Violins as Inspiration

Well, a restless night spent trying to figure out what went wrong with my stall. Finally, coming to the conclusion, yet again, that I should do as I wish. This means that I would like to create non-winter items and, in particular, try creating textile pictures.

The major problem with this has been that I don't want to just stick fabric or yarn on a canvas without any more intention than to 'make it look nice'. I need to have inspiration and direction. As it happens, a group that I convene, 3D5S, (3 dimensions, 5 senses), has recently been on a trip to a wonderful violin maker. It was a terrific trip....I've seen the photos! Unfortunately, I had to miss that day due to family commitments, however, the photos have been inspiring. I'm hoping to go back this week and take some pictures of my own.

I've decided to use this as the inspiration for my first textile pictures. There are spirals and shape and texture. I can use fibre, constructed fabric, copper wire and silver wire to create beautiful pictures.

I'm excited by the adventure.

9"x5" market

Part of my life as a textile artist is the attempt to run a craft market stall as a way of generating a regular income.

After today, I'm not so sure of my grand plans. I didn't sell a thing. First time ever. For those of you who are thinking 'so what'. This is just my second market, the first one closed after only about a year and a half. This one is new and it is only the second market. The first being a great success. So I'm quite a newbee at this and don't really appreciate this little setback.

Further information is that I'm also on the steering committee and am committed till February. It has been a sunny day and it is the footy final season. I've got lots of scarves. We'll see. October is the next one.

I need to think about what I might like to have that is not dependent on cold weather. More decorative hangings, cooler type scarves, I'll be searching for answers over the next two weeks before we head off for holidays.

If you're reading this and you're local, come along and have a look. Small, quality and interesting.

Designing yarns

Today I've been teaching design at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria as part of the Spinning Certificate course that they offer. (As well, I've convened the course for the two years of the current intake).

This particular design component had two parts: firstly, analysing commercial yarns and then looking at including all sorts of materials to create textured yarns.

I've included a picture of the commercial yarn we chose to analyse (top) and my attempt to replicate it (bottom). I was really pleased with my effort, though, I didn't get the fluffy bit, I really nailed the bullion component. There were a few really good ideas, the one I really would like to follow up is the creation of the continuous bullion or corkscrew. This was created around a stable core yarn, in my case, sewing cotton.

Further to the yarn there is a soft mohair plied as if to create a boucle and then another binder.

The students had fun with a wide variety of yarns created. We then looked at texture. Having run out of time we focused on pulling fabric apart and carding it with top or fleece and then spinning that.

It was good fun today and the students responded really well to the challenges of this very different approach to spinning.

Fibre sculpture and me

Having discovered a new product (?) here in Australia that just might answer all my wildest dreams, I thought I'd like to share it with the world and thereby start my own blog.

The product is called Paverpol (website in Australia:

http://www.paverpolaustralia.com/).

What does it do? Apparently it enables fabric sculptures to be rain, wind and sun proof, thereby allowing you to create outdoor sculptures.

Why is this of interest to me? Well, as well as a lot of other fibre activities, I create textile sculptures. The first few with wire and plastics (fairly outdoor tolerant) and the latest was handknit and machine-knit. Not necessarily the best material.

Above is a picture of my last entry for the Old England Outdoor Sculpture Award, run as part of the Banyule City Council Festival in March this year. It is called 'Figures in the Landscape' and is a tribute to 'Blue Poles' by Jackson Pollock.

There are 8 poles, just as in Blue poles and they are covered in Handknit and Machine-knit tubes with knit cubes attached. It was fun to make, however, it took alot of spray paint to cover and it really isn't finished properly, that is why 'Paverpol' might help. I'll do some further investigation. I'll try and keep you up to date with my experimentation.

Well that is my first entry. Hope you like it?