2017

We move forward from two successful exhibitions in 2016 in Prague and in the USA to the challenge of an exhibition in the Netherlands in the Autumn. We continue to work on A2 sized pieces in portrait format and will be producing four pieces over the year with the theme of 'Freedom'. An essential part of our art is working in series to a common format which does give us all a framework for our creative endeavours.

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Journey 1


This piece shows where I am from, or at least where I have been recently. On my trip to Yorkshire to visit Magie Relph, in Yorkshire in August, 2011, I had no project with me.  I usually take some handwork when I travel, but this time I had nothing. Magie has these beautiful langu lapu fabrics from South Africa. The print is literally made by placing plants on the cloth and letting the sun print them. She had also just received a shipment of beautiful, variegated threads.  They were so beautiful that I couldn’t leave them alone. After a trip to the local needle work shop, I had a new hoop, a whole stash of metallic threads, new needles, and a tidy tiny pair of scissors. I now had the perfect project for travelling, as I didn’t have to plan out the shapes, just outline them.

I do a lot of embroidery, mostly small pieces that I frame in rough wood boxes with added objects as accents. That was the original plan for this piece, but when I got the challenge, I decided to see if I could make it work in a larger format. Magie had brought me some wadding, and I work a lot with linen, so I got out my stash and found a wonderful deep green in just the right size. On sewing the whole together, it looked bare, so I decided to enlarge part of the leaf pattern and quilt it on the green. Hand quilting didn’t give me the right effect, so I borrowed a friend’s sewing machine, and did my first machine quilting, using a blue lurex thread. It is a bit messy, but considering I haven’t used a sewing machine in about 15 years, I feel quite proud of the results. Now it is on to planning out the next piece.

Trish Graham

Posted by at

6 comments:

  1. Jean15 February 2012 at 06:56

    What wonderful fabric that inspired you Trish - I really liked the way you used quilting to link the fabrics together.

    Jean

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wil15 February 2012 at 15:58

    I always love the effect sunprints give! Good work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Frances18 February 2012 at 15:10

    I was in Yorkshire in August 2011, too, but only for a couple of days. I loved it there! The colors in your quilt are beautiful and I agree with Jean that your quilting really ties this piece together. I can't believe this was your first machine quilting. It's very well done!

    ReplyDelete
  4. ElaineRM18 February 2012 at 16:04

    If this is your first machine quilting it's brilliant, Trish and in Lurex too!I like the way some of the leaves are spilling over the edge of the central piece of fabric. Really good to see the close up shots as well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gretchen Sanders Mwaura19 February 2012 at 17:04

    Sun printing, that's an interesting idea- it would work very well here! Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trish Graham21 February 2012 at 18:38

      Maggie can give you the contact details for the woman who does it in SA.

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)