I can’t believe it’s been 5 years since I visited Malta. I was lucky enough to be sent to Valetta for work and after 4 days stuck in a stuffy conference room I got one day to explore the wonderful city. The architecture is so different from that I’ve seen in other countries.
Beads, Buttons, Braids and Edging
Module 7 of my City & Guilds course was all about finishing techniques. At first I thought I’d fly through this module as I got going with the samples pretty quickly but I found some of the sample categories a little un-motivating and my momentum dried up. This did coincide with a pretty tough time at work and the darker days making it difficult to photograph the samples. But with advent of the new year I have a burst of energy finished the last few samples and got them photographed in my mini photography studio.
Zandra Rhodes print inspiration
What was really interesting about the Zandra Rhodes exhibition was that I didn’t really know what her style was. I was at the exhibition with my mother and she said that she always loved Zandra’s printing on chiffon.
not only did Zandra print in these floaty fabrics, she also cut the patterns around the print, such as in the first example where you can see the overlapping circles of fabric printed with a sun style motif.
There were also many panels of printed fabric which took inspiration from different cultures.
Zandra Rhodes embellishment inspiration
This was my first visit to the Fashion and Textile museum in Bermondsey. It’s a fairly small space but there was a lot of inspiring exhibits. The exhibition was roughly split into two sections the ground floor covered dresses, many of which had beautiful embellishments. The upper floor had examples of her bespoke prints on chiffon and silk - more about those in a separate blog post.
Bridget Riley inspiration
I forget what a wonderful space the Haywood Gallery is and it seems to be little visited compared to the other galleries in London showing modern art. Even at 11 am on a Saturday we could walk straight in and have space to admire the art without jostling for a view at each piece.
The exhibition opens with this large wall of overlapping circles, they way the circles are placed gives them space and energy. Following this are some of her colourful striped work, such as the one in the second picture which mixes black and white with colour. Downstairs are her black and white works, most of which really make your eyes go funny when you look at them.. I loved this one with the triangles - not a piece I’d come across before, the curved lines trick your eye in a very subtle way.
Upstairs the painting nearest the stairs is the one with the elongated triangles which are an evolutions from the earlier striped work. Also upstairs are some of her bolder work. If you look at the composition of these carefully you can see the diagonal straight lines and the curved lines running from top to bottom intersecting them. The shapes are created by colour blocking the intersecting shapes.
the final room of the exhibition includes preparatory sketches and colour experiments
I almost picked Bridget Riley as my ‘inspirational artist’ for module 2 of my embroidery course, after seeing her work at this exhibition I wish I had - so inspiring.
Salt Stitches workshop
Back in March I treated myself to a workshop with Emily from Salt Stitches. Her work is truly unique and I was fascinated to learn about her process. It’s fairly simple - she photographs ‘textures’ prints them onto fabric and then stitches over them. But the beauty is in how you select the colours, the placing of the colours and the direction of the stitches.
The first three photos show the evolution through the 5 hours of the workshop.
The final photo shows a piece I stitched from scratch using a DIY kit I bought as a birthday treat. In this piece I more carefully picked a colour palette and thought as much about the unstitched areas as the stitched ones.
Poland inspiration
This summer I travelled around Poland. It’s a really fascinating country with many of the beautiful town squares painstakingly rebuilt as they were before their destruction in World War 2. The pastel colours of the buildings were particularly inspiring.
The Neon Museum was one of the best places that we visited and the history of neon signs during communism was fascinating.
Food and drink was also a source of inspiration from the autumnal colour palette of the beer tasting platters to the traditional crochet table centre pieces.
Finally, the Solidarity Centre in Gdansk built on the site of the shipyards and out of weathered iron had some amazing textures (a photograph of textures is how Salt Stitches creates all her work).
Fabric dyeing
Module 6 of my City & Guilds course was all about fabric dyeing. I have to admit that I procrastinated starting this module partly because it wasn’t embroidery based, But as with module 2 once I started I really enjoyed the process of experimenting.
There were 5 different dyeing techniques for us to try, you can see each of the techniques in the pictures below along with the outcomes.
plastic bag dyeing
microwave dyeing
space dying
ice cube dying
drainpipe dying
Lee Krasner inspiration
I first came across Lee Krasner and her work almost 20 years ago after travelling to the US as well as learning more about the artist Jackson Pollock via the biopic Pollack.
Like many female artists her work isn’t exhibited as prominently as her male contemporaries so the recent exhibition at the Barbican was a real treat. (As an aside the Barbican have really upped their exhibition game over the past couple of years having had the Basquiat exhibition recently too.)
What I loved about the exhibition was her use of colour and shape, in particular her use of previous works torn and placed as a collage to create a new work such as Desert Moon, below.
Here are some of her other works from that exhibition that I found particularly inspiring.
Dior inspiration
Earlier this year armed with my V&A membership card I headed to see the Dior exhibition. I wasn’t there for opening and had to queue 30 minutes to get in, which was totally my own fault (I treated myself to a birthday lie in!) The busyness of the exhibition totally ruined my experience and I vowed to head back to the exhibition at a quieter time. When I saw the offer for members to visit before the museum opened to the general public I thought this was the best opportunity to get a much better experience. Although I decided not to take them up on the offer of an 08:00 Sunday morning visit, the 09:30 start time was perfect both in terms of sleep and being able to see the exhibits.
What I could do this time was get closer to the gowns and see the exquisite craft that goes into the construction and the embellishment. Below are some of my favourite items and potential sources of inspiration (I can never resist some gorgeous beading!)
