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







Sunday, March 2, 2008

I have put this pincushion in the shop. If nobody buys it I am going to keep it for myself, I so don't have time to make one for me. I really have to make progress with my cloth as it needs to be delivered to the exhibition venue in a couple of weeks. I have so much stuff I want to make going round and round in my head and I am finding it really difficult to put it to the back of my mind and concentrate on the 'big' stuff. I need to dig deep and conjour up some of the focus and discipline I had when I did my degree. I am really not complaining though, I am having such a good time, every day I am excited to look at my stats, check my e-mails, plan my days embroidery and now I have flickr there is that to check.
Anyway, back to the pincushion. This one is really pretty, I have used some ribbon I bought in Paris about two years ago. It reminds me of ribbon I used to see as a little girl. And, don't forget to leave your comment on the previous post to be in with a chance of getting one of two pincushions in the giveaway.




I have finished the initial cutwork stage of my cloth and am now applying petals cut from silk that has vintage transfers ironed on. I first cut 60 card templates, (after using paper ones to decide my layout and count how many I needed)





then 60 fabric templates,


and hey presto, approximately five hours and three coffees later, they were all tacked ready to be appliqued.



Today is Mothers day here in England. I however was minus both my children, one in Leeds and one in Winchester. Despite the lack of offspring I have had a lovely day. My mum came to me and I made her a meal (I won't say it was a lovely meal just incase!!) and she brought me a special flower arrangement she made herself. Unfortunately the light is so bad I cannot get a good image of it to put here, maybe tomorrow, sorry mum.
Finally, don't forget the giveaway below.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello and thank you for the comments at my blogg (I hope you understand my bad english).....

You have a lot of exiting stuff (thinks, work) on your blogg, and every time there is some beautiful happenings............great.
Have a good week.
Ragards from Sweden and Ewa-Christine

Ulla said...

There is so much work in your cloths! I hope the deadline will help you keep the work going. It works for me anyway, and sometimes makes me more effective for other things too.