Chill out Stitching!

It has been so lovely over the Christmas break to have a bit of time to throw myself into some stitching.

I found some silk and wool threads that I had hand dyed and together with my favourite green silk thread from 21st Century Yarns, they looked so lovely. Like a breath of Summertime!

I put them together in a bag with some dyed muslin and silk snippets and over Christmas this slowly happened!.......

I embroidered a Summer Garden onto the front of an uninspiring handmade felt sketchbook cover. 

Last year my amazing, talented friend Suzanne was making all in one sketchbook covers using a resist and I thought I'd try the technique using some wool tops. Hers are stunning but I just used any old colours to try it out. It worked so well, but, because I'd used such dull colours it never felt quite right. It was just waiting...

So my dull old cover now looks like a Wild Summer Garden and chilled me out good and proper over Christmas. I think it will inspire me to do some nice colourful art in there this year. 

Isn't that a nice way to start a new year of Art? 
With a fresh new sketchbook to play in.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year

May wonderful things happen for you and those you love. xx

PS. I thought you may like to see a couple of photos of the dyeing process. This is from a blog post from June 2012 if you'd like to see the whole thing with before and after photos. 

Here are a couple of photos of the threads and other bits of silk, velvet and cotton I space dyed. The colours make me so happy.

Inspired by Lichen and colour

Lichen inspires me! There are tiny worlds amongst the damp tendrils. Tiny flowers, shapes, textures and surprising bright colours.

This little piece of embroidery in progress has tiny crochet cups made with hand dyed silk thread. They have been sewn onto space dyed silk scrim which has been layered onto a piece of silk and merino Nuno felt. I have used the same thread to hand embroider french knots and feather stitches and there is a woven wheel on there too.

Pour L'Amour Du Fil

For the Love of Thread!

Click Here! Pour L'Amour Du Fil 

I have been invited to exhibit my work and teach workshops at this beautiful textile show in April at Nantes in the stunning Loire Valley in France. 

The show is run by Quilt Mania who publish the most wonderful textile books and Quilting Magazines.

There will be some amazing highlights at the show including exhibits from the Tokyo Quilt Festival, and artists from around the world including Yoko Saito from Japan, Linda Koenig from the USA as well as wonderful textile artists from Australia and Turkmenistan.

Representing the UK in addition to myself will be Karen Ruane and Val Holmes . There may be other names that will be announced nearer the time. There will be some fantastic suppliers and exhibitions.

I will be launching my new range of embroidery kits that feature heart and circle shaped tins which can be painted with alcohol inks and embroidered with hand dyed threads onto silk brocade and handmade felt. These will also be the kits that will feature in my workshops at the show. 

In my exhibition space I will be showing my Altered Books, Fabric Books, Altered Tins and sketchbooks as well as some of my other Mixed Media work. I will also be demonstrating some of the techniques in the Cut Shape Stitch book if there is time.

Paul my husband will be with me and will take lots of photos around the show to share with you so you can feel like you are there with me.   Paul Watkins Photography