My first completed work of textile art

I'm delighted to say the workshop with Paddy Hartley was wonderful, and this is my completed piece of art.

My family has strong connections to the Irish Linen industry, and I have told some of their story using this Irish Linen blouse.  Holes and "doors" were cut into it; and images layered into it.  The words were free motion embroidered onto soluble fabric, and the fabric was dissolved in water, leaving the letters made of threads.  

It has inspired me to create something to tell more of the story, which will require further research, and extra photographs.  I'm very proud of my heritage, and my grandmothers who worked hard to create this world famous fabric.  It has been a real pleasure to commemorate them in this way.

Vintage Lamont's Teatowels

I've printed these images onto a special sheet of linen from Crafty Computer Paper, ready for today's workshop.  I've also got some great vintage Old Bleach images, and family photos, printed onto cotton.  Somehow all these images will be added to an Irish linen sleeveless blouse that I got from eBay. It's going to be interesting!

Acrylic painting, quick and dirty.

Last night was my art class, and we had a go at creating a fast seascape painting.  We created a textured base layer by mixing Polyfilla powder into light coloured emulsion paint with added PVA glue to prevent cracking. This mix is very similar to the one used in the textile "Get Plastered" technique.  After painting this mixture onto our paper we added texture by using cling film to lift the wet mixture into peaks, echoing the shape of waves, and created rocks using ready mixed Pollyfilla.  When this was dried we added colour, putting clouds in the sky with our fingers.  My biggest problem was making my clouds look realistic, not like fluffy balls of cotton wool.  I struggle to overcome my instinct to have symmetry, and I'm working on loosening up!

Further research

I'm working on finding out more about my family and the Irish Linen industry.  I've stretched my poor mum's memory to breaking point in my search for information.  She can recall that her mother was chosen to weave parachute fabric during the war, which has got me really intrigued.  I've googled every permutation I can think of, but I can't get any information on this.  Undeterred I have emailed the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, and the Imperial War Museum.  Hopefully one of them will get back to me with more details.  My mum can also remember that her uncle, James "Jimmy" Baird, started out in a room in the factory that was really wet, and the men worked in bare feet with their trouser legs rolled up.  I'm guessing it was the room where the linen was washed and stretched???  Again, I need more details.  Uncle Jimmy went on to work in the print room, and he manually screen printed the tea towels until the process was mechanised.  He continued in the print room until he retired.  Sadly both he and my grandmother, his sister, died decades ago, so I have no one I can ask my questions to.  

Fortunately my aunt has managed to find 5 vintage Samuel Lamont and Sons tea towels, including the famous "Amazing Grace" one.  They are being posted to me, and I will photograph them to use in my Textile Stories workshop at the weekend.  I've got a pack of Crafter's Images Photo Fabric to print my pictures on to, to stitch into my altered wearable art garment.  I bought an Irish linen blouse from eBay to use as my base garment.

I strongly suspect that I won't be able to tell the whole story I have in mind in this single project, so there are lots of ideas pinging around in my head.  I really want to create something for future generations of the family to appreciate what their ancestors did.

Irish Linen and my family

The theme of the Arts Council funded workshops I'm doing, as part of the Bait project in Northumberland, is Textile Stories.  This is the information from Paddy Hartley:

Paddy Hartley Fragments Workshop

29th & 30th March 2014 at Lynemouth Resource Centre

The ‘Fragments’ workshop will involve exploring soluble fabric 'floating applique' techniques to create wearable artwork. 

Participants will recreate fragments of either an existing garment (cuffs, pockets, collars etc) or cut components from pre-existing garments and use these as a base on which to freehand machine stitch imagery, text and pattern whilst incorporating reinforced dissolving fabric into the creation of the piece.

Participants will work with multi-layers of fabric, using 'excising' techniques to revealunderlying layers of text and imagery in the pieces.

Participants are able to work either individually, in pairs or groups.

Please bring with you on the day:  old coats, jackets, blouses...anything with buttons.  Also you will need to bring either images or scans or text that will relate to the story you wish to work around.

If you want to work by cutting up a pre-existing garment, you will need to bring something you are happy to cut up. You may want to group up and all share a jacket say, choose a component each and remove this from the garment to each work on.

The more you fragment the garment and make unconventional cuts, the better.  The pieces we make will not be permanently attached to any garments they are builtaround. They are detachable.

Participants can work to their own story, or one which may related to the building or community in which we are working or extend the theme of the Miner’s  Strike into the work. This doesn’t have to be a literal linear story. Paddy himself tends to work around image and word association. 

This got me thinking about what the story I could possibly tell.  I don't want to deal with the Miner's Strike because it isn't personal to me; I don't have a story to tell about it.  What I do have is a deep connection to Irish Linen, going back to at least my great grandmother, and perhaps even further.  Both of my grandmothers were involved in the linen industry, and had highly skilled jobs.  It's so sad that we've lost so much of that now.  Thanks to the power of the internet I was able to find some interesting images to share with you.  

Me and my gadgets...

I do love a good gadget, as many of my friends can testify.  Of course I absolutely NEED all of them.  I particularly love machines for crafting, especially ones for using with textiles.  So, when my college tutor demonstrated the embellisher machine I had to have one. Immediately.  This required a thorough investigation of machines and prices.  I looked at reviews and saw that the Creative SP1000 had good reviews, and was reasonably priced.  Next stop eBay to see how cheaply I could acquire one, and there was a brand new one listed as an auction.  Needless to say bidding commenced.  I knew what the cheapest price for one was to buy online, so my maximum bid had to be less than that.  And I won!  It arrived on Wednesday when I was out, and by the time I got home I was too tired to try it out.  Thursday was college day, where I had a go on the embellisher in class so I would know what to do with mine.  I finally tried it out this afternoon, and it is magic. I've created a textured piece using a Markel/Shiva stick rubbed "bark" print, with wool laid across it to mimic the wood.  There are so many exciting possibilities, and things I can do with it.  There will be pictures at some point, I promise.

Tea dyeing, leather and handbags

I've been playing at ageing the appearance of plain cotton calico by dyeing it with tea.  The results are remarkably colourfast, even when washed at 30 degrees.  I'm going to use one of the pieces as the backing fabric for my prayer flag/mini banner on the mines during the Industrial Revolution.  

I met an amazing designer-maker today.  Her name is Karina Hesketh, and she has an MA in fine art.  Karina makes amazing handbags.  She creates the designs with her partner Paul, and each piece is hand cut from Grade A leather.  She makes the bags herself, from start to finish, and each one is unique.  In my opinion her bags are REAL designer bags.  They aren't made on a production line far removed from the so called designer, like Chanel, Dior, and Mulberry.  You can see them at www.karinasbags.co.uk - here's one:

I got off cuts of leather from Karina today, and I'm going to incorporate some into the Industrial Revolution piece (see above) to signify the leather harnesses worn by the women and children coal drawers.  These harnesses had chains attached, and the tubs of coal were then fastened to the chains, and pulled through the mine by women, and children aged as young as 9.