Cultivating lace and felt bulbs

  . .  Somnium sublacerum (she dreamt of growing antique lace)

 

I love felt and use it as a base for much of my embroideries. It is a pleasure to stitch into and I love the steady sturdy feel. I often eco dye pieces of felt with flowers and leaves or rust.

When entering a piece for the curated Feltmakers Ireland exhibition ‘Kaleidoscope’ I decided to make 3D felt pods. The exhibition was to celebration the changing shape of felt and the constant inspiration from the natural world. As the venue was to be National Botanic Gardens Dublin I took my inspiration from the bulbs and plants in the majestic vintage greenhouses. Their exotic structures are almost alien and the roots especially interesting and lace-like.

I made both felt pods using natural fiber shades and a large plastic resist sandwiched inside the fiber layers. I gained some valuable lessons in this 3D felt adventure.
(1) It takes a lot of rubbing and rolling.
(2) Best to use strong plastic that can be easily pulled out of the pod.
(3) The opening hole you cut will get a lot lot bigger before pod is finished.

 

I made a large pod shape and then when finally felted I manipulated the felt into a bulb shape by sewed ridges all around. 

 

I then made a second smaller ‘younger’ bulb with layered shades of brown and grey felt. 

 

 

I wanted lots and lots of felted roots . . . and that took lots and lots of rolling ! The olive soap made my hands the softest and cleanest in Ireland by the time I had made them all !

To dirty the end of each root I first tried rust water but it was too hard on my hands.
So then I tried tea - but the colour was too yellow - so in the end I mixed some watercolour paint in the perfect shade of earth/soil brown and dipped my roots in one at a time.

 

I made holes in the pods and attached the roots all around.

 

Next I made the folds of felt to make up the layers in the pods. They had to be soft curved shapes - as natural as possible. ( I used onions and flower bulbs as my reference. )

 

 

The leaves were the only green in the bulbs and I shaped them to stand up inside each. 

 

I imagine my bulbs producing a constant supply of antique lace - how great would that be !! So I added some wonderful 120 year old antique lace scraps onto the larger pod and inside the folds of the bulbs.

 

 

Larger flat sections of felt wrapped on a canvas were my ‘soil’ base and I embroidered here and there added ‘stones’ and a little more antique lace.

It was a fun and very interesting project and one I really wish could actually grow me some lace . . .  . but like the name it is a dream ! (thanks you to my scientific sister for the lovely title.)

I was thrilled to have my finished piece chosen to be part of the fantastic Feltmakers Ireland exhibition in the Botanic Gardens in August 2016.

These are a few images from the venue.

 

 

 

 

 

Somnium sublacerum

. . . she dreamt of growing antique lace.

It is delightful to imagine a hybrid species that could produce
120 year old antique lace from the natural folds of felted bulbs,
to snip off little pieces from your own personal textile terrarium.  

"Becoming - Thread Song"

A textile exhibition November 2015 called ‘Thread Song’ was organised by the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland (DCCoI) marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of poet W.B Yeats.
A curated collection of 18 artists work inspired by the poetry and life of Yeats.

I was very thrilled to be chosen to take part and this is the story of the making of my piece called ‘ Becoming’.
‘Becoming’ is a textile art piece based on the poem ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’ by Yeats and inspired by the magical nature in all the works of W B Yeats.
He was a master of myths, legends and symbolism wrapped in dreams and folklore of the Irish landscape.
I eco dyed my silk backgrounds with flowers and rust objects to get a palate of dark deep shades and add a touch of age.
I embroidered stylised flowers and seed pods that are rooted into the earth.
The mythical water creature emerging from the equally mystical fish of the beautiful poem.
I incorporated 19th century lace of the same era as the poetry.
Yeats loved to show us a glimpse of a world just beyond our grasp .  .  .  there, if we choose to see it.

I choose silk because it absorbs the colours of flowers and the marks of rust deeply and always surprises me.

I had a general idea of the way I wanted to layout my ‘moment of change’ in the poem, and sketched the long shape I had in mind. Then it was a case of picking the piece of silk that had her hidden somewhere in the dyes !

I cut a felt shape and placed under the silk and started to mould with stitch to give me the fish and lady. I wanted her dress to naturally fan out with the fish tail and I twisted and twirled more eco dyed silk to form the link. I machine embroidered the selection of silks in waves and curves. 

I like to give a good structure to a piece on the machine but prefer to add all the rest with hand embroidery.

To get the detail I wanted in the fish I needed to be able to embroider on a stable fabric.

After a bit of experimenting I painted sections of my dyed silk with fabric stiffener.

After hanging on some pins I found it dried quickly and gave an interesting and almost fishey/scaley texture.

I then layered and hand embroidered the details (trying hard to know when to stop !)

I outlined sections with couching but French knots are always my stitch of choice.

I delayed for a long time trying to decide how to finish the face and hair.

In the end one of my favourite materials, antique lace was the way to go.

The piece of Victorian lace I choose was from the same era as the poem.

However it was far too light in colour, almost cream. I dipped and painted it with tea and madder until it looked ancient enough.

For the ‘apple blossoms in her hair’ I dyed dressmakers interfacing in pinks and again darkened with tea and some coffee.

To surround the elusive maiden I wanted unworldly wild flowers. I embroidered various stitches in deep shades and pod like shapes.

A small amount of wooden buttons and beads to give more texture and the very last thing I added was her ( very slight) smile !

The silk was the stitched onto black felt backing to give further depth to the light material.

I choose to wrap around a canvas rather than frame - I wanted the landscape to disappear over the sides.

It was a fantastic experience taking part in the ‘Thread Song’ exhibition.

Seeing the stunning and diverse textile pieces from other artists on the opening day was amazing.

It was so interesting to see how each artist interpreted the theme in their own unique way.

A great big thank you to the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland for the opportunity. It was fun !

Textile Postcard

Sending stitches through the post is such fun !

I remember the great Spanish holiday postcards with lace fabric dresses on the flamenco dancers. They were an fancy extra dimension arriving through the letterbox.

I swop fabric postcards from time to time with crafty friends and it is always such a delight to get one.

This one started off with some silk I eco dyed in February. I picked a section that had the pink from rose petals and the deep imprints from my rusty antique keys.

It begged for a little dark Victorian lace to echo the rust and deepen the wild scene !

I choose rich embroidery threads for the 'wild' flowers growing in this landscape.

Maybe they bloom once a year and have magic properties . .  or they are picked for a special spell . . . well that's my story anyway !!!

It was posted today . . . gobbled up by big green mouth of the local postbox !!

Heading for Co Wicklow.

"Wild Lace" . . . planted.

These two cream Victorian lace flowers were hand embroidered 130 years ago . . how wild is that ! They are the main elements in this embroidery piece.

I choose as a background some silk I eco dyed with petals, leaves and a little rust.

I liked the soft pinks from the roses and the dark deep browns and purples from the rust.

I also like to ‘anchor’ my embroidery onto 3mm natural felt as a neutral base - it is also a dream to embroider into. I made a fabric collage on the silk with Victorian cream flowers, a little strip of Edwardian lace and some small script cotton print.

I ‘grew’ extra elements from the lace flowers with stem stitch and couching.

A few seed beads, lots of French knots and more stitched tall flowers to make a wild meadow. I added some Victorian black netting to link the dark and the light areas.

.  .  .  and so the two old lace flowers have a new wild home.

The finished embroidery is stitched to a deep 20cm x 20cm grey canvas.