Bilbao inspiration
In Summer 2015 we headed to the Basque region on our holiday visiting Biarritz, San Sebastián, Bilbao Santillana del Mar and Santander. I'd been wanting to go to Bilbao for ages to go to the Guggenheim and San Sebastian for the food.
Whenever I travel I get inspired by what I see and both the in museums and the architecture In Bilbao inspired me.
The Guggenheim Bilbao reminded me of silver beading. Whilst the floral puppy sculpture by Jeff Koons at the Guggenheim Bilbao reminded me of a patchwork toy. . The colourful windows of a building on the opposite side of the river from the Guggenheim were beautiful and the white stone a great contrast to the bright blue cloudless sky. It got me thinking about bright and colourful crochet blankets. Whilst opposite the entrance to the funicular railway was this mish-mash of a building. Art Deco, Moorish and modern architecture all in one space. The art deco curves reminded me of the beading on 1920s flapper dresses.
Quilting, stumpwork and smocking
Module 5 of my City & Guild course brings together three very different styles of embroidery.
The first of these, hand quilting, brought back memories from childhood creations. It’s a beautifully simple technique with a rustic appeal. This piece I stitched when I was about 11 (I’ve always loved a bead embellishment) compared to the piece I stitched for this module.
The second technique broke down two of the elements of stump work embroidery, lines and needlelace. The design was based on the same inspiration used for module 1, I used a brown colour palette for the stumpwork piece as the shapes seemed forest/twig like. In contrast I used greens for the needlelace sample.
The final technique was smocking, which also brought back childhood memories of cute little gingham dresses. There are two elements to any piece of smocking - firstly creating the pleats and secondly adding the smocking stitches.
NYC modern art inspiration
No trip to NYC is complete without a visit or two to an art gallery. We headed to the Guggenheim and queued around the block to get in for free (if you are there on the right day this would be my top tip to save $$). We also paid a visit to MoMA, although it is undergoing some building work it still has all the big hitters as well as some other fascinating work.
Hilda af Klint - Guggenheim
Hilda af Klint - Guggenheim
Hilda af Klint - Guggenheim
Sonia Delaunay-Terk - MoMA
Lyubov Popova - MoMA
Theo van Doesburg - MoMA
Max Bill - MoMA
Joan Mitchell - MoMA
Appliqué, canvaswork and gold work
Module 4 of my City & Guilds course explored goldwork which was completely new to me. When my parents moved house I was donated some craft supplies that were surplus to requirements which included some gold work threads - this allowed me to experiment without worrying about how much I was wasting (gold work threads are made from gold coloured paper wrapped around silk and cost about £1 per metre).
National Museum of the American Indian inspiration
When I visited New York for the first time 18 years ago I spent a wonderful few hours in the National Museum of the American Indian right at the bottom of Manhattan island. At that time I was obsessed with beadwork and in particular the beadwork of Native Americans. I filled my sketch book with carefully drawn designs from the pieces I saw in that museum.
So as soon as the trip to NYC was booked for this April, the first thing I checked was that the museum was still there and open. This time, with the invention of the digital camera I was able to snap pictures of my favourite pieces for inspiration.
But as well as the permanent collection of pieces there was also a temporary exhibition of the work of TC Cannon. His story and his beautiful paintings are sure to inspire some future work of mine as well.
Counted stitch embroidery
Module 3 of my City & Guilds course was counted work embroidery. As with module 1, some of our samples were based on designs we created using a famous artist for inspiration. In this module I chose Paul Klee.
The techniques covered in this module were cross stitch, blackwork, Hardanger and drawn thread work. I was a bit scared of Hardanger at first (because of the need to snip into your work) but I really loved creating the sample for this technique. I was helped along by a book on Hardanger embroidery my Mum found in a charity shop but this website also has a number of great tutorials.
NYC architecture inspiration
It’s been 18 years since I last visited New York. There is so much to see and do there, here are a few images from my recent trip that have been a source of creative inspiration since I returned.
Four things to know about working with metallic thread
New Years Eve 2018 I was lucky enough to view the fireworks from the 10th floor balcony of a building that overlooks the Thames.
When my parents moved house my Mum de-stashed (not by very much her home studio is still full!) I inherited some lovely metallic threads in a range of colours. To play around with these threads I stitched this firework embroidery sampler.
Some things I learned from stitching with metallic threads:
they tangle
they split
they wear at the point where they pass through the eye of the needle
they are much rougher than normal embroidery floss
The top tip for working with metallic threads is to keep the lengths of threads you use much shorter than you would normally stitch with - this will help immensely with the tangling, splitting and wearing.
These threads are rougher than normal floss, normally as the metallic part is wrapped around a thinner inner thread. it can make some stitches such as French knots more challenging. It doesn’t mean you can’t stitch these, but I’d recommend so practice and patience! The rougher thread also means that trying to undo a tangle is particularly horrendous
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Basics of hand embroidery
The first module of my City & Guilds course was all about the basics - trying different stitches. To complete this module we had to complete 4 samples - line stitches, textural stitches, isolated stitches and blocks of stitches.
The latter was the most enjoyable - I researched as many different stitches as I could (this book has a surprisingly wide range). I divided up my fabric into rectangles using a water soluble pen and started stitching. This was the sample in progress at my local cafe.
Brussels and Bruges inspiration
I love a trip on the Eurostar (who doesn’t!) and wanting a bit of inspiration I was flicking through some photos and found these. Despite the grey and cold on this particular trip, the shapes and colours of the buildings are great inspiration.
