all I want....

The Wednesday Group, my pals from the machine embroidery City & Guild's course at Malvern, are making a postcard sized work each month,  This month the topic is 'Christmas'.

It is a lovely frosty day outside, and a good day to start a new project.


I haven't sewn anything much for ages and so I wanted an easy project to start with.  I began with needing to find a long extension lead, as the whole electrical circuit in the room I sew in have stopped working.  We suspect that mice have chewed through a cable but we haven't yet figured out where.

I decided to take the 'All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth' song as my inspiration.  I considered which materials to use for each layer, but decided to try felt as I had sufficient and its lack of fraying was attractive.

I got together materials, then tried to thread my sewing machine.  After a few goes I triumphantly got the needle threaded, only to realise that I had threaded the bobbin thread through the eye of the needle.  Hey Ho...

I wrote the postcard to Santa saying what I wanted.  I had decided not to make any 'cutesy' spelling errors but spelled 'Dear' wrong without meaning to.  I had put out a note from a then six year old friend of mine to get the feeling of the writing, and it obviously worked.

I stitched ribbon to red felt for the wrapping, organised so that undoing the bow allowed access to the inside of the present.

The inside is lined with violet/blue velvet.  Sewn onto the velvet are two incisors, complete with root.  I made them out of white and flesh coloured ribbon.  I would have liked to make teeth that were more beautifully crafted, especially after seeing Annie's exquisite apples with pips last week, but couldn't manage that.  I think they do, at least, look like teeth enough for the story to work.  I had hoped they would seem like jewels set in a box.

So, not great, and I had to relearn things like changing machine feet and tensions and threads...but at least it is done.

long time no stitch

I've been preoccupied with trying to set up and run a gluten-free bakery business.  I haven't done anything else except learn about food hygiene, legislation, packaging, and baking baking baking as I test recipes for quality, keeping and transportation.

I have decided it is time I got back to a more balance life and managed to make it to the monthly 'Wednesday Group', the people I originally went to machine embroidery classes with at Malvern.  They, sorry, we, are making a postcard sized piece each month, and this month I am going to join in.  The topic is Christmas, and I have planned my piece.  Today I will make it.  I'll post the process and pics as they emerge.

begin again

After months of not doing any embroidery I finally managed to make it to the Wednesday Group meeting - the original gang I met at my first City & Guilds class two years ago. They have been making a small postcard sized work each month, with next one being Christmas. The themes each time have been simple, but they are still producing very different work in response to the title - I look forward especially to February's, which in a fit of lack of inspiration became 'the letter F'.

So, got to clear the workspace and begin again. I'll check the earlier blogs and make sure I finished posting about the work I did for the C&G level 3 and the exhibition. I decided my life had become lopsided and I needed to do something other than cook.

Carnival

Carnival

Lots of colour and laughter – but also lost children, picked- pockets, swindled customers and tummy aches and hangovers.

My carnival piece looks at the traditional fortune-teller. You see the woman with a long skirt and bandana looking at the hand of the client, who is holding a crystal ball. She is seated at a crimson clothed table inside a tent. Attached to her ear is a phone wire that leads to the other side of the picture. Here there are two men is striped shirts and grey trousers, sitting at a bank of computers. They are using the data coming through from the crystal ball, which is a fingerprint reader, to access information about banking, health risks etc to enable the fortune teller to give accurate information about current events and so seem to be able to tell the future.

This piece is made from fabric and found objects. 80cm x 47cm

Gollum’s Pocket Part 2

Many other jobs need doing but Gollum’s Pocket tops the list for amusement. I painted an old crepe bandage with silk paints and stitched the vari-coloured strip onto a coffee bag. I wanted the outside to look weedy and as if it had been in and out of slimy ponds. Because Gollum kept his ‘Precious’ the inside needed to be bright and shiny and something that would keep the contents tidy even if they were bits of fish. I didn’t make a closure because Gollum, after all, did loose The Ring from his pocket, so it is now empty. I wondered about fitting a small LED light, preferably solar powered, inside but that seems a bit too hard and have given upon that notion.

