Stitch experiments

I've just taken part in the TextileArtist.org Stitch Camp, led by Gwen Hedley. I have had her book Drawn to Stitch on my shelves for many years, all unexplored potential. When I saw that her workshop was being repeated I thought it might be an enjoyable introduction to her way of working, so signed up. 

We were advised to prepare with fabric, paints, mark making tools, plenty of newspaper for mopping up spills and, of course, threads in our colours of choice. Each of the five sessions comprised Joe and Sam introducing the activity with their usual bright eyed enthusiasm and Gwen demonstrating what she wanted us to do. The videos were pre recorded and no opportunity to interact with Gwen herself, but the support group on Facebook has been really helpful for feedback and inspiration. Gwen's instructions were clear and the examples shown very useful for understanding what was needed. I chose to use an old tea towel for its soft worn linen. With two colours, we were shown how to make marks - one side dense with little background material visible, the other side more loosely marked, open and fragmented. Here is what I had achieved after day one.

Once dry the fabric was chopped up with greater or lesser pre thought depending on the inclinations of participants. It was such fun watching the images appear on Facebook, so many varieties of colour, marks and decisions. I chose the "turn it over and don't think" method, knowing that otherwise I would never pick up the scissors, being dreadful at decision making. Reassembly involved selecting pieces that had some kind of correlation and matching marks across these. I have chosen to stitch all my selections down on Harem cloth (as used by Jude). Many folk chose to stitch their pieces together in sequence to make strips, but I felt this wasn't for me, so have reassembled twelve pieces in a more or less patchwork. I hope the flow of marks is as apparent to you as it is to me, 

I have just begun the stitching, having several other things on the go as well. I will do my best to "finish" this, though many folk have completed theirs already. For me the interest lies in understanding how to use stitch in an abstract way, responding to what lies beneath. I am a bit ambivalent about acrylic and textile, but the paint was very dilute so the hand of the fabric hasn't changed too drastically.

a plastic fork created good parallel lines, the little flicks of colour above the lines were from the same tool, while a holder for Covid testing makes a decorative repeated square.

Random plastic packaging, harvested from the street, creates a sort of snowflake, or perhaps seed head with more fly stitch seeds tumbling down

more "snowflakes, parallel swirls and Covid test holders

I find a lot of the marks too stark, so will look at how to soften these with both stitch and the colours I use. As it moves forward I will post updates, but I suspect this will be around for a while! It has encouraged me to delve more deeply into Gwen's book as well, which I am finding really rewarding

How is your stitching going?