The last time I made fabric books I used vintage Laura Ashley fabric and then today, whilst tidying up my fabrics I came across some lovely Alice in Wonderland fabric and decided it was time to create some Alice books……
To go alongside a couple of free machine embroidered ones I made earlier!
In February I celebrated a special birthday and as a speial treat was whisked away to the New Forest. And, what a treat it was because the torrential rain led the way to finding dry activities in heritage centres and museums.
I found the Plant Life exhibition at the St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery in Lymington. The exhibition looked at historic practices in preserving and presenting plant species and showed how these techniques inspire artists today. It explored plant collecting, pressing and drying, mounting and arranging, preservation, recording, illustration and economic botany.
Angela Charmers Cyanotype caught my eye. I love the floral tattoo.
And the depiction of Adam and Eve
There was also a book on display, published by Anna Atkins (1799-1871) It is considered to be the world’s first book of photographs. Anna was a pioneering user of cyanotype
Stef Mitchell’s Concertina books were of interest too. The book on the right below was printed with ash leaves and stems and the book demonstrates the different stages of life of the ash tree. The cover is printed with tiny sapling leaves and the inside is printed with older leaves. Stef used the ash leaves to document the ash tree before they are lost through ash dieback
She also created piece of work with fallen rhodendrum leaves
And this monoprint has been created with wild flowers. The negative image has been used and has been decorated with hand printing and drawing. The line drawing aims to give depth to the piece and the painting gives a nod to hand painted dot painting on antique ceramics
These multi layered monotype ferns were gathered in the autumn just as they were dying back and taking on orange and brown hues. The colour comes from hand mixing water colour aint and water based block printing ink. Each colour mix is unique
Another piece by Sherry Doyal was cleverly constructed. It hss been made with copper beech leaves, beech leaves and tansy. The work was inspired by Jenny Ashmore’s work with pressed plants
Lynn Comley created this piece with wet felted merino wool and silk with hand and free machine embroidery. It is inspired by lichens and algae found within the spray zone on the Yorkshire coast
And this piece made by Amanda Corbett is based on original specimens collected on a foraging trip during the sutume of 2023 in the Hurtswood Forest.
Amanda’s 3 dimensional embroiderd sculptures appear to float in their perspex cases and have the feeling of just being collected from the forest for display, very much a modern version of a victorian plant hunter’s specimen case
Another great find on our trip was the New Forest Embroidery which is kept in the New Forest Heritage Centre. It was commissioned in 1979 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the creatio of the New Forest. It was designed by Belinda, Lady Montagu and created with a team of 250 helpers. It is 25 feet long and just over two feet deep.
It features Alice in Wonderland in Lyndhurst church where Alice Hargreaves is buried. She inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland stories when she was a young girl.
There is also a cabinet of Alice in Wonderland memorabilia in the centre, donated by the Lewis Carroll Society
A great find and well worth the visit!
It has been a busy year and before you know it, it is Christmas. With the best of intentions I haven’t made as much for Christmas as normal but I have enjoyed making more of these little Christmas trees.
The left hand one is made from ribbon scraps sewn onto hand dyed fabric and the white one has been made with lace and silver ribbons – a great project for using up all those little bits that you really don’t want to throw away and what better use is there for an empty cotton bobbin?
I also enjoyed making these Christmas tree decorations. The background is hand dyed felt embellished with silk fabrics, charms and little white bells.
The plan this coming year is to start early but then with so many distractions along the way who knows what will happen
Merry Christmas!
Today, I spent the day at a Jennifer Collier workshop making paper shoes. And as our Cutting Edge Textile group has been celebrating the 70th anniversary of Laura Ashley this year I just had to make them with a Laura Ashley paper design. And what’s more it is a design we had in the house back in the day – our bedroom curtains and drssing table were adorned in this beautiful green fabric.
To read about our CE group’s Laura Ashley activites click here
And a huge thank you to Jennifer Collier for a fabulous creative and therpautic day
When I start thinking that’s it – move on from the teddies another one pops up!
This time it came into being afetr finding a piece of vintage Laura Ashley fabric in the Cowbridge Ty Hafan Charity shop. And, as we are displaying our Cutting Edge Textile groups 70th Anniversary Laura Ashley Dragon Quilt in their shop window in September it was a no brainer.
I have also been using vintage Laura Ashley fabric to make these book covers for the window display
Following the completion of the Echinacea I decided to have a go at sea holly, which I discovered was a bit fiddly – but I did enjoy the finished product!
The background fabric is a Suchard Chocolate advert that I found in my stash bucket. The sea holly flowers and leaves have been created with commercial fabric and organza stitched in place with variagated thread. It is framed with linen and finshed with a border of commercial fabric.
I then found a piece of fabric that I had dyed and printed a while ago and decided that it was just perfect for a book cover. Hand and machine stitched
Quite a while ago now I experimented with paper laminating and created a lovely landscape from a photograph – which I have finally used on the piece of work below.
The background fabric is recycled vintage cloth that has been tea and rust dyed and the bird is free machine embroidered. It is mounted on a canvas and the border is made from commercial fabric
After a long break in transmission I have finally got round to completing a few pieces of work.
This little fella has been in the making for quite some time and good that he if finally finished. The fabric is a Layla Holzer design that I received as a Christmas gift a few years ago. He is rather cute and has a spider resting on his head for a mate!
And after an interesting workshop recently I have started stitching paper! The collage background to these two pieces of work is printed and procion overdyed paper. The white border is fabric that has been machine embroidered and then a batik fabric border has been applied to finish it off. The echinacea have been created with batiks and organza and the leaves are organza
I scanned the above image and printed it onto tissutex. The image was then laid over paper printed on a gelliplate which gave a lovely coloured background
The jelly fish was created with angelina, organza and metallic thread.
After a lengthy pause in production I have been busy making again. The inspiration to make came after a neighbour offered me some fabric sample books from her furnishing shop – and they included wool fabric samples which were just irresistable.
After a good while pondering on what I could make with them I managed to pull out five pieces that blended well and provided enough fabric to make two teddy bears- and here theyare!
I then used the offcuts and scraps of a wool blanket to make some Chrismas pudding decorations
And then moved on to Scottie dogs – haven’t made any of these for a long time
And as we are approaching Christmas I had a rummage through my fabrics to see what else I could create
Using scraps of organza and fabric I have made peg doll fairies
These fabric Christmas crackers are made from fabric that I bought for the job but I have used scraps from my stash for linings and embellishments…..and they could be recycled each year?!
It has been good to get back to sewing again and hopefully the enthusiasm will continue – as I have a lot of half finshed projects to finish!
Today we made driftwood boats. Well, what else is there to do on a windy Tuesday in August?
This was a little workshop that was planned to take place last year in Beach Huts on Barry Island but, like many other things back then was scuppered because of the Covid pandemic.
We met at 10, or was it eleven? for a an enjoyable day of chatter and sewing – Carol, Heather, Sally Liz, Jess, Dianne, Caroline and Chris – and me !
It was a slow stitch day of hand sewing, which seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed by one and all – and the end result was a flotilla of lovely driftwood boats!
But where was Carol ? She was busy sketching my garden and what a beautiful image she created – I’m thinking it might look lovely in stitch!
A wonderful day with a very talented bunch of people. Thank you so much for your creativity whether in stitch or paint. It is all incredibly lovely. We must do it again soon!
Monica's Etsy Store
Monica Dennis 