Woof Woof – Samples Inspired by my Bark Studies

Knitted Bark

Patchwork Bark

Couched Bark

Discharge Printed Bark

Machine Embroidered Bark

Hello February!

Well so much for New Year’s resolution to focus on planning for the year – January gone and have only managed to gather information about some forthcoming shows/call for artists but have done nothing with them – and have missed some deadlines!

BUT I have completely re-organised my Studio Room and started a new teaching job plus three events now booked for 2014 so maybe not so bad after all.

On the downside no Blogs so far in 2014 – have been a very bad girl – and no new work to show yet. So instead I will continue sharing some of my past projects.

So inspired by my friend Jenny’s fabulous photos of ancient Hornbeams I have decided to share some of my tree studies.

Tree Bark

Bark Close Up

Lovely Twisted Tree

Tree Print

Bark Print

The Secret of my Parcels Revealed

Finally have had time to unwrap my dye parcels – plenty of time to ‘cook’ then – which is good.

Very few leaf prints and those that have worked are very feint so much more work to do.

But despite this some very exciting results – yey!

         

More Dyeing Results

Fabrics dyed with the last dregs of previously brewed natural ingredients.

More lovely bundles waiting to be revealed – as usual will have to be patient.

New Dye Pot Ingredients!

Back from sunny Ashridge where I gathered lots of lovely leaves, moss and bark for my dye pot. Can’t wait to get cooking tomorrow!

Under the Microscope

How statisfying it is to study successful pieces close up and find you love them even more.

The Light at the end of the Tunnel?

Love the texture and am looking forward to working into this to create an even more interesting surface. But first need to sort out the colour .. back into the Dye Pot I think.

And the answer is …. handmade paper

These sections of collage represent an actual size mock up of a final piece using handmade paper and mouled ‘knots’ together with drawing where I am planning to use machine embroidery. At last I can relate my planning ‘drawing’ to my ideas for fabric manipulation and embroidery on the machine knitted base!

Wearable Art?

Following the felting idea, I decided to try wet and needle felting – I wanted to source old woollen blankets as a base but unfortunately had sent some to the Dogs Home, for use as bedding, only a few weeks earlier. It’s always the way if you decide to get rid of something then you can bet you’ll find you needed it after all!

Anyway instead of a blanket I used the sleeve of a wool jacket, which was left over from a deconstruct/reconstruct project.  Again I was exploring my bark patterns.

I am really pleased with this and, what is more, other people are too. They have been laying in on their arms and talking about cuffs and textile jewellery. Definitely the start of something here – yey!

Can I Knit Bark?

I find myself drawn back to the traditional skills I learnt as a child.  The question is how well will knitted bark samples work?

This one features knitted bobbles before the whole piece was felted and needle felting to (unsuccessfully) add carded wool onto the surface.

This time I tied resists into the knit before felting (Shibori) – which I really do like – and then added hand embroidery to the surface.

Finally an attempt at knitting some of the bark texture – possibly some potential in this but I’m keen to explore the Shibori felting method as this seems to give the strongest samples so far.