I am ME. A book with a heart.

In February this year I was travelling to work. I was stuck in a traffic jam for over an hour listening to a radio phone in about the refugee crisis.

As the time passed the comments from some of the callers became more and more extreme. Some of the feelings expressed were so intolerant and lacking in any understanding of the plight of our fellow human beings, including children, who have seen and experienced things that we can't imagine in our worst nightmares.

By the time I got to work I was sobbing. I wondered what one person could possibly do to help with this tragedy.

When I got home there was an email waiting for me. Children's Author Sue Hampton had written a heart rending poem about a family arriving in a new country from the child's perspective. She asked if I would illustrate it so it could be made into a book. All the profits from the book would go to People Not Borders, a group of people who will make a real difference to the lives of the people they touch.

This is what one person could do to help! ME!

I asked if I could illustrate the book in textiles and stitch. The book will be given to children as well as to adults and will be seen in schools and churches so I wanted the images to be colourful and exciting as well as powerful in a way that was gentle enough for a child to see. 

I also wanted to introduce children to the beauty of textiles with lots of different techniques because, in the schools I visit, the children have no previous experience of the magic of working with textile art.

I asked my husband Paul Watkins, a most amazing photographer, to take the photographs for the book. I knew he would capture the textures and colours of the fabrics and each and every stitch.

This Summer the book was published by TSL Publishing and is on its second print run. We are all so happy with the book and to have been able to make a difference in our own little way.

If you have room for one more Christmas present for someone you love, please consider sending them one of these little books. They are available from: Sue Hampton. The price is £10 and all the profits will go towards making a real difference to people who really need us to care about their plight.

Rejoicing in the little things

I love tiny things!

Sometimes the best things aren't big and showy, they are little and have to be searched for. I love looking for the littlest prettiest shell on the beach, spotting a tiny wild violet in the grass or finding the cutest button in a tray of bric a brac.

So when I found an old torn piece of doily that I had space dyed I thought it would be the perfect thing for making a page for my stitched Nature Blanket Book.

I found some gorgeous vintage velvet ribbon and placed it across the middle of both pages. I attached it with cross stitches on one side and feather stitches on the other side and then stitched on velvet flowers and little pink beads.

It is backed with a piece of old blue blanket. Such a lovely surface to stitch on!

On the left page I couched on a piece of wool roving with silk thread and added dyed felt leaves and weensy glass flowers. The bird was cut from felt with a Sizzix die and sewn on with detached buttonhole stitches. Her beak is needle felted on.

The right page is stitched with buttonhole stitches and straight stitches in variegated silk threads and the words done in back stitch.

I think the whole book will be a celebration of tiny beautiful things. Things to make us rejoice about the tiny pieces of nature all around us!

Crochet and Felt

At last week's Fabulous Felt course one of my learners was our Elizabeth, Director of the Community Learning Partnership. I have been running the course for a few years and she loves to see all the learners work but she has never really had the chance to make any felt herself. She is slightly addicted to wool though; the colours, its softness (its SMELL!!??) and all the amazing things can be made from those lovely wool tops! 

However, Elizabeth's greatest current addiction is Crochet. Whenever I go into the office she has crocheted something new or bought more delicious wool for our learners to use on our crochet courses. So it shouldn't be a surprise that she had been wondering if you could combine crochet with handmade felt.

The answer is, of course, YES!

Felt making is such an amazing adventure that we never stop learning how many different things you can do with it. The wackiest things work if you know the basics of how felt is made  
and you can embed all kinds of things into the fibres as they felt.

So this week, on part 2 of the course, she is going to bring some pieces of crochet to experiment with. In the meantime I had a little experiment of my own.

I found some gorgeous space dyed merino yarn in my stash and crocheted some circles of different kinds and sizes and added them to the bottom of of my seascape panel that I was using to demo felting to the class. As the felting was barely started the crocheted motifs adhered really well to the pre felt and moulded the bottom of the panel with some lovely curves.

