stitching – Mixy's Art Blog

This is one where I’m beginning in the middle. I’ll catch you up on the beginning next, but let’s start off here, just coz I feel like it.

Thoughtforms are a series of relief collages I’m making from the dyed paper (way back… remember the dyed paper?)

and the don’t-know-why-but-compelled-to-keep-making-them funny little colored rectangle things.

So these loose ends are also finding each other and forming into slightly more coherent entities.

Thoughtforms are continuing that recurring theme: trains of consciousness & patterns of thought. More on that later.

I’ve made 6 of a series that will total 9, 3 are still in progress. These 6 are on display (and for sale – if you’re quick before they get snapped up!) at the Upstairs Gallery

Each one is named after a fragment of text found somewhere in the piece, serendipity giving them eclectic names such as: Spacecraft, Puddings cakes etc, Fortitude and Adversity amongst others.

The next series will include more textile elements, but the overall feel will be similar.

Still with that one theme leads to another, one thought folds round a corner and opens out into a coiled up spring, some buttons and a rivet, stitched onto the overarching idea of something else.

Or something. Y’know, like it does. The beauty is they can represent whatever you want them to. Or nothing at all if you .

Although I’m still painting and all – this quilt is obsession de jour. There’s a real autumnal feel in the air the last couple of days – so stitching away!

Having trimmed, washed, de-fluffed and thoroughly considered my stacks of velvet patches I deceid the best way forward would be to take the smallest length and cut all the other patches to this size.

(First use of the rotary cutter – it you use fabric a lot and don’t have one I highly recommend trying it out.) I’ve now got a good size pile of offcuts which I can see are just waiting for a project of their own…!

Experimental layouts, fluff induced sneezing. You’ll see there’s quite a bit of fluff and threads on the fabric – I battled with it a while, but it keeps coming back while there are unfinished edges!

The patches are 9cm (3 and a bit inches) square, in 5 x 5 squares. Each of these squares takes about 30 mins to machine together (inc time for fiddling about. The pile of 2 velvets together makes the patches ‘walk’ a bit. Some of them take a bit of battling with!)

I’ve machined 8 of these squares now, and begun hand embroidering over the machine stitching in places. Relieved to report the fluff levels are subsiding too!