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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Mapping the forgotten

Mapping the Forgotten I wanted to look at my practice further, I was feeling as bit lost on where to go and what to do , I felt that by just using stitch I was hemming myself in , expression and development was hard. I came across www.fibreartstaketwo.com a course by www.sallytyrie.com seemed to fit the brief in my mind so I joined and what a great decision that was. It was the most amazing experience, I have met so many like minded artists and was blown away with the amount of talented people on the course. I wanted to continue with my passion of social history. Please have a look at the amazing work exhibition.fibreartstaketwo.com/books/lcvj

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.

Developing New Idea's

Paperlitho New Idea's. Having become fascinated with paperlitho, and somehow managing to get a reasonably good transfer of an image. I want to investigate this within my practice to see where it would fit. I still need to perfect the technique, sometimes I have far too much water on the paper, soaking it up with a sponge and cotton buds work well but I like that grainy edge a blur between the print and paper. Experimentation on seeing how I could add stitch or collagraph to the pieces is my next stage, I think if I do this the paperlitho needs to have more space enabling areas to be exploited.

Bridget Harris

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