patchwork quilts are strange

I was lucky to take part in a quilting workshop with the wonderful Kaffe Fassett at the Fashion & Textile Museum in London a few weeks back. I'm new to the world of quilts and I find it a strange process in regard to material use. Cutting  up new fabric and rejoining feels a bit un-thrifty, but I am planning to glean the remnants from the cut off corners. A slow arduous gleaning task coming up!

garden windfall

I've been starting a series of workshops in the studio to unpack what is happening in this space...privileging making is the focus and I'm experimenting with what this means in various ways in the garden and the workroom and hopefully making some more tangible links between the two.  So far I've been thinking about dressing the garden and the workroom and objects within the space...

 It has been a windfall of sorts with a bit of rejuvenation being injected into my work...but I also had a very suprising garden windfall on the weekend...I was weeding and tidying up the garden edging under the apple trees and what I thought was a bit of rubbish (maybe something pulled out of the bin by the doggles or blown into the garden), was a cripsy $20 note!  It might just have been washed and fallen out of a hung on the line garment pocket, but I like to think that like the said rubbish sometimes does, it blew into the garden in a happy accident :o)

Gem and Hugs also got blessed and dressed by the garden on the weekend...pretty pups!

blue n white n quilty delights

On the weekend I visited an old friend of my mum in laws...Donna, an avid quilter who has been promising for ages that we would have a quilt viewing and afternoon tea at her place.

This is a special one called "wedding rings" that I want to make a version of...it was Donna's first quilt and I borrowed it to put on my bed when I was married 5ish years ago...more lovely quilts below...what a talented lady! 

She is big on blue and white as a decor theme and it looks wonderful, especially on her decking...

This last quilt was extra special...made using an unusual technique (I don't know enough about quilting to understand what it is!) and traditional Japanese fabrics...

It was such a beautiful inspirational afternoon...thanks Donna....mmmwhaaa!

what else can the apron panels do?

There are plenty of remnants from the summer gleaning cloth...I spoke about the apron parts here...and we did some gleaning of the cloth here...
I've been working on what my next gleaning steps might be...
To experiment with the component parts of the cloth - the apron panels and the waistband/tie strips, I'm working in 1/2 scale...it means less cloth used when experimenting, it's quicker, and it's easier to get an overall sense of scale and proportion without constantly stepping back...

And it's so darn cute too!  I started with a 1/2 scale apron made from the unprinted cloth remnants...

An apron panel makes up the front and back of this top, with waistband strip used for the shoulder panel and a little gusset under the arm to create a square armhole.  There are two small cuts into the apron panels to set in the gusset.

It is modeled by "Claudette" (named by 'super'visor PD), the 1/2 scale mannequin I made while teaching a 2nd year studio about scale earlier this year :o)

Then I'm thinking about how the apron interacts with the top...it shapes the top...it is shaped through interaction with the wearers body...is shaped through use by the wearer...the experience of use shapes the wearers being.
This is related to something about Heidegger's thinging which I was thinking about back here!

potentials

Nicola potatoes planted in bright laundry tubs with holes drilled in the bottom...the ones you see Josh on Gardening Australia using all the time :o)  There's about 4 inches of soil in the bottom, and as they grow I'll build the soil up around the stems.  They are in a nice sunny spot next to back door.  I'm using this method as my potatoes in the past have never manged to survive dogs sitting on them and there isn't enough room for dedicated potato growing in the fenced patch.

When my digital printing for summer gleaning was produced, the sheer voile had to be backed...for the first round of printing they didn't have wide enough paper in stock, so it was backed with a cheap poly tricot.  The strike through is amazing and is almost a full strength print.  The second lot of printing was backed with paper, and by the time I realised and asked for the paper, retrieval from the bin was attempted at the printers, but when I unrolled it weeks later it was mostly blank - my paper obviously went to the tip! 

I've been working with the remnants anyhow, and the paper has some potential for construction...perhaps as a transient, impermanent material.

Seeds have been doing quite nicely...here's some lettuce and japanese cucumbers germinating in re purposed remnant toilet rolls
Enjoy the good gardening weather all!

all things spring

Yay!  First day of spring is here!

I've been very obsessed by the blossoming of miss damson plum - no. 1 fruit tree here.  I've taken to calling this lovely by a name.  Miss damson has become the center of my attention when observing the happenings in the space.  Maybe because the tree is opposite my workroom window?

Makes for a nice comparison with previous lace and reflective space :o)

sunlight and blossom

Beautiful day today with a real hint of spring in the air.  The damson plum is blossoming and it brings some other sunlight and blossoms to mind...

apron parts...to glean or not to glean?

 





The aim of the summer gleaning workshop was to glean and cut the cloth into to parts and sew these parts into aprons.  The apron pattern was the starting point for the design of the print for the cloth.  This pattern acts literally and metaphorically as the building blocks for the design.

Each apron skirt is a brick, and the waistband/tie panels look like the weather boards of the summer gleaning 'house'.  Reflecting back on this process makes me wonder whether this is really gleaning if this intentional use of the cloth actually partly shaped its design.  It is the leftovers from another use of the cloth, but it was one that I intended and embedded into it, although not at the inception of the project.  The initial idea was to create a canopy of cloth that would evoke to the viewer/occupant an experience of a bygone summer.  The canopy is like a harvesting machine that I knew was going to be imperfect in gathering the entire crop, so knowing that this would be the case, I thought about how the gleaning after the canopy could take place.  This projected action shaped the gleaning cloth.  Notions of harvesting and gleaning get rather slippery here, the cloth in some ways harvests, and in other ways gleans.  I feel that the obvious is a harvest, and the peripheral, less tangible aspects are gleanings.

gleaning...gleaning...gone!

Summer gleaning was taken down last night.  It was a sad moment, but nice to have captured its demise.  It occurred to me that I haven't posted a full pic of the canopy, so that's where i'll start :o)

gleaning the gleaning cloth

The most exciting part of the summer gleaning workshop was when I said "ok, go for it, time for gleaning!"  After choosing which panel they wanted to cut for their apron, each of the team gleaners went for it with their scissors.  I was very amused by finally seeing this happening and I couldn't stop giggling!  It was evocative of the picking of the plums in the summer in a very delightful way - yay!!!

thank you team glean!

The gleaning day yesterday was fab!  I had so much fun with my fellow gleaners and want to acknowledge their contribution - you know who you are! mmmwwhhaaa! xx

last day and time for gleaning workshop!

Today is the last day for summer gleaning, so the last chance to pop down to GPO for a look.
From 12.15 today myself and team glean will be cutting the cloth, gleaning it, to make some experimental fashion products.  The summer gleaning canopy will be transformed into a pop up shop - yay!  Hope to see you down there!