“Cells – a body of work” is a collection of live art installations by Proud & Loud Arts created in response to the Manchester Evening News report, in October 2015, describing a 140% rise in reported hate crime incidents against people with disabilities
These witty yet challenging artworks offer a thought provoking and creative glimpse into the extraordinary and explore the stigma often attached to those who dare to be different.
The Royal Exchange Craft shop invited Manchester Craft Mafia to create a body of work using black and white (greyscale if necessary) as the main colour bases, then use colour as an accent, to enhance the piece of work. We were supplied with a set of Pantone colours from this year’s A/W collection.
When faced with the colour pop brief, I knew instantly that I needed to use my collection of found fishing twine to hand embellish my three-dimensional embroidered mussel shells. I pleased to discover that favourite rope was pretty much a match for Aqua Splash and decided to do some using the yellow rope aka Lemon Zest to add a bit of variety.
I make the shells using free-motion embroidery on velvet and felted old jumpers. They are available framed in pairs or as pendants on a silver chain. If in Manchester, please visit the Royal Exchange to see them on display alongside the work of the other members of Manchester Craft Mafia, we range from textiles to print, from wirework to glass.
As part of the opening of The Study at Manchester Museum, Manchester Craft Mafia were invited to create craft items inspired by exhibits in the museum. The exhibition is in the ‘Make’ space within The Study. I created a set of linocuts featuring frogs, octopus & the famous king spider crab.
I have now uploaded these designs to a CraftyWotnots store on Redbubble. This means you can now get my linocuts on: t-shirts, hoodys, baby grows, dresses, bags, scarves, cushions, duvets, framed prints, canvases, metal plaques, stickers, greetings cards, phone & laptop cases, notebooks, travel mugs, and even skirts & leggings. What more could you want? Seriously, let me know if there are any other products you would like my prints on. Currently investigating coasters.
The t-shirts come in a range of styles for men, ladies, kids & babies and a variety of colours. For the graphic t-shirts, dresses, leggings etc, I had to set a particular background colour however this is easily changed so do get in touch if you like the design but not the colour & I can create a custom order for you. I can also change the size of the pattern on the repeat on these products. I can also create custom colours for bags, cases, cushions & duvets to match your style & decor.
This week I won a poem from The Quiet Compere aka Sarah L Dixon. I was asked for a photo or six words. Having worked with poets in the past and created textiles from poems, I decided to give her a photo of my recent work as her starting point. Here’s the result:
I have a longstanding obsession with the tones and textures of the sea shore. I moved from the suburbs of Manchester to the small fishing village of Pittenweem in Fife when nearly 8. The change was dramatic. Red brick terraces and busy roads were replaced by stone and pebbledash cottages and the freedom to head down the beach with friends. I loved scrambling over the rocks and drawing in the sand.
My Mum was (and still is) an avid beachcomber, collecting random things off the beach both natural and manmade, shaped by the ocean. Our car dashboard & fireplace were covered in a collection of various shells, interesting stones, bits of glass & tile, driftwood, crab claws and bird skulls.
I too have love beachcombing and even though I have moved back to Manchester, I return from holidays back at Mum’s with shells & rocks, twisted dried seaweed & old nylon rope from the fishing boats. My holiday photos have more pictures of rocks and seaweed than my family. I particularly love layers and juxtapositions of structure and colour. I love the sedimentary rocks shaped by millennia of life by the sea dappled with lichen, coated with patches of seaweed and colonies of limpets & barnacles. I love barnacles and how they cluster on other shells and discarded manmade objects. I love the flashes of orange & turquoise as old fishing rope & nets peak through the sand having been washed up & buried.
I promised in my New Year’s Resolutions that I would make more art work inspired by the beach and the treasures I gather there. I booked myself onto a Dionne Swift workshop last year as felt combining collaging textiles using an embellisher and sewing into this with free-motion embroidery would be an ideal way to explore my interest in layers of texture. I loved the day and treated myself to my very own embellisher and a eventually a proper free motion foot (my first experiments were footless) and started exploring building up tones & textures based on rocks & shells.
Initially I just worked flat but soon found that replicating the natural contours of the shells in stitch, led to me being able to manipulate them into three dimensional forms. I am liking the shapes I am creating and want to make more; small ones in pairs and large ones complete with more structured barnacles as not happy with them yet – need more experiments with hand embroidery and building up with fabric not just stitch. I want to experiment with using the rag-rugging technique I use in other work to add the notion of seaweed or shaggy lichen and explore using my prop & mask making techniques to create larger 3D forms from these textiles.
