Take it from a dyed-in-the-wool teacher: there’s nothing quite as effective for learning how to do something as working through it step by step, and possibly problem solving along the way. I often use this mantra, and according to this blog’s search function, I’ve used it at least 100 times here.

My wall quilt “Spirogyra 3: In The Weeds” was selected for the Interpretations26 exhibition at the Visions Museum Of Textile Art, VMOTA, and in addition to the usual updated headshot photo, resume and biography, our artist’s contract required a 60 second (max) video of ourselves talking about our art, so you may view it here – https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E-l9WAsfezE

To do this myself I consulted our tech savvy daughter who works with videos all the time, and she advised me on how to rig up a (very non-professional looking) structure to hold the phone camera in place. Behind me is the actual quilt, “Spirogyra 3“, I’m sending, which was pinned to another already hanging on a wall in the living room, where the morning light’s great. On top of the dining table sat a small coffee table, and on top of that I parked a couple of thick books topped with an unopened box of wine and a coffee tin that, with a bit of duck tape, propped the phone up at MOL face level 🙂 I’d practised out what to say in under the 60 seconds time limit – that’s not very long! After several takes I sent them to said daughter who removed the bloopers of clenched lips and teeth, eye rolling, one swear word and a brief nose-scratching incident – all of which I’m sure close friends and family will say are so typical! She compiled them into a little blooper collection which I’ll post when the good video has had time to go viral unimpeded 🙂 My last learning thing was how to take a single frame from the video and save it as a still shot, which was so easy that I’m encouraged to learn how to do more editing myself.

Back in 2013, for some long-forgotten reason, I compiled a document titled “Here’s all you can do with fabric”, and I’m sure I must have been interrupted and never remembered to return to it, because it’s obviously incomplete 🙂 For example, although I myself have made of works featuring torn fabric edges, and way back in 2008 made several works featuring melted organza, I hadn’t listed them here, and there must be many more.

The list does show, though, that I had already started to research some of them. This was really important to me back then because I was living in a spanish speaking country with less than good language ability, and more accumstomed to accessing libraries and bookstores in english. These days of course there’s even more information available online. I rarely buy new textile books, and don’t subscribe to paper copies of any magazines as their delivery here is very unreliable.

I’ve never been motivated to write a fibreart techniques book, so perhaps I was preparing a workshop, or a powerpoint for a talk to a group which never happened, but anyway, I’ve learned the basics of many of these, become skilled in several, and some I’m sure never interested me at all :

• 3-d and low relief manipulation
• applique for beginners video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vKcyymFkyk
• collage / bonding with veisoflex, steam a seam 2, etc
• basic patchwork, and math for working out basic patchwork
• piecing technique basics
• felting
• surface design techniques
• stencilling – great little step by step tutorial on  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOVCDpzdixM
• monoprinting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajx3d7PTm68 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaO2Ylye6tc
• direct printing / digital printing using home computer- whenever paper is mentioned think fabric. http://www.instructables.com/id/Inkjet-Printing-on-Fabric/step6/Print/  using a home computer and freezer paper with PFD fabric
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl4FnvvcHCk
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYkba6ZHWx0
• 2 parts –   home based, sticking paper to fabric for printing in the computer printer; good hints
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwICR-vGp0Y – pretty good too, all in one, faster moving.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HO4wtjgy8M  good hints not on the above
• Gelli plate  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7mAJkcY45M  and others by Andy Skinner and other people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyQvWv0LVWA http://gelliarts.blogspot.com/  fantastic, full of technical help if that’s the way you want to go with surface printing.,
• screen printing
• starter kits are available www.store.cbridge.com
• silk painting
• mixed media layerin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ART_W3ZIg
• hand dyeing
• shibori http://shiborigirl.wordpress.com/2007/01/03/82/ great looking classes include a $25 online shibori class that looks like great value as an overview and stimulation to explore
• http://www.polkadotbride.com/2013/07/diy-shibori-dye-napkins/  good basic tutorial – napkin sample in simple steps.
• Huge range of shibori techniques on Pinterest
• http://honestlywtf.com/diy/shibori-diy/ excellent basic tutorial
• Excellent video on Quilting Arts YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOVCDpzdixM
• sun printing
• snow dyeing
• tea dyeing
• rust dyeing
• free machine embroidery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ADupRXK8Y&list=PL9ETHLzJ7-_LUQpiLhOwN47wi6aFaj0fC
• hand embroidery
• free machine quilting
• hand quilting

I strongly believe that it’s important know a range of techniques from which to choose for an artwork, as such knowledge opens up all kinds of creative possibilities. Techniques learned in workshops by some inspiring teachers have stayed with me for ever; but others faded with little use, and a few emerged again years later as ‘just the thing’ I needed at particular time.

