For centuries women have used cloth as a tool of comfort and as an expression of beauty within their homes. Creating cloth for warmth, cloth for shelter, our female predecessors embellished these linens with hand stitch using laborious and time consuming techniques thereby enhancing the functional beauty of objects which enveloped and protected their families. Inspired by these women I hope my creations pay tribute to and recognise the devotion expressed in cloth by our female ancestors .







''the use of traditional often time consuming process alludes to the devotion of a mother''. c K. A. Ruane 2007







Friday, April 11, 2008

It has been so hectic around here these past couple of days. I have had a house full of visitors, cooking to do, entertaining to do, there has been very little time for anything else. Not to be defeated though I have managed a tiny bit of embroidery. My cloth is too large an undertaking to attempt whilst the house is full, however, I have been embellishing and developing one of my doodles. After completing the applique with vintage cloth I have added a grid in running stitch.



Next I placed patchwork hexagons of text alongside to take a look and see the effect that would have if these two pieces were joined. This would work quite well as a composition so I am now contemplating creating a kind of 'mini cloth' which would be backed and have some kind of hanging mechanism on the back. I hope to have this finished in the next couple of days and will definitely be after some feedback when I post it.



I just had to put this image up here of the back of my hexagons after they are joined. I love how this looks and once again have another idea for developing the process and making the templates a feature.


Today I was tagged by Ulla from Kotkarankki. That basically means that after posting the rules of tagging I must give you seven weird facts about myself, a challenge I can tell you! I have to link back too Ulla..... Done
Tell you the rules..... Doing that now
Post my seven facts..... In a minute
Tag Seven people..... In a minute
Tell them they have been taggged..... Again, in a minute.
My first fact is the one that is going to prevent me tagging seven people.......
1. I am an extremely private, very anti-social person. It takes me a long time to form 'proper' friendships. Consequently I do not have seven people in blog world who I feel comfortable tagging. And as Ulla would be one of my tags and she has used another person I would tag I will probably end up with maybe One, pathetic I know, what can I say???
2. I am a massive football fan. I have a season ticket for Blackburn Rovers (come on you blues!!) I watch it 24/7 on t.v. basically I am addicted.
3. I cannot bear to wear anything around my neck, no necklaces, roll neck sweaters, not even a scarf in deepest winter, how weird is that. I even went bare necked at -30 degrees in Sweden allthough I did have ear muffs.
4. I hate cooking. If I lived on my own I would NEVER cook.
5. The only way I will eat lettuce is with sugar on...not in salad...on it's own.
6. I find washing dishes therepeutic.
7. 99.9% of the time I wear only black.
I a now going to tag Gunnel and I am afraid that is the extent of my network.....now I know what a loser I am!! Feel free to volounteer for tagging, maybe I could get round it that way.

8 comments:

Kaija said...

Anti-social artists unite :)

I'll write you tomorrow. Good night!

gunnelsvensson said...

Thank you for tagging me ;-)
I didn´t either like cooking - but I love too eat!

your embrodidery work are so beautiful, as usual!

Eileen said...

I think I'm really going to like your blog. I found you through Ulla's Tag. Someone tagged me too and I had a HARD time coming up with people to tag!
Your work is very pretty.. I'm adding you to my favorites.

PAULE said...

I've just found your blog thanks to Gunnel. I browsed throught all your posts. How amazing your work is !

Paule - Reunion Island

jude said...

your work is beautiful and i have put your link on my blog. thank you.

Anonymous said...

i have found you via jude's link. Karen your stitching is mezmerizing. i will have to return. thank you.

Anonymous said...

love your work, glad to have found you via Jude!

aino said...

thanks for commenting on my blog. you're work is amazing. I'm trying to learn some embroidery myself, and you've got so much inspiration here.