Amanda's update

Just in time for the Forum week which starts this coming Sunday I have the dress together at last! This project has been in the making over a long period of time. The theme this year has been Deconstruct/Reconstruct and I discovered that the deconstruct part of the work took quite a while. Preparing the composted cotton took a number of weeks, the initial composting period was about 6 weeks, then I had to wash and soak the fabric a number of times to get rid of the mould and the smell! After that came weeks of repair to the weak and badly deconstructed areas before the fabric was finally ready for printing. Then followed stitching of free-motion design onto parts of the skirt, the making of the pattern, making a mock-up and constructing the garment. Removing the silk for the bodice from the inside of the wardbobe was a careful job and it also had to be washed a couple of times before it was ready to be made into the bodice and embroidered. I may add some beading yet...

This years line-up

This year the four members contributing to the forum will be:

Frances Sawaya, Co Cavan
Ester Kiely, Co Galway
Jan Blair, Co Meath
Amanda Northey-Damms, Co Antrim

February Forum 2010

Post from Amanda ...Members of the Textile Art Forum are off to Ballydugan Cottages near Downpatrick for 6 days from 28th February. With just four of us contributing this year we have an interesting challenge ahead to discuss and co-ordinate our work for the coming season. We are all stll working on the Deconstruct/Reconstruct theme putting together an exhibition for later this year. Will keep you posted here.
My own work on the dress seem in earlier posts is shaping up. The printed fabric for the skirts has been stitched, layered with net and gathered to fit to the bodice which is under construction. I had a fitting with my model, Tessa a couple of days ago so with a bit more work I will have something that looks more like the finished article to show you, meanwhile, here is a photo of the detail of the stitching on the skirt. The fabric is very fragile as it has been well composted which makes it challenging to work with.

I will be using a similar technique, printing onto composted cotton then stitching over it to create a wall piece that takes it's construction idea from the traditional patchwork block pattern.