Orange Crush

What an amazing morning! The mist in the valley below the house looks like a lake and the hills beyond are islands. I spent a bit of time in the garden yesterday, trying to weave the willow house back together and cutting the “lawn” which was two feet high!

The camera wire has resurfaced – Jake had cellotaped it to the kitchen door when I got back from work last night!- so here are some details from a recent design on linen and wool tweed. The photos are so close-up they make the fabric look like cross stitch fabric, its actually some nice linen that I found in “Boyes” and dyed “Goldfish Orange”, yum!

Today I think I might go and see an exhibition at Ryedale Folk Museum by Cheryl-ann Taylor. She is artist in residence and the exhibition “explores the construction and meaning of the dress by weaving together beautiful yarn, a strong sense of colour,delightful beading and exquisite knit stitches…”

Then its back to the grindstone with a new batch of designs…although I haven’t heard yet if the last lot were any good yet…

Good luck to everyone on the Textiles and Surface Design course at Cleveland College of Art and Design who are just starting a new term and new projects.Some of them are making blogs so I’ll look forward to seeing them soon and thanks for having a look at mine!

x

Inspiration

Here are some lovely things I’ve been looking at, and getting inspired by… I’ve been painting my room and while shifting stuff around I came across this gorgeous green silk shawl that my dad gave me for my birthday years ago. It has three embroidered butterflies on it and very long tassels that get in a big knot, but it looks great hiding a pile of boxes; rich green against the “Mulberry” walls.Maybe I need to buy an iron though…!

Louise Broomhead, a freelance textile designer working for Gilbey & Cheyne,  kindly admired my degree show on her blog this week.I had a look at the slide show of her work and felt even more inspired to do a bit of stitching and drawing, Thank you Louise!( For copyright reasons I’ve removed the image of her work but you must take a look at her designs and cards which you can buy via the link on her blog)

Sorry about the quality of these pictures,at least they upload fairly quickly. I thought I should put a few stitchy pieces here since its all been getting a bit too flat and computer generated lately. The bird on the right is the original fabric sample that I’ve been working on reproducing on Illustrator and Photoshop.

Must be coffee time by now? And then I shall summon the energy to go and empty the paddling pool which has turned an unhealthy shade of green- a bit like that shawl!

Forty Shades of Green

 
  
Its raining for the first time in ages and I’ve been listening to Johnny Cash after watching “Walk The Line” at the weekend. Brings back memories of the old 8Track stereo in my Daddy’s mustard yellow Ford Mustang!The forty shades of green outside my window have now turned to blue.
College today was all about finishing the boxes for the catalogue (they do actually look quite good afterall…) and having our photos taken for the gallery (maybe not looking quite so good but they did Photoshop our spots away!”They airbrushed my face” as Michael Stipe once said..!)
I got a bit of time to upload some more images, so today’s offerings include : a drawing of a floral motif which I used for digital print,a set of books covered in printed fabric,a dress with owl applique and vintage lace bodice and a detail of a dress design with hand and machine embroidery.
Right, back to making business cards. Goodbye for now.