A Drop in a Bucket - Finished!

This is what I have been working on. Made the deadline yesterday!

A Drop in a Bucket

Artist Statement: The majority of water for household use in African and Asian rural areas is obtained (usually from unclean sources) by women and children walking an average of 6 kilometres. Every 20 seconds a child dies from lack of clean water. That is 4,000 each day. How far to your tap?
Height: 76cm
Width: 74cm

Materials: Cotton, linen, felt, recycled cyanotype dyed fabric, felt tip marker and colour pencil.

Techniques: linen rusted and overdyed with indigo, hand dyed fabrics using different techniques, Free machine embroidery, raw edge applique

Here is a detail image.

I hope they like it as well as I do. I will let you know if/when I hear. If selected it will be part of the Wide Horizons IV at Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork at Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, Alsace, France in September.

stitching started

not much to look at, but this represents a lot of work!

Now I am ready to get on with it tomorrow.

another glimpse of what is in progress

Just a touch of white makes all the difference.

Slightly more life.

Still somewhat cartoonish, but I will work into it more when she is stitched.

"And the Bead Goes On and on..." 18-24 May

2014 - Week 21 Daily Beads

The constant this week was brown. It works better with some colours than others.

no.138


no.139


no.140


no.141


no.142


no.143


no.144 -


The constant for next week will be cream...I hope. I only have normal size beads in this colour. I wanted to stay quite neutral, although I had considered a matt copperish colour.

Something on Saturday

In the Autumn, my husband planted a magnolia in the back garden.

Whilst it has been sunny, I have been enjoying the glow of the green against the deep red of the Acer behind it and the similar colour of wood stain on the fence.
The Deep green in front are new shoots on the lavender bushes.

what's on in here this week

This week I have been working on another piece about children's needs in 3rd world countries. I feel like it is going at a snails pace...partially because I am sooo tired lately.

Anyway, here is a sneak peek.

and something that I had to re-do.

I build each figure onto a piece of felt, the legs of which you saw in the first photo.
I changed my mind on the direction some of the children were facing. So, a matter of flipping the felt, but also flipping the freezer paper template for cutting the fabrics. I did alright with their clothing, but didn't realise I hadn't flipped the legs, arms and faces until I had cut them all out. So, that was another chunk of time gone.

If I get this done in time, I will enter it for SAQA Europe and Middle East Wide Horizons exhibition to be shown at Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in France in the Autumn.

TVCT meeting

Some photos of the events at the TVCT meeting on Saturday.

We had a time of feedback about our recent exhibition of Halfway Between at the Spring Knitting and Stitching show and then at the Needlework Archive. Interesting comments...most very positive.

Jane who has made our group quite a success especially with our exhibitions, is stepping down as Exhibitions Officer. She has a place at Kingston to do her MA in Fine Arts!

So I arranged for a 'printing session' where members were to bring in their favourite stamping/printing tool. Merete, who with Jane helped me to start the group, dyed a lovely piece of old damask tablecloth a mottled magenta colour.

I didn't get a before photo, but here is the result!

Most of the people there didn't know about the purpose. In fact Jane was busy getting photos for our blog, not realising she would be taking it home!
Thanks Jane for all you have done for our group!

For the afternoon, we had booked the Suitcase Collection from the Contemporary Quilt group. The theme is 'All in a Day's Work'. After everyone looked at the quilts and read the stories behind them, the different groups were given thick A3 paper and a page with thumbnail images of the work. Each group had a brief for selecting 10-15 pieces of work for a gallery (the A3 paper folded to make walls). I had photographed each of the 43 quilts in advance, so they could cut out the images for the quilts they selected.

The briefs they could choose from were...

Themes-
Domestic Work
Ethics/Political
Professional Work
Outside
Text
Looking Back/Past

Somehow I didn't think to get photos of all the groups! and forgot totally to get photos of their galleries. But here are a few of the groups deliberating over their choices.

When they had decided, we 'threw them a wobbly' by giving them an extra aspect to their brief.

They were told that the 'gallery owner' had decided to have them display artefacts which would go with their theme and the work they had chosen. So, they had to sketch something which would represent those artefacts.

