City & Guilds Level 3 Machine Embroidery - Class 2, 22/10/10

In Class 2 we did 2 key things:

1.  Agree our 'design brief' for the wall hanging we were going to make.  This is what I finally decided upon:

The Executive Business Centre is also my theme for Assigment 1, so I've got lots of things to thing about!

2.  Playing with coloured paper and shapes based on emerging ideas from our design brief theme.  Here are some photos of the results I've put in my sketchbook.

First of all playing with the curves that I've chosen for my theme, incorporating a bit of colour experitmentation - a bit like the fun of being back at school!

Then cutting out coloured paper and arrnaging the shapes to see what appeals.

Even if I don't use any/some/all of these ideas, it's a good way to get the 'juices flowing' and make me start to think about my subject.  So always a good technique to try, especially if you get 'stuck' for ideas as it can stimulate the grey cells.

Alexandra Palace, 09/10/10

The Knitting & Stitching Show at Ally Pally never lets you down.  This year I travelled on a coach with the Bournemouth Embroiderers Guild (my City & Guilds tutor is a member) so with only two pick up points we were there by 10.30 am.  Coach upon coach arrived, and the place was packed with those eager to view the exhibits and spend their hard earned cash.

As with so many others my interest in several crafts - plus of course my need to view things as both a craftsperson and a student - meant that I had much to see.  To make things 'worse' I've exhibited at AP on behalf of The Guild of Machine Knitters in the past, and the experience of the 'other side' means that I know a number of the exhibitors very well.

This year I made a conscious decision that I would choose an area of work on display that I particuarly liked and concentrate just on that, rather than try and fit too much in: there just isn't time in one day to look at everything!  Once I took a look at the knitting display my interest was caught, and the following shows just why:


Just loved Sophie's knitted cushions.  Great use of colour and texture; very attractive!  Her web site is still under construction, but I've added my name to the list to be informed when it's up and running so I can find out more.

 Rosie Boycott-Brown had some interesting textures in her knitwear.  Personally I don't go for blacks and greys and an 'industrial' look, so the articles in themselves didn't really appeal to me, but I admired some of her stitch structures which reminded me of my machine knitting roots and made me wonder if I could find time to use some knitting experimentation in my assignment sampling.





Deryn Relph's work really caught the eye of everyone going by - and no wonder!  It's bright, retro yet modern, practical and yet ornamental, recycling combined with re-birth.  Her web site has lots more intriguing photos and descriptions of her and her work.   http://www.derynrelph.co.uk/

There was one display of non-knitted work located nearby so that I couldn't miss it and couldn't resist.  Lindsay Taylor's display was fantastic, and made me feel inadequate in so many ways.  The machine embroidered plants looked so real.  The machine embroidered shoes were a masterpiece of disguise among their backgrounds in the glass cases.  A visit to her web site http://www.lindsay-taylor.co.uk/ to get to know her and her work is a must in my book.  I'd love to see her in action and learn more about what she does and why.  I might get the chance too at some point, since she only lives a relatively short distance away from me on the Isle of Wight ;o)  I wasn't the only one blown away by her display - my old machine knitting friend Ruth Lee (http://www.webs-of-intrigue.co.uk/gallery2.htm) happened to pass by while I was there and she adored Lindsay's shoes as well, probably because of the 'White Shoe Installation' work that Ruth did (something I wrote about in Textiles 1).

I'm not really a competitive person; usually my biggest 'challenge' is to improve my own standards.  My mother always says that no one could be more critical of what I do than I am.  I don't want to 'beat' people like Lindsay, rather I aspire to produce creative work that displays my imagination and abilities in the way that hers does for her.  It doesn't have to be like hers, just have that same 'wow' factor.  Whether I'll ever feel that I've reached that point is something very difficult to say.

City & Guilds Level 3 Machine Embroidery - Class 1

Friday 1st October was the first day of Level 3, so I thought I'd add a quick post about how things went.

In the end 10 of us were enrolled, although it's a mixture of those doing the 'old-style' Level 3 and those like me doing the 'new-style', and those only doing the 'advanced level' and those like me paying the extra to be registered for it to be a proper certificated C&G Level 3 Award.  In real terms we shouldn't notice too much difference from class to class as our tutor, Trisha Forshaw, plans to make each session rather like an individual workshop.

Anyway, this time around we were all busy playing with silk fibres in their various forms to make paper, or perhaps more accurately fibrous layers, to add to our portfolio of samples and potential ideas for incorporation in our finished wall hangings.  We were all very industrious, producing samples from fibres that still contained gum in the morning, and more using those fibres without the gum so requiring the addition of textile medium in the afternoon.  Here are pictures of the samples I made:


Natural and green dyed gummed silk fibres ironed together



Gummed silk fibres and dyed silk fibres ironed together



Gummed silk fibres stitched with silk embriodery thread, ironed to blend together



Strips of gummed pressed silk 'rods' woven with other fibres and ironed

Ungummed fibres + textile medium



Ungummed fibres + textile medium



So there we are, the results of some fun and fibre!

I'm off on the coach to the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace next Saturday, so hopefully will add an entry for some highlights - couldn't possibly include all! - of what I see there.