Woohoo!

I submitted a piece of work for selection for a textile exhibition way back in January and I've just found out that it's been selected, which is rather exciting for me. The exhibition is called Textile News and is organised by Dr. Gudrun Heinz, the theme this time was Freedom. I chose to look at the idea of breaking free and my piece took the form of a bird rising up and flying free. It is made from layered and pieced organza which I dyed in shades of greys, greens and blues. I then used hand embroidery stitches including feather stitch, blanket stitch, fly stitch and stem stitch to add detail and texture to the piece. It's an important piece for me as it got me back into creating work, giving me a goal to work towards and a bit of an incentive to get going. I enjoyed doing it and I'm now working on a much larger piece along a similar theme and using similar techniques.

The exhibition is touring and the first venue is The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham 11th-14th August this year, it then carries on to Moscow, Prague and Einbeck.

You can find out more about the exhibition here http://www.quiltsundmehr.de/TEXTILENEWS2ENG.htm

This is one of my preliminary drawings for the piece:

Ink drawing exploring the theme of freedom

And there's more...

And here are some drawings from this week. These drawings are an exploration of the theme 'freedom' and in particular of breaking free. I was inspired by the idea of rising up from whatever is tying you down, spreading your wings and flying free. The birds seemed an apt, if obvious, way of visualising this and I also really like drawing them!

I'm really pleased with this last one and am currently developing it as a fabric piece in layers of silk organza with lots of stitch. I like the dark area at the bottom and the way the crow rises above it all, like leaving all your troubles behind and moving on.