I sewed a few beads to represent water droplets and small water creatures onto the bag, and then stitched the fish skeleton on the outside. I made a head and tail from some scraps of shiny cloth and sewed on a glassy bead for an eye. I used a shoelace to make a strap so Gollum could sling the pocket over his shoulder or tie it around his waste. He has a newish looking shoelace, but I suppose he would regularly need to change the lace as the old ones wore out and he came across discarded shoelaces on the edges of ponds.

This was a silly project and I had a lot of fun doing it.

Gollum’s Pocket

I have decided to make a piece for a collaborative project with Charnwood Arts' Big Knitting Group, Every Pocket Tells A Story. This will be an exhibition at Loughborough's Charnwood Museum, which will explore the history and the future of the pocket. (http://www.charnwoodarts.com)

I thought about my pocket...all the things I would carry if I had pockets like Mary Poppins’ magic bag. A standard exercise on creative writing courses is to think about what the characters carry with them in their pockets or bags, as it is supposed to help you understand them and what they would do in different circumstances. I always carry a compass attached to my bag; very handy when popping up out of a tube station on a gloomy day so that I don’t stride confidently off in the wrong direction.

I decided to make Gollum’s pocket, the sad, slimy forlorn creature from the Lord of the Rings. The outside will be dull grey and green muddy colours, but the inside will be bright and shiny and full of treasures. The pockets have to be no bigger than A6, and not have anything but writing inside which tells their story. I’ll attach the treasures so that they are spilling out and visible.

The most obvious treasures are the gold ring and a fish head attached to a skeleton. I have some shiny gold sweet wrappers, so a ring is easy. The fish is a bit more of a challenge. I was wondering about making the skeleton from toothpicks, or laminating a drawing, but Rod suggested fraying cloth. This seemed like the best idea. Whilst making this I also noticed that curtain hooks have a certain fish skeleton look about them so maybe another time I’ll use them.

I used a bit of artist’s canvas and cut out a fish shape. I then frayed the two sides, and pasted glue to the whole thing. I used some PVA diluted with water which I had left over from another project months ago. Anyone know why PVA and water left in an airtight jar smells completely disgusting? I decided to use it anyways – I don’t suppose the aroma will last, but if a slight stench assailed the nostrils when approaching the pocket that would be very appropriate if a bit surprising.

I’ll make the head and tail from some shiny silver trousers I bought a couple of decades ago which for some reason I don’t wear anymore. A bead for the eye and that should made a great half eaten fish.

Plinther Pigeon

I've got a place on the Trafalgar Square Plinth end of August. They've given me a prime time slot on a Saturday afternoon so I figure I should do something other than just sit there looking vaguely queasy.

I think it would be amusing to dress up as a pigeon and sit on the plinth. My plan so far is to make a large but light pigeon costume and then attach a small action man/barbie type doll to my cycle helmet, thereby reversing the pattern of the other plinth residents.

I'll chart the progress of this pigeon suit on this blog. This morning I ordered some hoola hoops to form the structure of the suit. It would have been nice to get all four sizes of readily available hoops and do a graduated shape, but that seemed a bit extravagant. I have ordered some small and medium hoops (45 and 75 cm). I decided 75cm was wide enough after a few minutes with a tape measure and a little wriggling - that should make me look quite large without stopping me sitting down.

I have some fabric that looks like chicken wire but is light and floppy. I'll sew the hoops to that so that I make a large crinoline structure that hangs from my shoulders rather than my waist. I can then sew a variety of feathers to this - anyone wanting to send me a feather from an A4 size bit of cloth please do so. The feathers need to be light but don't need to have any structure as the undercarriage will provide all the shape needed. They need to be able to cope with rain in case it is pouring down. I also want the suit to be ok if it is scorching hot, so the open structure of the mesh fabric will be useful.

