A bit of reading is good for the soul.

My dear husband bought this book the other day as he thought it would be of interest. Factual books I normally read during the day, but I was intrigued and excited to start it as soon as he gave it to me , it has become my night reading ..only because I have more time. The book written by dress historian Kate Strasdin, after she was given the diary , the story behind that in itself is something I dream would happen to me in my lifetime. The book is beautifully written, it has such a gentle tone to it, packed full of social history it follows Anne Sykes journey. It is so clever as nothing is really known about Anne and certainly the diary gives away no clues, but Anne in a sense is invisible but you read on feeling completely drawn in to the story. The photo's of the swatches are lovely and there is a QR code in the back to enable you to see more, these are stunning and is the icing on the cake.

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Worked in Flowers

Worked in Flowers. All types of flowers were used as an interest for Eighteenth century young ladies, obviously for those of wealth and privilege. Embroidery gave them the opportunity to express an interest in botany working the flowers in silks in running stitch, in The Subversive Stitch by Rozsika Parker , Parker talks about the attitudes that shaped eighteenth century embroidery by looking at Mary Delany's work , Mary's sister described a piece of embroidery in a letter stating "the bottom of the petticoat was worked with twined nasturtiums,ivy,honey suckles,periwinkles,convolvuluses and all sorts of twining flowers". Above I have used my print image of a sleeve and started to embroider using very contemporary flower shapes, I shall continue inter-twining and working into the fabric to see what happens to the humble concept of the sleeve.

Leaves and the Negative Look.

So much more is visible when you look at the detail of this print from the plate, the leaf looks fragile , hand drawn and has a historical botanical feel about it, this was printed on paper , however I think being a textile practitioner I should try this on linen or calico, then I need to see if the body of the leaf changes at all. I have done this in the past with lace and it has been very successful, first printing on cloth and then taking a negative, not only do you get the print of the object but also the weave of the cloth .

Collage

Collage I find it so hard to work on images and then rip them up and collage them to create another image. The fear of it all going wrong and just looking awful is what stops me, why when I am happy with what I have produced should I push it. I also find it hard to put things together so I am going to practice this, maybe little steps making small collages. I have come across Seth Apter's 5 principals of collage https://www.clothpaperscissors.com/blog/seth-apters-5-principles-of-collage/ I am going to have a read of it, make notes I think it will help. Looking up collage historically I came across Kurt Schwitters. I was quite drawn to his work, I found the text interesting and the placement of papers, which he followed no rule for, making his print work exhibits having a lack of order: artwork, and text are placed in unexpected areas. As a result, the space left between draws equal attention to the text and images themselves.

Bridget Harris

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