I added shells and some stitching to finish it all off. I love adding crochet to felt! Thanks Elizabeth and lets see how our experiments turn out on Saturday. I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone's felt turns out. It is always wonderful to see beginners turn into Fabulous Felters.

I will post some  photos of the class work next week. 

The Liberty Best of British Open Call 2013

Since I was very young I have loved visiting Liberty in London. It isn't only the most beautiful shop, with gorgeous architectural details and a wonderfully serene atmosphere but it also has a bedazzling array  of luxury designer merchandise in its many different departments. It is food for my creative soul just to visit and to wander.

Even when I have been almost broke its been such a treat to buy a little something scrummy and take it home in its distinctive, gold lettered, purple bag.

So after many years of admiring the work of the other designers I thought I'd register to show mine! Being BRAVE remember!

I registered in the summer last year and before Christmas I got a letter inviting  me to join the other 2,000 designers and artists to show my work to one of the panels of experts from Liberty. 

January 12th arrived! The day  for The Liberty Best of British Open Call 2013!

It was a freezing cold winter's day. The doors opened at 10am but people were queueing from about 6am. By the time we got there at 10, the queue reached around 2 sides of the store.  We would waiting for hours in the chilly British weather so we wrapped up well. We were asked to bring only what we could easily carry and to have protection from the rain.

I took my DH with me for company. He is such a great support but he hates queueing! However, it was lucky that he promised  not to complain as we eventually had to wait  for 5  1/2 hours!! (2 hours outside, the rest going up 4 flights of stairs and in the waiting area) We did get to go away and have lunch at a lovely little patisserie for a treat though. 

The great thing that made the time go faster was that there were so many interesting people to watch! All kinds of artists, all ages, all kinds of products. It was fascinating to see some of them practising their pitches, revising their prices and talking about their inspiration.

We did get a peek at some of their designs: Gold jewellery, screen printed scarves, and lots of different designer cushions.

I took 3 different kinds of things and was registered to see the buyers of the Home department. When I got into the room where I would be doing my 3 minute pitch I was so thrilled to be told that I would be seeing Julie Hassan the Senior Buying Manager for Home, and Harriet Patterson the Style Director of Living Etc Magazine.

The lovely thing about the Liberty Open Call is that although they only take about 10 out of the 2,000 designers they see on the day, everyone is treated so nicely. It isn't scary like Dragon's Den at all!  The staff are so friendly and helpful throughout the whole process.

This is a real chance to have your designs seen by some of the top professionals in the industry and get an honest and constructive appraisal of your work. They were so interesting to talk to and gave me some great feedback. I was there for longer than 3 minutes because they asked me lots of questions but it went like a flash! What a great experience and well worth waiting for.

The youtube video link below will show you Liberty's own clips of the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LJGFNTwDA0&list=UUxUf2HdD5Se6biJzxc_xeWw&index=1

  

Christmas Paper Patchwork

On the Mixed Media group I belong to we decided to do a Christmas patchwork panel swap.

We all got assigned different dimensions for our panel and as there were 10 people in the swap we each had to make 10 identical panels- one for each member of the swap.

At the end we each received one from each person and a diagram of how they would all fit together.

I thought I'd do a little tutorial of how I made mine because lots of people have been asking about how to make the paint effects, how to use the products and how to piece it all together.

This may take a while so get a cuppa  and lets get messy!

1. My panel is 4"wide by 5" high so I chose some black card and ran it through the Sizzix Bigshot in a Snowflake and a spotty Embossing Folder. It turned my cardboard into  deeply embossed  patterned cards and I painted them with Gold and Copper Jaquard Lumiere paints which is rich and metallic and perfect for using on fabric, card and anything you like. LOVE this paint!

I also cut some birds and reindeer in the black card with the Sizzix. I know they were all supposed to be the same but I got excited and can't make decisions when I'm excited!

  I wanted the panels to look vintage, so although the bright metallics look good I wanted more depth to the paint effects. When  you are making your own painted backgrounds you can choose your own colour scheme so I decided to make 3 different versions of vintage metallics.

