Summery Summaries: Part Three: The Heathlands Project

Pieces for the Stitch a Tree Project

Because I'm at The Heathlands Project every week I often forget to blog about the projects we get up to. I've been at Heathlands for over 8 years now and I still love working here, I love the sense of community and also the opportunity to get involved in all sorts of projects and the freedom I have to try all sorts of things with my groups. I always like to get my Art and Textiles groups involved in projects as it provides a great opportunity to get their work out there and challenge people's perceptions about what they can achieve.

Stitch a Tree

Materials

Designing a tree

Earlier in the year we got involved with the excellent Stitch a Tree project. The project aim was to connect people around the UK to show support for displaced people across the world. Artist Alice Kettle then collected all the trees and has joined them together to create a ‘forest.’ I really liked this project because it was simple and achievable but also touched on some very important topics. I also like working on projects where lots of small pieces come together to create a unified whole. 

Work in progress

I thought this was a lovely project to be involved with. I also worked on this project with my Tullie Textiles groups so between them and my Heathlands crew I was able to send at least a copse worth of trees down!

Tree details

Tree detail

Bugs Quilt

Bugs! The Heathlands Project 2018 Quilt

Every year with my Textiles groups at The Heathlands Project I make a quilt and usually we send it down to The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. Although it's quite stressful getting it all finished in time and I always end up giving up a day of my free time to get it completed I do like working on a big project like this. I made the first quilt with them in 2011 so this is our 8th quilt.

Designing our bugs

Tie dye patches

It's a really good opportunity to introduce and experiment with a whole range of techniques and it also gives some of the now more experienced participants a chance to develop their skills further and show them off. This year we re-visited tie-dyeing and also experimented with embroidery, applique, and needle felting. Each person's patch is unique and beautiful and I love the way their personalities shine through. Using the same materials and equipment each person produces something so different but when put all together they all work so well.

Work in progress

Work in progress

Work in progress

This year we chose the theme of 'Bugs!' as we'd won a roll of beautiful organic jersey from the lovely folks at Pigeon Organics printed with bugs. I devised an unnecessarily elaborate but entertaining system of joining it all together involving elastic loops and felted balls. We got some lovely feedback from the judges and we're already planning next years quilt!

Details

Details

Details

In addition to our group quilt this year I also sent down two individual quilts that members of my Textiles groups had made. Both of the individuals had worked so hard to create their pieces and we're so proud to have their work included in the show. Getting it all organised was hard work but well worth it for the sense of achievement they both got.

Feedback for our Bugs quilt

One of the individual quilts entered

OCN Courses

Group rag rug

As well as our internal groups we've also been running an Open College Network course in Environmental Arts. For this course Adult Education provide us with a tutor who comes along and delivers the accredited course. It's a great opportunity for us as it means we get a new person with new ideas coming in and the guys gain a qualification. Over the length of the course we've tried things such as paper making, rag-rugging and weaving. The course is continuing this term in the form of 'Seasonal Crafts.'

Paper making

Weaving with plastic bags

Rag rug hedgehogs

No Borders Exhibition

Exhibition View

Over the past few years as part of my work with Prism Arts I've been working with the No Borders group, a group of adults with profound disabilities who all attend Carleton Day Centre. It's been interesting, exciting and gratifying to see the group develop over time, to see their skill and confidence grow and to be part of this enthusiastic group who are always up for trying new things and pushing their boundaries.

'The British Army' Clay figures

'The British Army'

'The British Army'

Over the past few weeks I've been working with the group to put together an exhibition of their work from the past year. This has involved much discussion about what work should be included, how it should be displayed and what 'feel' they wanted the exhibition to have. It also involved a lot of preparation, mounting, finishing and general tidying up. The exhibition took place in their work space and was a great opportunity for the group to show everyone what they've achieved. The exhibition included prints, textile pieces, clay work and a sound piece.

'People Paint Print' displayed on perspex

'People Paint Print' (detail)

Prints on fabric, displayed on perspex

The group had some really interesting ideas for displaying the work, I particularly like the use of the big perspex sheets for showing work in the windows. Having the light coming through gives a totally different effect to if the pieces had been conventionally mounted and also makes good use of space! Other work was more traditionally displayed to show off the quality of the pieces, we wanted to create a really polished and professional show and I think we achieved this.