Having not attended a major in-person workshop or symposium since about 2015, in 2019 I decided I’d travel and take a whole week live-in workshop in 2020 or 2021 with a particular UK artist whose fibre art I loved. Of course, the Covid 19 Pandemic put paid to tha idea, and as compensation I signed up as a foundation member of StitchClub, partly because that very teacher was one of the scheduled early S.C. workshop teachers I’d really wanted to study with. Interestingly though after her StitchClub class, I felt all her work has a sameness about it, which over a live-in whole week workshop might have wildly inspired me but also might have been a bit boring 🙂

The excellent StitchClub workshops were weekly (they’re now fortnightly) and some were really special to me, like this one https://www.alisonschwabe.com/weblog/?p=7260. After two or three years, though, I let my StitchClub subscription lapse, as I wanted to focus on creatively using the many fabric and stitch techniques I already know or could quickly look up online. StitchClub really did take quite a bit of time to get the most from it, but then, during the pandemic oldies like yours truly suddenly had heaps and heaps of extra time stuck at home anyway, right? As we became vaccinated and activities resumed, like most people, I needed to spend real face time in company with other people with whom I share other interests, most of whom are not fabric and thread people.

Even after writing this post, I still don’t remember what motivated me to the compile this list!

Recently I posted what I see are the time-saving benefits of making samples, but they are also memory savers, just like taking brief notes or making list. Mum

I’ve been stitching over and around ‘donut shapes’ for some years, and they feature in a large section of my “Abstract Landscape Textures”, for example.

The most recent works in my Out of Order series feature much more damaged, disorderly grids, and recently I came up with constructing rougher looking raised 3D elements, – think ‘donuts’ – as compared with those elements in earlier Out of Order works.

Far more interesting than just overstitching flat rings are overstitching with the stemmed french knots I used in these next two works. I tore thin strips of fabric and formed them into raised rings which I first held with a pin while did a round of sewing up from beneath with a few carefully placed tiny invisible stitches in toning thread. Then I removed the pin which made for much easier overstitching. The whole process is made easier by the use of the 6″ springloaded machine embroidery hoop I’ve found to be indispensible for over 50 years;

Those stemmed french knots seem to burst out of the centre of the raised rings with some lively motion, as if erupting or leaping outwards. Stemmed french knots are one of my all time fav stiches – but stemmed fly and chain stitches would also work sometime. The fabric and thread on the red one are synthetic – so hold their profile. The ones below are natural fibre, so would flatten rolled/folded for a long time.

Where did this idea come from? Certainly I’ve been influenced/inspired by things I’ve seen browsing on line – such as the very textural embroidery of Jennifer Jones or Penny Behrens’ frequent use of stitched down vaguely circular rings as a texture, but I don’t know where torn strip construction idea came from; anyway they’re an exciting thing I’m keen to take further in the stitched reactions to the state of the world today, which is the key concept of the Out of Order series.

Uruguay is a major fine merino wool producer, right up there with Australia and New Zealand, so here in Montevideo yesterday (Saturday June 13th) together with a good friend Dalehl and my patient hubby Mike, I visited the 6th Expolana.uy. I confess I was a bit surprised to find I’d never heard of the previous five until a couple of weeks ago 😉 and wonder how did it not appear on my radar until now?

Last year I bought a remnant piece of fine, moss-green 100% wool fabric, thinking I’d back another work with it, but then didn’t, but as green is my favourite colour, it’s grown on me while it was sitting around my studio all that time. So I’ve decided to work something on it as the front of a wall quilt. Once a Girl Guide, always a Girl Guide, and their motto “Be Prepared” was motivation to attend this expo from the time I saw it advertised, and I took along a snippet of the green wool… I was on the lookout for “materials” to use for something to enter into ArtQuiltAustralia 27 wool quilt category, but I’ve since learned there probably won’t be a wool quilt category in ASA27, as the sponsorhip agreement has not been renewed, so far anyway. However, this one needs making, and there’ll be another worthy entry call for it.

