Text in Textiles day 1

At the weekend I did a Zoom workshop taught by Julia Triston called Text in Textiles.  Julia lives in Denmark so was working on Central European Time which is an hour ahead of BST.  So 9am here was an early start.  I haven't been dressed at that time for quite a while!!!!!

I got everything ready the night before.  Not usually so organised!!

We did a variety of warmup exercises.  We also made paper collages

and fabric ones.

We had each been asked to choose a word or a phrase to work with.  I chose 'dancing in fetters'.

I wrote dancing with a wide chisel nibbed marker on fabric.  I put mistyfuse on the back of the fabric and then cut it up into 3cm squares. I bonded these randomly on the fabric collage.

I wrote dancing on a piece of tissue and stitched it with straight stitch, using black embroidery thread.

I haven't shown you all the things we did as teaching is how Julia earns her living.  If you're interested in finding out more go to Julia's website.

I'll tell you about day 2 in my next post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice.

Grand Canal

Amazingly, I have finished another piece.  I went to a Studio Day at Littleheath this week.  I wanted to catch up with the Maps & More work.  At the last workshop day I had pieced the canal section and then at home I had pieced that into the background fabric.

This week I added very narrow satin stitch lines on the sewing machine.

Back at home I trimmed the whole pieces ready for binding.

 

 

I used a piece of fabric printed with the same breakdown screen in a different colour to cut binding strips.  I machined these onto the right side.  Then folded them over to the back and hand stitched the binding down.

Onwards and upwards!

I still have lots of fabric and bits and pieces I made during the process sessions.  We have two actual workshop sessions left although I suspect that I won't use everything up.

I still have fabric left from the Maps Summer School in 2022 despite having made several pieces!

There was only one hanging book - just photographed twice!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Dancing in Fetters

My next textile piece is called Dancing in Fetters.  The inspiration originally came from a visit to an exhibition in Fremantle Prison in Australia.  The exhibition was called Dancing in Fetters and has been touring Australia for several years.

The start of a workbook page about the piece.

I want to put text on the piece so have written this Pantoum which has a particular structure:

Dancing in Fetters

The fiddler strikes up a lively reel.
Our feet stamp out the beat.
The shackles rattle
As we dance with fettered feet. 

Our feet stamp out the beat
But we can only shuffle forward
As we dance with fettered feet.
Our hope lies in redemption

But we can only shuffle forward
Fettered as we are.
Our hope lies in redemption
When redemption breaks the chains 

Fettered as we were
Our hope lay in forgiveness.
As redemption breaks the chains
We dance with unfettered feet.

 

Twice a month I take part in an online poetry workshop. On the poetry workshop this week the tutor talked about writing a Nonet. This is a nine line poem with 9 syllables in the first line, eight in the second and so on down to one syllable.

I wrote the 9 lines on the theme of Dancing in Fetters. One of the group suggested I wrote the same lines in the other direction as a mirror poem.

Your feet move slowly, ankles encased
with iron bracelets, together
with rusty chain. You shuffle
forward and back, in time
to the fiddler's tune.
Dance in fetters
without hope
Lonely
Tired.
Tired
Lonely
without hope
Dance in fetters
to the fiddler's tune
forward and back, in time
with rusty chain. You shuffle
with iron bracelets, together
Your feet move slowly, ankles encased.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice