroidery qualifications in Harlow, Essex. We all emerged with Part II or a level 3 diploma, depending on the year (and hence syllabus followed) that we finished. It was a lot of hard work and many thanks are due to our tutor Liz Neave who is also part of our group.

We all wanted to develop the skills we had learnt, and decided to form a group that would give us the impetus and support to go and do our own thing, but with a common purpose. We decided to hold an exhibition every 2 years, so that we would have some thing to work towards, but could go at our own pace. Some members are very prolific, producing many pieces of work, while others can only manage 3 or 4 pieces, due to other commitments. We have all managed to form our own personal style, which was something I was very keen to do.

So on to the Exhibition!

It's called "Making Our Mark", being held at St John's ARC, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 0AJ, from 5th -19th September from 10am -4pm (closed on Sundays). Admission is free. If you are in the area, please come and support us. We would love to see you!

These are just a sneak preview of my exhibits!

More photos and comments to follow!