Vendors were principally selling wool and various equipments for use in the common fibrearts and crafts, and there was everything from crochet hooks and knitting needles to spinning wheels, from wool roving to knitting and embroidery threads, and small weaving looms to needle felting thingies. There were some finished items like knitted beanies, scarves and jumpers, ruanas, and even some jewellery featuring wool fabric inserts, but it was specifically oriented to crafters – the knitters, crocheters, stitchers, felters, spinners and weavers among us.

As a stitcher, I was pleased to find this box of fine, eco-dyed 100% merino wool from Patagonia, Argentina, suitable for embroidery, just after I’d bought the skein of multi-colored hand spun wool. The spun wool vendor, from Minas UY, invites interested kids to choose a few colours of rovings, which she then uses to demonstrate spinning, and sells these demo samples at subsequent shows. From our conversation we’ll meet again, for sure, and if needs be I’ll be able to get more, I know.

We adjourned to the MAPI museum in the Old City of Montevideo for coffee and a sandwich, and as I hadn’t seen Avocado on toast on a menu here before, I ordered that with a cappucino –

Once refuelled, we took a look at the amazing central American masks that have been showing a while now. And there’s a new exhibition of forests and trees by a Uruguayan artist Carmela Piñón, beautifully painted and some forest and stream sounds played softly in the background, but it seemed bit ordinary, until I read this wordy statement giving insight into their importance to the indigenous people here. Interestingly, if the docent on dury had been able to tell me what the word jeike meant, I’d have got it sooner. In the Museum’s own collection exhibition area I was taken with some fresh archaeological items from the Andean part of NW Peru. MAPI’s a favourite museum here in Montevideo, and we visit several times a year – and a bonus is that to seniors with UY residence cards entry is free… which is always nice.

My regular readers know I’m keen on making samples., and they’re are worthwhile investments in time for the following reasons:

• if an idea, material or technique is new to me, I learn just how it works in my hands
• trying out any options and making a sample of each enables valid comparisons.
• the relatively short time spent making a sample or two really does save time (and sometimes, heartbreak) Often art quilt makers in particular talk about having so many unfinished works, and sometimes it’s obvious to me that taking a little time – an hour, morning, or day – to work through a sample or two would have saved heartbreaking waste of effort and/or materials. I don’t think that’s just an older person’s pov, though there’s a lot of pressure these days to just hurry up and get on with things – “quick and easy” everything appeals to people whose whole lives are in a constant rush. Craftsmen who take their time to be meticulous and attend to fine details are a pleasure to observe, and as I wrote elsewhere on this blog, I find it quite hard for me to produce something that looks “rough” or “damaged” as my Out of Order series requires.

Walking in our neighbourhood recently, I took this photo of some fallen Ghinko leaves. The tiny green leaflets from a nearby tree instantly struck me as little seeds/tiny grubs/and of course, stitches…. stitches in a random pattern holding down leaflike shapes….Feeling sure must I have already done something like that sometime, I found several photos just like this one, but I hadn’t been thinking of sheer fabrics until seeing it.

• so here’s another good reason to make samples – another possibility may come to mind during the process of making one
• browsing on Pinterest and Instagram I sometimes find something I need to try out immediately to keep an idea in my mind before I forget that poster’s name. Yes, I could have drawn a diagram too, but probably needed to get up and walk around, anyway 🙂 A case in point this week was discovering an IG post by well known English embroiderer Karen Turner, (who my UK stitcher friends in PINKS did know of) I was smitten with the beauty, simplicity and potential of this one so I rushed upstairs to do this quick sample to hold the idea in my head,

and instantly discovered (1) if I use it this way, the corners need either a touch of glue or misty fuse to prevent them lifiting during handling, and (2) the stitch motif itself is divine to do ! so I’d most likely use it as either a texture/filler or quilting motif.

The sample’s up on my pin board to exert some daily influence 🙂