Thread Wrapped Branches

'Magic Tree'

'Sea Swirls' Print on fabric

One of the projects that the group has worked on over the past year was a beautiful sound-scape with artist Mark Newport. The group put this together with a slide show of images taken during their sessions which gives a real feel of how the group works and shows that the work is all theirs. We had this playing throughout the exhibition which helped create a really nice atmosphere and gave visitors and insight into how the group operates.

'Tree Colours' Thread wrapped card

Detail of 'Tree Colours'

Exhibition view

Exhibition view

The Apron Project

Pumpkin inspired apron

This term my textiles group up at The Heathlands Project have been working on making aprons. The group decided they would like a project that would enable them to make something useful and practical for themselves whilst improving their existing textile skills and hopefully learning a few new ones too. After some discussion we decided making aprons would be the ideal project.

Original apron design and screen print designs

The screen printed characters

The group started off by looking through books and magazines for different designs and styles of aprons. They then did their own designs and made their own patterns. This was a very interesting process as most of the group had no pattern making experience, this meant that they were less constrained in terms of trying unusual shapes than a more experienced group would perhaps have been as they were not familiar with basic pattern drafting and pattern blocks so less aware of the conventions.

Appliqué with fabric

Appliqué with felt

Once the patterns were drafted we got to the really fun part; choosing and decorating the fabric. Different members of the group chose to embellish their aprons in different ways including screen printing, embroidery, appliqué and fabric pens. This is always my favourite part of a project as it allows people's creativity to really shine and it means I get to do fun things like screen printing demonstrations. 

This apron was hemmed and embellished with buttons

Pocket detail

Once the guys had finished decorating their aprons we had the finishing to do, some people chose to hem their aprons whilst others experimented with bias binding. We used cotton twill tape in a range of colours for the straps and once these were sewn on the aprons were ready to wear. 

Floral apron with appliquéd flowers

Screen printed apron with pockets

Apron with large pocket and bias binding

I think this was a very successful project, it was good seeing people come in each week ready to crack on with their aprons and full of ideas. It took some people just a few weeks and others closer to two months but everyone has worked hard and displayed great commitment and determination. The incentive of having something to wear at the end seems to have been a strong motivating factor for some people.  For me the best bit was seeing how proud the guys were of their finished aprons and how keen they were to wear them and show them off. I liked this project as it was complex enough to give people a challenge and allowed quite a lot of scope for developing embellishing techniques but it was also simple enough that even people new to textiles could complete a useful item that they could be proud of.

Apron with appliquéd hearts

Pocket detail

Appliquéd fish apron

No Borders: Applied Textiles

Making thread wraps to explore colour combinations

I was very pleased and excited to be back with the No Borders art group again this morning. I have worked with them on a number of projects over the past couple of years and I always enjoy our sessions as the group is so positive and enthusiastic, it's really inspiring. I was also really touched as one of the participants said she was really excited I was working with them again as she loved textiles and the work we'd done before. The last project I worked on them with culminated in a hanging sculpture that was shown in Prism Arts Studio as part of C-Art 2014.

Hanging sculpture from last sessions

Detail

For this block of sessions we are looking at applied textiles, the title is deliberately a bit vague so that the group can pretty much do what they want! I took in lots of samples and we discussed our previous work together and what the group would like to do. They decided on individual projects and I was pleased that they all had ideas about what they wanted to do, I'm looking forward to seeing how these ideas develop as the project progresses. We also discussed colour and how it can represent different moods, feelings and ideas.

Looking at samples

Using pastels to explore colour

Pastel colour page

After our discussion (and a nice cup of tea) we started to look at the colours we would like to work with. I began by asking the participants to experiment with putting together colours that they liked in different proportions and to think about what mood this created. We used pastels so that the colours could be blended and different shades and tones created. As always everyone had a very different approach and it was interesting to see how people's personalities and preferences came out in this activity.

Thread wraps exploring colour combinations

Thread wraps exploring colour combinations

Thread wraps exploring colour combinations

We then moved on to making thread wraps using our pastel colour sheets as a starting point. I really like this activity as it is a different way of playing around with colour and it is a good way to explore how colours work together. It's also quite therapeutic and relaxing which allows us to have discussions about our ideas at the same time. Once again the individual characters shone through in the finished thread wraps, in not just the colour choices but the methods too. I'm really looking forward to next week and seeing how the work takes shape.

Pastel colour pages

Pastel colour pages

Pastel colour pages

Pastel colour pages