Flutter by, Butterfly: Dissolving Fabric and Machine Embroidery Workshops

Butterfly Brooches
Machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric 

When I first got really interested in textiles as an art form (in my early teens) I was fortunate enough to be introduced to a whole range of exciting media and techniques by a relative undertaking their City and Guilds qualification. She was very generous with her time and materials and I still use a lot of what she taught me today. One of the things I was introduced to was water-soluble fabric. Not very helpful for fabric to dissolve in water you might think but artistically it has many possibilities; particularly when combined with another of my passions which is free machine embroidery.

Creating leaves with machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric 

Creating leaves with machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric 

Leaves created with machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric 

I've always been fascinated by transparent and lacy fabrics and water-soluble fabric enables me to create intricate, unique fabrics and pieces with embroidery. In essence the process is very simple; draw with the sewing machine onto the water soluble fabric (making sure the stitches all join up) and then dissolve the fabric in water, leaving the delicate tracery of stitches.

Small bowl created with machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric 

Small bowl (detail) created with machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric 

It's a material and a technique that I've returned to repeatedly over the past 20 years (writing that makes me feel very old) and I'm still fascinated by the challenge of using it to create a self supporting and unique textile. Towards the end of last year I was asked if I wanted to run some workshops that expanded on the skills I teach in my basic machine embroidery workshop. Working on water-soluble fabric immediately popped into my head and over the past few weeks I've finally had a chance to get up into my studio and work up a few samples and ideas.

Work in progress

Camberwell Beauty
Machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric

When designing workshops it's often helpful to have a 'finished object' outcome and this technique lends itself really well to making textile jewellery. With this in mind I decided to develop some brooches (a good one size fits all object) and decided that the beautiful jewel like colours of insects, specifically butterflies, would be a good subject matter. So, I got out my books, my sewing machine and my threads and I started creating.

Adonis Blue
Machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric

I've really enjoyed making my little flock, refining my technique and thinking of how I will share this with participants. I want my workshops to be 'jumping off points.' I want to share my skills and knowledge but more importantly I want to give people the confidence to take what I've learnt and bend it to their interests and to take it further, try things I've never thought of and see where it could lead.

Large White
Machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric

Butterflies
Machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric

If this has sparked your interest and you'd like to join me to learn the techniques I've used to create my butterflies and to have a go at making your own unique textile piece then I will hopefully be running a workshop at Holm Sown, Castle Douglas on 15th February (TBC) and one at The Eden Workshop, Plumpton on 3rd April (TBC.) Please contact the respective venues for more details and to book a place. I hope to see you there!

Purple Hairstreak
Machine embroidery on water-soluble fabric

Paper Making Workshops

A stack of handmade papers

Recently I've been running some paper making workshops for Prism Arts Studio Theatre West Coast group and students at Distington Community School. Following on from their wonderful Vikings project Studio Theatre are now working on another Heritage Lottery Funded project 'Cumbria's Atomic Story.'  The story starts with Cumbrian scientist John Dalton who began looking into atomic theory. His mother was a paper maker, which is where I come in!

Ripping up paper

Ripping up paper

Ripping and soaking

For the first session I worked with the Studio Theatre participants so that they could get a good idea of the process and help me run the following session where we would be working with the school students. We had a lot of fun experimenting and we had lots of interesting discussions about paper; what we use it for, where it comes from, how it's made and how the process has changed (or not) over the past few hundred years. It was great having this session as it meant the participants were really able to engage with the school students in the following sessions and help them with the process.

Pulling sheets of paper

Pulling sheets of paper

Pulling sheets of paper

Paper making can be very complicated but it can also be very simple, I wanted to use a technique that would work well with a wide range of abilities and that would allow plenty of scope for experimentation. For this reason I chose to demonstrate how to make handmade paper using existing paper. We created a basic paper pulp using sugar paper and a bit of cellulose glue and added a few other bits (such as newspaper) as the fancy took us. The basic process is to rip up the paper, soak it, blitz it in a blender with the glue, pour the resulting pulp into a tray of water to create a suspension and then use a mould (like a screen) to create sheets of paper. Usually you would use a deckle on top of the mould to get nice neat edges on your paper but I felt this was an unnecessary complication for these workshops.

Pressing the paper onto jay cloths

Decorating the paper

Decorating the paper

One of the reasons I chose to use sugar paper was that it allowed us to explore a bit of colour theory and mixing. It's great putting two different colours together in the blender and seeing them being mixed to create a new colour. We also had quite a giggle deciding what food the resulting pulps resembled (we made a lot of mushy peas and various smoothies!)

