Scrapdragons

I made a lot of wire legs for the little birds we started making at our summer retreat (aka play session) at Blue Ginger.   I made them with the spare wire curled up at the top - useful if you want to make a beak or tail or just to add stability to the stuffed bird.  After a day spent trying to learn how to make a badge like Kathleen's my fingers wanted to do what they wanted to do....so a small creature evolved on the legs.  I like to build these little beasts from the inside out and let the materials decide what they want to become.

badge for Joy, my heroic little sister

I unfurled the little loops at the top and stitched wings on.  I used small scraps of an odd slightly translucent crepe fabric which arrives in my scrapbox backed onto heavy satin - part of my treasures supplied by Sue Elliot.  These little scraps had lovely swoopy edges so I used a piece for each wing and didn't cut them to shape at all.  It means the wings are very different in shape but the same texture.

I stitched a little wadding to the body and then tugged a piece of vari-coloured velvet in place.  Eyes were added - brown buttons I got from a treasure trove of materials donated by a fellow embroider to the group when we were at Blue Ginger.

The legs are made from a wire that is moderately easy to work with but it is too springy and won't move into new shapes as easily as I would like.  Getting all the toes to hit the ground is very hard, so I think a different kind of wire will need to be found once this lot is used up.

Free-form fabric bird

I made several birds using a pattern.  I also enjoyed making two much larger birds working direct with the wire and stuffing and fabric, and building them up as I went.  This little bird follows the same process.

I started with a set of ordinary legs I had made from galvanised wire earlier.  Instructions for these are in the previous blog, though these were double the size of the ones described.  I unwound one of the curly bits in the middle and used this to form a beak.

I covered this with fabric and stitched it in place.

I then stitched some stuffing to the wire to form a head.

 I then sewed bits of fabric on.  I particularly liked this handmade silk and merino felt with the lime green strands,  I only had a piece about an inch on the largest dimension, so it just formed the front of the face.

I then added other head bits and began to build up the body, first with stuffing and then with pieces of fabric.

I added a tail and some wings. I liked this scrap of velvet with its fluffy edge, so the bird got a crest.

I used this rather livid yellow thread to pick up the threads on the front of the face.

Beads for eyes.  Are they big enough?  I could always change them later.

Named the bird Aubrey because of the autumnal auburn colours.

These beautiful scraps of silk and velvet were donated by Sue Elliot, who makes glorious items in her studio in Selkirk, Scotland.

Alison Dupernex - textile artist/craftperson

 Alison Dupernex is currently showing at the Innov8 Craft Fair in Pershore.  She gave a talk to the local artis's group WANA yesterday.

http://www.alisondupernex.co.uk

Alison gave a lively talk about the origin, development and techniques for knitting her silk and cashmere cardigans and scarves.

She described herself as ‘Painting with yarn’, and said that she was

passionate about colours...they absolutely bounce off each other.... your life gets richer because of what you discover...touching and feeling the fabric nourishes your soul...makes you feel fantastic.

Many artists have influenced her in the twenty five years she has been a professional knitter.  She designs in January and February, closing the workroom door and experimenting.  During the rest of the year she doesn’t have time to develop ideas, but she does alter her colour choices all the time as she goes along.  She always makes her colour choices in daylight.  She finds that black and white, which she only started using recently, give space to other colours and allow them to breath.  Sometimes she uses colours which you are unlikely to notice in a composition but if they weren’t there you would notice that they weren’t there...somehow they make the garment zing.

Alison trained as an English teacher. In the eighties she had fifteen knitters working for her, and sold in stores around the world such as Liberty's.  Knitting and knitted garments then became unfashionable, and it was only a chance discovery of some Italian silk yarn that transformed her work into its current fluid, flexible form.  Garments are square cut but draping, gaining their shape from the people who wear them.  The light airy stripes of knitted silk are interspersed with slightly felted cashmere to give an intricate and sumptuous texture.