The first one is Verdigris which is the look of copper when it has been aged by the weather. It gets lovely blues and greens mixed in with the copper and metallics.

The second is much brighter with more of the metallic colour showing through.

The third is more like an Aged Bronze.It is darker and has a white bloom on the surface.

2.You can do a mix and match of all the finishes and stop when you like the look of your backgrounds. There are no rules and it is fun to just play with the paints.

We start by putting a blob of lime green, turquoise and white on a plate. These look quite bright but we are going to be blending them and mixing them and between these 3 colours you can make all kinds of different tints, shades and depths of colour.

You can mix the colours on the brush and on the plate but it it really important to have a really dry brush before you paint so when you like the colour you have mixed rub most of it off on to a paper towel so that it looks like there is almost none left. Not like the brush above!

3. Now really lightly brush the colour onto the texture of your card. Try to brush over just the  top of the textured surface. Add some patches of the other colours and mix them together a bit but make sure your brush stays really dry.

4. Wipe some of the paint off with a paper towel to make it look old and worn and to buff up some of the metallic colours and make them shine.

Time to make the reindeer and birdy embellishments! I wanted a crackly vintage finish on these. Ranger make a lovely crackle paint called Rock Candy which produces  transparent glittery fine crackles with just one step of painting. I painted all my shapes with a fairly thick layer of the crackle and let them dry.

Because it is transparent it doesn't really show on the black so I needed to put something over the top to show off the lovely crackles! I used Copper glitter Stickles. I put a little bit on my finger and rubbed it over the crackles which picked up the texture really well. I also used some Treasure Gold on my finger to rub over the texture and give a bit of shine..

Before sticking my shapes on with PVA glue I rubbed the outer edges of the panels with black Treasure Gold to finish them and make them look aged. I then stuck on some gorgeous bronze metal snowflakes with Ranger Multi Medium in Matte finish which disappears when dry and holds really strongly, and some little berry wreaths which I made from a berry pick that I took apart.

Here is a closer look at 4 of the panels. Have a go at making one yourself but if Christmas is too near you can use this technique all year round to make lovely textured artwork for cards, journals and scrapbooks etc. Try using different colour combinations to make them look completely unique each time.

Ready to Fly!

One of my earliest blog posts on the 17th May had a doodle  from one of my sketchbooks that I had used as inspiration for a piece of handmade felt. 

I had a lovely time laying out the felt fibres using some of the colours in the sketch and then because I was so busy with my teaching schedule and because I had covered every available space  with art stuff I rolled up the fibres in their net and bubble wrap  and left them till the summer. I originally intended to add the details from the sketch into the final piece with stitching. I was going to 'doodle ' with the sewing machine to add the final touches.

I finally had time to finish felting it and here is the finished piece! at last!!

 I am so pleased with the way it has come together. Because it was made by wet felting, it has  a really dense rippley texture and the pattern on it has stayed in relief. Because I am an embroiderer and I am addicted to stitching I had to really make myself resist stitching this piece. I think it has enough detail now that it is finished and it is a good note to myself that I don't need to stitch on everything . 

You can see in this detail that it has a variety of different fibres on this panel Thin mohair, silk, curly hand dyed Wensleydale, hand dyed roving and lots of coloured merino. Just like painting with fibre! Hmmm What shall I do next???

Racing into a new teaching year!

Today I was in a meeting to schedule my teaching for the coming academic year. There are some very exciting new courses coming up!

We will be designing courses in Fabulous Felt part 1 and advanced felt which will include a seamless bag, a Cobweb felt stole  and a Nuno Felt scarf!

There will be Christmas Crafts which will include felt decorations and the White on White wall hanging that every one has been desperate to make. We will also include some fab pop up snowflake cards.

We have been planning some more Jewellery and Vintage Crafts courses too. These were really popular last year and we have lots of new techniques up our sleeves.

