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







Thursday, May 22, 2008

Sampling

I have been doing a bit of sampling recently. Inspired by the piece I made for Ulla I have looked at past sketchbook pages and tried to move some things on a bit. This work is done mostly by working on paper, stitching into it, folding it, piecing it with fabric. I worked on paper quite a lot whilst I was doing my degree but had forgotten what a nice medium it could be to work on.






I am still embroidering text onto cotton tape for the next panel of cloth eight. This is a very time consuming process and I thought it would be nice to give you a totally different set of samples to look at. It's also good to pick up something small to work on every so often. I am really excited about cloth eight though and how it will look. I am really looking forward to having more of that to show you, soon hopefully.

5 comments:

arlee said...

Your work on paper gives an even more fragile and antiquated look to this series. The tiny needle holes look like little bug or mice nibblings. Lovely effect and piece!

jude said...

i have never tried stitching on paper. i should. i am digging through some old stitchery, let you know what i find....

Victoria said...

You continue to amaze and inspire me!

gunnelsvensson said...

Oh so beautiful Karen! Your work is always so lovely!

Jacky said...

I LOVE this work stitched on paper, so delicate and fragile looking. I will have to try and find out more about this!!!

Beautiful fabric art and I love how you incorporate the beautiful coloured embroidery pieces.