Textile Art Forum Update

Day 2 of Textile Art Forum Residential at Ballyduggan Cottages:

I wanted to work on creating individual 'stones' instead of embroidering/quilting onto a whole-cloth piece as I've been doing lately. I hoped to create a more airy, lighter piece.

I used some 'colour-catcher' swatches I have been saving from my household laundry (because I hate to throw them out as they always seem to be such nice random dyed pieces!). They varied in colour from grey and blue to pink but they reminded me of my stone-walls at home when the sun hits them at different times of the day.

I joined them together by stitching through the spaces between them on water-soluble fabric.

Jan donated some light pink organza for the background, which was just what I needed for the 'floaty' effect I hoped to achieve. I added a foil moon and used the bare branches of the hedge outside my window as the inspiration for my stitched patterns.

The whole piece went into the bath to dissolve the water-soluble fabric as you can see in the photo above! Then I hung it out to dry on the line before lunch!

I like the way it floated about in the breeze, with the lovely stone cottage in the background for the photograph.

This was a satisfying experimental piece to work on.