thank you Embroidery Magazine!

I was very excited to see a piece of my work included in the Embroidery Magazine in the
'Schools Out' section. Tea, the social interaction around it and its associated paraphernalia were my inspiration and I thought I'd explain the processes I used.

I came to see tea shops as social capsules, exploring them in my art journals and on loose large scale mixed media work, utlising stitch, paint, pastels, fabric, collage, tea, block printing, paper and fabric manipulation, one outcome being the piece of mixed media on calico above, the starting point for this being the cups motif, 'drawing' on the calico with tea, I also used Markal Artist Oil Paintsticks before embroidering with cotton.

I then photoshopped the image to create a repeat pattern which I had digitally printed onto a fairly heavy cotton in several colourways.  (I was thinking about an interiors fabric at this point) I took it a step further by highlighting just one rose in silk thread satin stitching. The size of the embroidered rose is 9cm tall x 10cm wide.

The buzz for me throughout all my work is amalgamating the past and present, combining both traditional & contemporary methods and examining the correlation between historical issues & of humanity.

For anyone who creates textile based (and arguably other genres) think about a subscription to Embroidery magazine, please don't just think traditional although the historical pieces covered are also of great interest and extremely useful as both inspiration and a sound source for written work. Anyone interested in contemporary methods would be depriving yourself to go without. I miss Fibrearts which sadly has fallen by the wayside but Embroidery helps heal the pain of its loss! Embroidery Magazine Nov/Dec 2011

a nice cup of tea and a good book, Happy Birthday to Me :)

This is a small section from one of my tea towel designs, digitally printed onto a lovely sturdy English Cotton. The initial art work was created by my first carving out some blocks and printing into my Art Journal, then manipulating with Photshop and finally having it digitally printed. I am sipping from  a nice big hot breakfast cup of tea as I write this. Later I will be starting to put together my Art Quilt which will be called Conversations. All about the connection people have over a cuppa and the related paraphenalia. It's my birthday today and as per tradition later on I will be treating myself to a wonderful book. This years will be; '1,000 Artisan Textiles, Contemporary Fibre Art, Quilts and Wearables' by Sandra Salamony and Gina M Brown........can hardly wait :)