Living In the Material World

This is post is going to be mostly pictures - I've had a busy couple of days surrounded by fabric, dyes and thread, and my little brain is worn out, but I wanted to post pictures of what I've been doing.

I've had a fantastic weekend at Belstead House, near Ipswich on a textile weekend with the girls from Romford Embroiderers Guild.  Although I'm no longer a member of that Branch, I was for many years, and they very kindly invited me to join them.   I chose to do the class led by Libby Smith, entitled Mixed Media Landscapes.  The first pictures are of Libby's beautiful examples, made with hand dyed fabrics, distressed papers, print and stitch 

Our pieces are very much 'works in progress'  but hopefully they will all be finished in the days/weeks/months ahead!  I'm not going to say who did each piece, in case I get any names mixed up, but here they are ...

I CAN tell you that the bottom one in the picture above is mine - not my usual colours or style at all! I think it looks a bit drab, but there will be a lot more stitching on it and hopefully that will brighten it up.

Some of the girls made 'Fertility Dolls' - although they agreed that they weren't hoping that they actually worked!

The girls in the other class, led by Katie Harrowven,  worked with metal shims, foils, friendly plastic, and gold leaf, and when we went to see what they had been doing - their classroom was a riot of colour ..

And finally, Libby issued a two-fabric landscape challenge.  Now, I'm the only person who actually took up the challenge, and I have to say I returned to my usual colourful and sparkly (some say, tacky) style, using a couple of hand dyed babywipes that I had previously used to clean up paint palettes, and which I knew would come in useful one day.

A lovely weekend with great company, good food lots of stitching and not enough sleep.  

Can I go to bed now please?

Living In The Material World - George Harrison