On the way to the
Big Draw event at Jerwood Space I filled the travel time with something I've rather lost track of -
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| Travel lines |
Lovely materials for people to use -
Richard McVetis provided instruction and inspiration -
When you can't decide where to start, "take the nearest" - so I found myself with perforated card and string. Fortunately there was a needle with a big enough eye, but getting the string through the card wasn't easy.
What looks like random stitching is actually subject to rules about how many holes and what direction next: on the left, variants on 2-2-2-1; on the right, 1-1-1-2 -
An intriguing box of goodies -
from which I took the "pattern winding" (so like the patterns on egyptian mummies!). How could it be done in stitch?
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| front |
After a bit of practice, it found a rhythm.
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| back |
The fabric is a dense wool, the thread a wool mix.
My neighbour took an enviably free-form approach, using some springy linen thread on felt -
When her square was completely stitched, it looked wonderfully map-like.
I couldn't resist using some lovely perle thread and trying the stranded "
mouliné" thread - stiffish, shiny, unravels and (used in 6 strands) knots itself like billy-oh. Also got a snippet of the linen to continue the stitching on the way back home.
But I didn't have a needle with me ... and this the state of the sample at time of writing -
The yellow may have been rayon - hard to stitch into the dense wool, and untwists itself with each stitch. But a glorious colour (especially with grey) and good for couching.
Along the street, this bit of street-stitching has been getting grimier over the years -
Jerwood Space closes at 3 on Saturdays, so I didn't get a chance to see all of the Drawing Prize exhibition again. The pieces nearby looked like they could be, or contain, or be converted to, stitch marks -
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| Closeup of a stitched piece - couldn't find the label with the name of the artist |
2 comments:
How timely for you to post some travel lines, I just met Kathleen Loomis for the first time yesterday and she did some travel lines while riding in my car. She also showed us the travel stitching that you started her on after her visit to London, she's doing more this trip.
Hi Margaret, I was away this weekend so couldn't get to the Big Draw. I did so some of my own though - thanks for your encouraging words earlier this summer.
Wasn't the winning piece at the Jerwood astonishing? I'm still coming to terms with why it is considered drawing, but that is just all of my intellectual baggage rummaging around in my conscious and unconscious mind!
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