Decorating the paper

Decorating the paper

Paper drying out

Once we had the basic paper pulp mix and had got the hang of pulling sheets of paper we were able to explore different ways of altering and customising the paper. I think this was the most exciting bit and it was very interesting watching how different people approached this stage. Some people had a very clear idea of what they were after and were very controlled and ordered, others had a much more random approach. The paper can be layered, with or without things trapped between the layers, things can be pressed into the paper, it can be pushed around to create different surfaces, layers can be gently peeled back to reveal what's underneath, the possibilities are endless. I took a limited assortment of things to add into the paper (threads, feathers and sequins) and it was amazing the variety of effects that were achieved.

Interesting textures

Interesting textures

Interesting textures

I've enjoyed running these workshops so much, it is such a fun process and there are so many variations. Seeing how differently everyone has approached it is really inspiring. In fact I've been so inspired that I've been doing some paper making of my own, It's given me a bit of a kick start in my practice as I was starting to feel a bit unsure as to where to go next but handmade paper may be the answer.

Paper Stack

Recent Textile Based Antics

Setting up for a workshop

I originally began this blog as a way of documenting all the different creative things I was doing. Over time it has grown and changed and it's become quite a reflective place for me and as social media has grown and grown I've been using other platforms to share and record my work. (If you have a little look on the right of this page you can find a link to some of those platforms.)

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Recently I've been blogging less and less about the workshops and participatory projects I'm working on and I think there's a couple of main reasons for this. Firstly, I've been using Flickr to share images of the projects I'm working on and as I've shared the images (a picture paints a thousand words and all that) I've been writing less. Secondly, I've been working on lots of 'ongoing' projects so there isn't always a definite start and finish so I've tended not to blog as I think "I'll write a post when..." but of course the 'when...' never happens!

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

I don't think that sharing my work on these other platforms is a bad thing in any way but I do find that sometimes I miss the writing up and regular writing practice that blogging provides. There is an obvious and easy way to solve this and that is to get back into the habit of regularly blogging! So, with that in mind here's a summary of a couple of recent workshops that I've run.

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Suffolk Puffs with the Women's Institute (Warwick Bridge, Carlisle)

This was a really relaxed evening with a very lovely group of ladies. Making Suffolk Puffs is fairly easy so my main focus was showing the ladies what could be made with them; in particular textile jewellery. I'm always quite nervous working with groups such as the WI as often I'm working with people who have much more knowledge and experience of sewing than I do but I always find that what I can bring is a bit of inspiration and a different way of looking at things which encourages people to be a bit more creative.

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

This is one of my favourite workshops to run and this session was so relaxed and enjoyable. The ladies were so engaged in embellishing their fabrics that at times the room was almost silent but in between those times we had some really interesting conversations about needlework and how the way something is taught makes such a huge difference to not only your understanding but your enjoyment (or otherwise.) I'm really pleased to have been asked back so in September I'll be running another of my favourite workshops for the group: Sketchbook Making.

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

New Life Drawing Sessions

Felting Fun at Wiggonby

Fabulous Felt Pieces

Recently I headed out to Wiggonby CofE School to run a felt making session for the Key Stage 1 pupils. I like running these one off workshops as it's a chance to see different schools and how they operate and they're always a lot of fun. Felt making is such a tactile and satisfying process that it's difficult not to enjoy it! I also like that even with no experience it is possible to produce really interesting pieces of felt.

Laying out the fibres

Laying out the fibres

Laying out the fibres

One of the challenges with this session was that I essentially had three classes (reception, year 1 and year 2) all together which is quite an age range. Interestingly, it was actually the older children who struggled a little more as I think they were thinking it through more whereas the younger children just got stuck in. It got quite loud at one point but they all seemed to be having a good time and everyone produced a piece of felt. I think they're planning to use the felt to decorate their new classroom, which I think is a good use for it!

Building up designs

Building up designs

Building up designs

It was lovely (if a little surprising for me) when I got to meet the class as they all knew who I was and knew that I used birds and feather a lot in my work as they had been looking at my website. This gave me a good 'way in' as I was able to talk about how I used felt in my work and about how I found the natural world very inspiring. As a class they were very keen on nature and enjoyed telling me about the wildlife around them. One of the boys brought in a picture of some feather drawings he'd done at home after looking at my work in school. It was great that he felt he could bring that in to show me. I was very impressed as he'd very carefully observed and drawn the texture of the feather. With all the negative stories about education in the press at the moment it was quite uplifting to go into a class and see children not just full of enthusiasm and interest about the natural world and art but able to explore that interest in school.

Starting to felt

Starting to felt

It's interesting working in very rural schools like this one compared to those in town, the children all had a very clear understanding of where the fibres we were working with came from which you often don't get in (not surprisingly) in more urban schools.

Rolling the felt

Seeing how it was going

At the end of the session I had one of those great 'this is why I do this moments.' One of the pupils came up to me with a feather she had found (she's been collecting them) and said she wanted me to have it as a thank you for helping them to make felt. It was such a lovely gesture and a really nice way to finish my week.

Finished felts

Finished felts