My obsession with natural textures extends beyond the shore. I love the shapes created by lichen, moss & fungus as it makes its home on trees and walls sometimes completely engulfing a fallen trunk or ruined building. But that’s a whole other project…
I have been experimenting with collaging in both paper and textiles to create artwork inspired by rocks, pebbles & shells. I started with observational collages using recycled paper gathered from parcel packaging in tones of white, brown & grey, depicting some of my favourite pebbles & shells collected last summer.
Then I swapped paper for fabric, using natural fabrics in muted sandy tones. I used hand embroidery to add details to the limpet shells and french knots to represent barnacles.
Old wool jumpers that I had boil washed formed the base for the next textile pieces. I explored embellishing with linens & muslins from both the front & back. I experimented with doodling in thread as I now have a machine with drop feed but unfortunately no free motion embroidery foot so these were foot free.
Weirdly when I added the pieces to my Instagram account, they serendipitously lined up with pictures I had taken last week of bird footprints in the snow. Spooky!
In 2016, I resolve to visit the beach more often & make more art inspired by it & the treasures I gather when I’m there. Wishing you all peace, love & happiness in 2016.
So back in September at the start of the school year I made a few resolutions. Now we have hit the traditional time for resolutions, it’s time to look back at how I have done and add some new ones:
1. To give myself Fridays as personal development days: not always but I have definitely set aside more time to develop my own designs and promote myself as an artist/crafter. I took part in Manchester Craft Mafia‘s Free Art Friday.
2. To blog more: Seem to have averaged 1-2 a month which is not good enough but much better than the 2-3 per year I was hitting before. Hey, in 2014 I failed to blog at all.
3. Zumba class: It only runs term time and think I have only missed 2 sessions. one due to illness and the other when I was running a workshop at Kirstie Allsopp’s Handmade Christmas Fair – which I think is a good enough excuse. I still haven’t bought proper trainers but my fake Converse seem to do me fine.
4. My professional artist page on Facebook: I may not have been blogging like mad, but have been posting more on my new Crafty Wotnots Facebook page, sharing work in progress and promoting shows and workshops. So please ‘like’ it for more regular updates. I promise not to bombard you with sales pitches.
5. Crafty Wotnots website: yes, well, I have failed here. Am also still on the case plus trying to relaunch my Etsy shop which kind of goes hand in hand. I have been working on new branding/logo and am going to attend the Manchester Etsy Resolutions event to help move this forward. I am very cautious of not just doing this but doing this right.
These resolutions still stand and are ongoing. As January is traditionally quiet for my theatre projects, I am spending more time on Crafty Wotnots and developing new products. Following on from the Dionne Swift workshop, I treated myself to an embellisher so this year I resolve to develop my textile work using this and combine it with my mask making techniques. I have already started trying to keep my new resolution of developing beach inspired art. Let’s see what the rest of 2016 brings…
Being December, it was Christmas decorations using the cut leatherette and fleece technique I developed for my Blossom brooches. Christmas can come in any colour so I didn’t limit the palate of leatherettes and fleece that I brought but need bring metallic threads and ribbons plus sparkly beads to embellish them.
Here’s a selection of photos from the two sessions. Am sure they all graced your trees beautifully and hope you had a great Christmas:
This month I will be teaching a technique of layering cut leatherette with contrasting soft fleece, embellished with buttons or beads to create stylish Christmas decorations and brooches for yourself or as a wonderful handmade Christmas gift. You will create your own design so each one will be unique.
7-9pm Tuesday 1st December at Common in Northern Quarter, Manchester.
7-9pm Tuesday 15th December at The Beagle in Chorlton.
Both venues have good beers & food available so don’t worry about rushing your tea before hand. The session is £5 including materials to be paid in cash on the night. To book a place place email Manchester Craft Mafia at manchestercraftmafia@gmail.com stating which venue you will be attending.
I love learning new techniques and skills. There are a wealth of fabulous craft books, magazines and videos on the internet to show you how to do pretty much anything but often finding the time in a busy life of work and kids to sit down with an instruction manual, magazine or to follow a video on YouTube can be tough without getting distracted or feeling guilty that you should be doing something else. For this reason, I love attending workshops. Be it to learn a new skill or refresh an old one, the luxury of time to fully focus is well worth it. On top of time and expert instruction, there is also the access to tools and materials before shelling out yourself.
Recently, I attended a masterclass with Dionne Swift at Janome headquarters in Stockport. I have followed her on Facebook for a couple of years as I love her abstract combinations of muted tones and bold textures based on landscapes. I own a small piece of print and stitch by her that I bought in a Facebook sale and covet her lampshades which I hope to treat myself to when we finish doing up the house. She runs a few masterclasses for Janome plus other workshops internationally and online. This particular one was titled “Textural Collage” and promised that we would “explore a variety of joining/collaging techniques using an embellisher and a sewing machine”. The images of work created by students in previous workshops really appealed to me.