I'll photograph progress as it happens....

well, best intentions to chart progress have fallen by the wayside as other more exciting things fill my time. It is now post-plinth day. I made my pigeon suit, and I mounted a model of Anthony Gormley's Iron Man statue on a cycle helmet and covered the helmet with Grey cloth. I stitched on eyes and mounted a beak, and at the last minute also attached a dragonfly I had made from knitted fine silver wire and machine embroidered vanishing fabric - just a whim, and only because I had to take down a craft exhibition on the Wednesday before the Saturday sitting.

When I tested the costume by sitting on a garden table and getting Rod to photograph me i thought I looked a lot like statues of the mature Queen Victoria, so I decided I needed an orb and scepter equivalent. This was an egg and a stick, of course. I made the egg by blowing up a balloon, tieing string around to give a basic non-slip structure and a handle, and then papier machieing it with strips of newspaper and pva glue. I didn't use pulp as that is yucky and a friend said she tried that and the stuff all fell off. It worked well, and I painted it with acrylic glue to make it a brownish colour.

We allowed extra time for the drive down in case there were traffic jams, but apart from a slowish bit as we passed Oxford, with a queue in the exit lane, the journey was great. Arriving, therefore, far too early, we had lunch in an Italian cafe and then caught a taxi to Trafalgar Square. The taxi-driver said I was his first plinther. He talked about several of the people he had seen do things, so it is clear that as the taxi's swirl around the roads they do notice what is going on on the plinth.

At the One&Other office I had to show my passport and driving licence to prove with a photo id and an address that I was who I was supposed to be. I had my bags searched. I had already been told I couldn't take on fire, glass or fire-arms, but was a bit surprised when reluctance or at least hesitation was shown over my stick that I was going to clutch. They didn't want anything that might fall through the net and hurt someone. I was then interviewed and photographed, first in my normal clothes (not that normal as I was wearing my amazing Physalis earrings by Nora Fok) and then in my costume. The interview was taped for the oral history project the Welcome Trust is running. I was asked all sorts of questions, not just about the plinth project. The only thing that flummoxed me was when I was asked for my view on art.

I was shown the cherry picker used to transport people to and from the plinth. They are lovely big green and yellow machines, gleaming and serviced every two days by the JCB staff. I then had a microphone put on me - I was surprised by this, thought in retrospect that was surprising in itself. I suppose I had thought the mics were built into the cameras. I hadn't intended to do anything but sit quietly, but once I was mic'ed (how on earth is that word spelt, everything looks odd) up I ran a commentary, and burbled on about anything that came into my head. If you watch the coverage you can see that the camera operator is paying attention, as the camera swivels to take in the topic of conversation.

Once up on the plinth everything seemed very peaceful. The square bustled with people, there were breakdancers in front of the national gallery, deckchairs full of people enjoying the sun, and general milling. I had worried that I would feel vertiginous, which is why I had planned a stationary activity, but I didn't notice that at all. The safety net probably stopped any of that - I thought it might not as it is horizontal below the level of the plinth, but it is very visible.

I had been warned that the guides in the open topped buses might shout out to me and I was just to ignore them. Only once called out, very politely, to ask if I was a pigeon, so I called back that I was. There are several trees between the road and the plinth where the buses paused, and I could see people craning to see properly.

Rod wandered around in the square below to tell people what I was doing if they seemed interested. He pointed out that I got a great cheer when I went up and when I left, which was lovely. One person has put a picture up on the&Other website through Flikr saying they didn't know what I represented and that I just sat there the whole time. I know some people would be bored by the way I just sat there, rather than doing some performance that engaged the passers by. If you watch the SkyTv show they really only like the ones that do a lot. However, Anthony Gormley himself said he was happy with the people that just used their time to sit there quietly, so I reckon that is ok. After all, the other plinth occupants in the square don't move at all.

Overall I would say it was a highly amusing event to participate in and I have no regrets about joining in. I wish I had realised my costume was caught on the stool so I didn't look like a proper round pigeon, and I wish I'd used some pins to stop the fabric blowing up ( quite and updraft on the plinth). It would also have been better to have spoken more clearly/had the mic in a different position, as the background noise in the square is very load, with the fountain, the sirens and the general traffic and people noise. We both had fun and Rod enjoyed being support staff for a change.