Through Our Hands

Wednesday I took my Grandparents to the 'Through Our Hands' exhibition at the Royal Pump Rooms Gallery, Leamington Spa.

I am currently becoming more and more involved with drawing with stitch, and so thought the artistic-quilting exhibit might give me some inspiration, and names I could use.

Well it certainly inspired me! And even opened my 86 and 89 year old grandparents eyes to what else art can be, and gave them ideas for art they might still be able to do.

The image above is Annabel Rainbow's 'Switching Off', which is just one of her extraordinary pieces included. Photographs really do no justice to the work on display at the exhibit, you really must see it up close to see and feel the power of the art in the pieces.

I will certainly be going back over the next few weeks, even though it's a small exhibit - I could spend the whole day there if I could!

Alice in Waterland

A few weeks ago, I went to the O3 Gallery in Oxford (www.o3gallery.co.uk/) with my FDA group. The exhibition they were just putting together at the time was a 'Wonderland' exhibition.

We were shown slides, and given a brief presentation on some of the research and ideas behind the Wonderland exhibition, and this one image stood out to me over all the rest - 'Alice in Waterland' by Elena Kalis.

About a month later and I still can't get this picture out my head. I absolutely adore this image, and it has really encapsulated me. I'm sure this image will be my inspiration for something in the future - I'm just not sure what yet.

Drawing With Stitch

So in exchange for my helping out at college events recently, I was offered a place on a one day class during the 'summer' in various subjects. I opted for the 'Drawing With Stitch' class taught by Heather Zeal, who taught me for a few weeks in different methods of drawing, last year.

I could not wait for this to come around, and it felt brilliant to be back at college learning new skills.

Drawing with stitch is definitely one of those subjects that you improve in with practise, and I will definitely be using this method in future as I loved it so much!

I'm very, VERY excited to start year two of the FDA now, and put my new skills into practise, and get back into the college routine.

I feel like a small child at Christmas, so excited to get on with drawing with stitch, and find out all the possibilities of what I could do!

The Contemporary Craft Festival

So I've just come back from a lovely relaxing break in Cornwall, and part of my reason for going down when I did, was to go to 'The Contemporary Craft Festival' at Mill Marsh Park, Bovey Tracey, Devon.
I went with not a great idea of what to expect, and was thrilled with what greeted me.

The sheer amount of artists and crafts people from not only Devon, but all over Britain was amazing, and so inspiring. Stalls, and stalls of so many media's of work, with many new techniques to learn about and try yourself.

One of the most inspiring to me was Poppy Treffry (www.poppytreffry.co.uk) who was a textilist, and did a lot of drawing with stitch, and screen printing from them, which I have loved doing this year, and am desperate to carry on with! She was a lovely, inspiring person, with some absolutely beautiful pieces! I can't wait to do more, and get my own idea's out my head and into reality.

www.craftsatboveytracey.co.uk

Work in Progress

So the exhibition is now up, and the private view has been and gone.

I'm so proud of everyone for putting in all the hard work, and getting it to look so good! After so many weeks with so little sleep, having a good night's sleep feels like the most alien thing in the world. I hope everyone's enjoying their restful sleep too!

It may have taken a little while to get to this point, but I think it's been worth it! Hours of placing things, then moving them, then moving everything back again has definitely paid off.

It was lovely to see everyone who came to the private view, and share this wonderful evening with them, and we missed those of you who didn't make it.

It has been a great experience all round, and I can't wait for next year, and the things to come! I say bring it on!

So I've been sat sewing flowers onto the dress for what seems like forever, but I love the outcome and what it feels like it represents.

I should have thought about how the decoration alters the shape and hang of the dress - it makes it slightly stiff on the one side, and all the stitches pulls the fabric up at the side by a few millimetres, but the outcome is still better than I expected so I'm pleased.

All I can imagine now is a dress covered entirely in flowers, and how beautiful it would look and feel to wear ^_^

Only Make Believe

So as part of the Brother's Grimm project 'Only Make Believe' I chose to focus solely on Cinderella.

I decided to make her a series of dresses, and this is my Cinderella in her most recent dress. White satin - like a tiny wedding dress.

I'm very proud of this particular dress as it took me so much longer to make due to attempting to do 'perfect' seams, and adding the collar! The collar which was almost impossibly fiddly I don't think I'll be able to create another if I wanted.

I'm now going to go on adding decoration to this dress before the next step up - gold!