The morning was spent getting to grips with the machines on a test piece. As embellishers are nearly £300, the chance to learn how to use one was a great opportunity. Dionne provided a range of quality materials: wools, muslins, sari cottons, fleece; but not so many as to overwhelm us with choice (this indecisive lady thanks you). She even included tips on suppliers. She showed us how each reacted with the embellisher, how to colour-mix fleece to create bespoke felts and effects you could get collaging from the back as well as the front. We were given plenty of time and freedom to explore possibilities. As well as the embellishers, we were given an introduction to Free Embroidery using a standard machine. This was a great addition to the day as was something I had been meaning to try for a couple of years. I even bought a special foot for my machine over a year ago but as mentioned before…
After a lovely included lunch plus fabulous chocolate cake made by Dionne herself (a lady of many talents), we began to think about our main pieces. We looked at Fibonacci and golden ratio. Dione encouraged us to find key motifs to use at different scales. My piece developed quite organically out of a curved remnant of purple wool and a piece of patterned cotton fabric with a matching curve. I used the small motif in the pattern to tie my design together as it made me think of seaweed clinging to rocks or lichen/fungi on a tree – things I frequently photograph and use as inspiration. I built up some felt using a mix of colours to cut into this motif shape and embroidered even larger versions into the background. I continued the colours from the patterned cotton into the rest of the piece to give a feeling of harmony.
It was a fabulously inspiring day. Clear step by step instructions paired with creative freedom. We finished the day with a sharing. There was definitely a range of styles across the group and amusingly easy to pair people up with their work. Even though we all create a test piece and main piece, I think we would all agree that we left with two unique pieces of textile art.
A great introduction to the possibilities of an embellisher. I am itching to do more and definitely be purchasing one.
Over the summer I have been stitching a large teepee that will centre stage in DIY Theatre ‘s new show “Following The Thread” that will tour to schools for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties.
There was a list of practical requirements that the teepee needed to meet:
Fit in a car.
Be able to erect it in a small classroom.
Anna needs to be able to stand up inside.
Performers and audience in wheelchairs to fit inside.
Bold colourful design.
Different textures.
Not dark inside.
Based on the ideas of the group.
Use the sparkly trimmings that had been donated by Taylors Supplies.
I had run a session earlier in the year making teepees out of bamboo and newsprint and painting them with designs based on the themes of the show. This also helped to fix what size the teepee needed to be. You can read more about that on an earlier blog.
I developed a single design from the three teepees that the group had made. When sharing the teepee with the group, it was great to hear them each being able to spot something from their design. This gives a feeling of ownership especially as the group had already been working on ideas for the show for a year before I was brought in.
I drafted my design up to full scale to create templates for the applique elements. I used an array of brightly coloured fabrics. There were satins and sequins to catch the light and fleece that is soft to touch. Each element was given a backing of Bondaweb to attach it to the calico panels. The larger pieces were sewn around by machine to secure them. I used the gold trimmings in lines along the bottom to represent sand and the diamante trimming to do the rain. I used buttons for eyes on the fish and dolphins to add texture.
The most textured sections are the flowers on the front panels. These were made by using rag-rugging technique. Although they are all red, they are made up of 3 materials: Satin jersey for shine; Rip-stop for crunch; and Fleece for softness. Members of the group helped to make them. This added to their feeling of involvement and ownership of the design.
In the devising and testing phase, they had been using a child’s pop up tent and so the arrival of the finished teepee was cause for great excitement. I am really pleased how happy they are with it and it seems to have given rehearsals a real boost.
Manchester Museum have revamped their entire top floor and created a fantastic and innovative new research and learning area called The Study. It has several different areas including areas to examine items from their collection, meeting spaces, a new gallery space (fantastic photos of the Congo at the moment) and even an aquaponics greenhouse. It also has free Wifi.
Manchester Craft Mafia were invited to collaborate with the Museum on the development of the ‘Make’ area. Members have created simple craft worksheets for visitors to follow while in the area with materials supplied plus will be running some workshops in the space. We were also commissioned to each create a piece of work inspired by the museum’s collection. These are displayed in the balcony cabinets along the “Make’ area. An insight into each artists design, development and making process is displayed with each item. Do visit this wonderful new facility and check out our exhibition. I am proud to be included in this collection of high quality craft pieces.
4. My professional artist page on Facebook: I may not have been blogging like mad, but have been posting more on my new 
