Welcome

20 August --- The Forum met in Navan for an all day session to share ideas and plan for 2010. We extend a warm welcome to new members Ester Kiely from Galway and Diane Crook of Bailieborough. Lots of great ideas including some decisions about the winter's residential week in Ballyduggan. Looking forward to it all.

Unearthing the Bog

Part of the Textile Forum's 2010 projects on deconstruct/reconstruct, this wall quilt is made from my dyed fabrics mixed in with batiks. Tones for the purple heather are mixed throughout. It is now quilted and I am at a decision point for creating the elements for the bog cotton. I tried using actual bog cotton but it was too silk and did not hold its texture. I was able to find old shirt fabric which has slashes of black across it that are reminiscent of the textures on the cotton. Now I will do some hand stitching in black to enhance the fibre elements.

Winter on the Bog Road

This is the first in the series I am working on that has a focus on the four seasons. The technique is colourwash as initiated by Deirdre Amsden. For the quilting I plan to use a series of winter trees.

I spent some time today developing colour samples for my bullrushes theme. This photo shows a series of 10cm square prints on composted cotton using water based inks. I started with black and mixed various shades of brown. Earlier today I thought I had settled on one of the reddish browns from the centre of the sample but now indecision has crept in and it will take a few more samples to know for sure which colour to use.

What's this?

Here's an interesting photo. It's my bundle of cotton, full of veg, fruit, herbs and spices, ready for composting. I'll post another photo of it in a few weeks when it's done and ready to print onto for the skirt of my dress.

rough sketch

This is a rough sketch for the dress idea. I haven't put much detail onto the sketch because I don't want to give too much away at this stage! I'm also posting a page from my sketch book which shows the initial idea for the block print for the skirt of the dress.

ideas for 2010 exhibition

After some months of procrastination and tossing ideas around I am reaching some conclusions about my work for 2010. I am reversing my original idea of taking a garment, deconstructing it and making a textile piece out of it and am now planning to make a garment out of some silk that was lining my edwardian wardrobe. This project will take me back to my roots in clothing design and construction, at the same time making use of this beautiful, aged and worn fabric. I haven't made a piece of wearable art for some time so this is stirring my creativity. I'll include some printing too, thereby bringing together all my current themes into one project. More soon...