Artist Trading Cards are so very popular with everyone that we will be doing courses in these little beauties all over the county! I know lots of people have been waiting for the next round of these classes so they can learn new techniques to add to their collections.

This year I hope to be teaching many more Mixed Media techniques with Altered Books and Book Art of all kinds.

I will have some great things for sale too and some tutorials coming up to go with them so watch this space for all of those.

If you are interested in any of the coming courses, contact me as soon as you can. Last year so many people missed out because the classes filled quicker than we could publicise them.

Hertfordshire Open Studios

It is September!  It must be time for Herts Open Studios!

This is a wonderful event where artists from around the whole county open their studios to the public to promote their art and  teaching and demonstrate their techniques for visitors.

It is a great opportunity to talk to the artists about their work and to buy the work of emerging and established artists who may live just around the corner from us.

This is my 6th year of exhibiting with OS. Each year I try to have a different theme or I base my work around a technique that I have been exploring. It is a great opportunity to stretch myself to develop new techniques and to talk to people and see what they think of my work.

This year my artworks were based around my studies of Lace. 

I love vintage lace and marvel at the way it is constructed with open areas that give texture 

and play with the light. I love the way you can look through it to partly see what is beneath.

I have been making my own lace! A 21st Century version of an antique textile. Embroidered, layered, beaded and made from very contemporary materials!

I also have  some of my handmade books and altered books on display in cases. I can take them out and show them to people in quiet moments. There are a couple of book out of the cases for people to look through. There is a lot of interest in book art and last year when I showed the books, the exhibition  led to many classes because every one wanted one of their own!

Herts Open Studios is on until Saturday 15th September. From 11am till 4pm at the Paper Trail in Fourdrinier Way, Apsley, Hemel Hempstead. Hurry if you want a peek!

Another Page waiting for me to play.

I have decorated some more pages in my new journal and they are just waiting for me to have time to do something with them. I really enjoy making the pages though so I don't mind waiting. It will be nice to have a whole book of backgrounds to play with one day.

This one is stencilled through a Crafters Workshop Stencil and has had doodles added on top following the design of the stencil. This is one of the first stencils  that I bought from Crafters Workshop. It is a really useful pattern and I have used it so many times on so many surfaces.

This is a detail of the pattern. I often make a whole sheet of the backgrounds and then cut them up to make pieces for Handmade Cards, Artist Trading Cards, and pages for Altered Books.

Back to my Arty Roots

I recently heard my much loved and first  textiles and embroidery tutor talking about my work and heard her say that she didn't think I did much hand stitching these days. Well I do have a needle in my hand most days, but what she meant was that I used to do work that was so stitched that the work was all about the stitching and the layers of texture and colour that it gave to the pieces.

Well, it made me yearn a bit for some of that stuff that I seem to be too busy to do these days. It made me abandon all the housework once again and I spent every spare moment of a whole week working on this!

It is based on the study of Lichen in the landscape; on branches and old walls. The textures and colours of moss and lichen, when you look closely at them, are so surprising and beautiful that I have been known to stop in my tracks and stare. Trying to absorb and remember them for capturing in stitch or in some arty adventure.

Below are some closer details that show the stitchery a bit more clearly. You can also see the colours of the gorgeous space dyed silk and wool threads and the hand dyed silk laps that give it even more dimension.

You can also see the stitches. There are just about 5 different stitches in this piece but when they are used with a variety of different thickness of thread and in all kinds of scale they are enough to give amazing texture.

My learners seem to be craving hand stitching more and more these days. I have had to alter some of my lesson plans to include whole sessions that are devoted to just learning and playing with stitch. Yay! Welcome back stitchery! I have missed you and will be doing more soon!

Nuts for Needle Felting

I had a lovely time needle felting last weekend. I thought I needed some more samples to show how easy it is to achieve really fine detail with just a felting needle and some wool fibres in scrummy colours. Once I started I couldn't stop! I only did 2D ones because they have to fit in my class sample book. Here are the results of a day avoiding housework and other serious duties.