So, for instance, one group had chosen a work which was about domestic chores and decided one artefact would be an ironing board.

Another group, whose theme was Outside, decided they would display a window in a frame. Many of the pieces they had chosen had windows in them. So, this would relate. But also the work would at times been seen through the window as people walked around the gallery, which would add another dimension to the exhibition.

I think everyone enjoyed the experience. and some mentioned that it gave them a different perspective about their own work which may have been declined from a show. They realised after this activity that often it was about how much space their was and/or whether their piece worked with the other selected work.

If you are interested in hiring the Suitcase Collection for your own group you can find out details on the CQ webpage All in a Day's Work. You don't have to do a curating exercise, you can just enjoy the work and the stories behind them!

"And the Bead Goes On and on..." 11-17 May

2014 - Week 20 Daily Beads

Still Sunday! Yesterday was a very busy day so, Saturday's bead got done today...sorting and posting flowers done today as well. But that is 'Allowed'.

The constant bead this week was black.
Interesting to compare how the same colour beads worked with white last week and black this week. I think the 'blue' bead especially looks more turquoise. and actually, even last week didn't show it as light blue, which it is 'in person'.

Another slight difference from last week. I used 7 of the main colour beads at the ends of the paperclips, rather than the 5 I used throughout. This kept the loop from laying so flat when it went round the corner. For some I tried 7 for 3-4 loops, and others I just did 2. Not sure if it makes an obvious difference, though.

no.131
red

no.132
orange

no.133
yellow

no.134
green

no.135
blue

no.136
indigo

no.137
violet

The constant for next week will be brown.

Oh no!

Somehow I deleted my blog list!

Now to try to get it back.

Busy this week preparing for the TVCT meeting on Saturday. Will post something soon.

EDIT: Okay, I think I got most of them. and some that I have been visiting frequently via links on other's blogs. If I have missed out a favourite of yours, let me know. It took ages because I couldn't add but one at a time!

"And the Bead Goes On and on..." 4-10 May

2014 - Week 19 Daily Beads

I resolved the problems with the paperclips and posted the first 3 days on Monday. One minor change as I got into it. Because of problems going through the white beads several times, I changed the accent bead position slightly. It still serves to anchor all the other rows.

This week the constant was the white bead. I use a light grey thread for stitching. You can see it in these photos because they are very close for detail. But when seen at normal range, the grey blends with the metal of the paperclip.

no.124
red

no.125
orange

no.126
yellow

no.127
green

no.128
blue

no.129
 (ha! should be done last!) violet

no.130
indigo

So apart from stitching indigo and violet in their right order, (!) the constant bead for next week will be black. It will be interesting to discover how these colours work in that combination.

auditioning for the Wow factor

Auditions have been taking place in my studio...fabrics that is. That is what it is called when you are having a look at whether this fabric will work in a project or if that one will.

Initially these fabrics were in the running. the orange fabrics were ones I commissioned from Valeri at Farne Designs for my 50th birthday.

The synthetic brocade was soon edited out.

As you know, I chose the dark teal for the main fabric. I discovered I had taken a photo of the back of the skirt before I stitched the pleats.

This is where I was checking the look and the hang with the pleats I had folded. I think I made a couple changes after this, but similar.

and this week I have been auditioning for the Wow factor to use in the skirt.

3 oranges?

or 4 oranges

red/orange hand dyed waistband from the Farne Designs fabrics?

with red ginko leaves fabric waistband?

Okay lets go with 4 oranges after much sketching out of squares and triangles and sums and finally drawing it up full size on drafting paper so I could see what I was working with.

And the red hand dye? I think.

The camera still can't decide if it is dark teal blue or dark teal green.

It is actually somewhere in between.

More efforts on this behalf to come!
Still need to work out the waistband, how the front attaches to the back and the getting in and out of this skirt (But I actually have a zip which is the exact colour of the fabric!)

Ah, and even more exciting from that point? Further decoration to really make it stunning!

Embellished skirt - pleats done

I have been working on the skirt of this ensemble for Fashion Sans Frontieres.
I used the length of fabric I had left from the blouse and pleated it using box pleats to get the size for the waist which I wanted, not the whole waist. This will be the back and sides and the front will be filled in with other fabric.

I haven't a photo of the length of it, but it is a scoop hem which will be longer than the front...sometimes called a mullet or high/lo skirt. But this will be my own take on that.

And like the bodice, I have used the top stitching as a guide to embellish with beads.

The colour is difficult to get. I call it dark teal. Is it blue teal or green teal? Depends on the surroundings!

Bark Cloth to Art Cloth process

Remember the art cloth I made from bark cloth? and then those were made into shoes.
Soon all the shoes will be auctioned off to raise money for Hands up for Uganda. You can keep track of the shoes which go up for auction on the barkcloth2artcloth facebook page. (You don't have to belong to facebook to see the page.) They will be auctioning 10 pairs each week.

Recently they posted a video of how the bark cloth is made...and then how the shoes were made by Janet at Starchild Shoes. If this works, you should be able to see the video here.

The shoes can be purchased for £25 via Paypal. Hopefully more info will be available soon on how to do that.

"And the Bead Goes On and on..." 1-3 May

Having given myself a breather about trying to bead onto the paper clips, I got room in my head for a better idea.

I wasn't having any problem putting the first row of beads on, it was the second row that began to cause problems.
first row


I didn't mind it being a bit frilly, but it was going far too frilly too soon.
 only part way along the plan and already going frilly.

Ah ha! That is the problem!
Why not try this... instead of having a bead between each bead of the first row, skip one or two beads and make a little arch. And so it worked!

no.121


no.122


no.123


The first three days of the month (last week) I had intended to use for getting the combination and sequence of beads right. So, after finally getting the actual design for bead no. 121, I tried the size and sequence on the other two.

Components are to be -
Row 1 - constant bead for one week of May, using a neutral colour.
Row 2 - opaque bead (the rest of the month they will follow the colours of the rainbow each day of the week),
Row 3 - a companion bead of similar colour,
Row 4 - a small accent bead which serves to set everything, holding it together and firming up the work.

Before I did that sequence I thought I'd swap round the opaque (now row 3) and companion bead (now row 4) for no. 122. I was pretty happy with it.

Then when I did no. 123, I found problems. The 2nd row - the opaque beads - requires passing through a few of the beads several times. and so with too many passes a few holes in opaque beads were too narrow. This was hard to tell until you got to the 4th row! and after having to patch in a bead because it broke, I have decided to stick with this order change.

Components will be -
Row 1 - constant bead for one week of May, using a neutral colour.
Row 2 - a companion bead of similar colour to the opaque bead,
Row 3 - opaque bead of rainbow colours
Row 4 - a small accent bead which serves to set everything, holding it together and firming up the work.

Okay, too much information, I know! But if I write it down, I can remember sometime in the future if I need to know.

And also you, dear reader, can realise that there is a bit more to this than just a pot of beads and thread and something to stitch them to!

"And the Bead Goes On and on..." 27-30 April 1-3 May?

2014 - Week 18 Daily Beads

I showed the collection of the April beads the other day.

Here are the final ones individually.

no.117


no.118


no.119


no.120



I had hoped to show you the first of the May beads. However...

this month would be one of the 'alternative' beads on to something unique. I wanted to do paper clips. I could only find large ones. I did have enough large beads to try it threading them on. But for various reasons, including the fact that the large beads wouldn't go round the curves, I got several 'Not paperclip' shapes.


I also tried putting them on like the curtain rings for January. It just wasn't working - even with less beads. Even with covering the wire with crochet cotton.


So, I have actually done far more than 3 days of beads...more like a good portion of 2 days working out the design problems. I even went to town to try to find smaller paperclips. I found coloured ones...but the colour coating made them as thick as the large paper clips, and so the same problems.

SO, as it is the Bank Holiday weekend, I am going to leave the paper clips and work out a plan for something else this month. I have a list of ideas, I will just go for one of the others.

To be honest, having done these for 1 year and 4 months, this is the first time I have really struggled to develop the plan for that month. Not too bad.