Archive for the ‘lace textile’ Category

2011 SAQA Auction Quilt

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

This 12″ square textile, just completed but as yet untitled,  is my offering for this year’s SAQA Benefit Auction  At this link you can see some of the early submissions to this year’s auction list, and find full details of how you can particpate and acquire a fine small art quilt for your textile or quilt collection  (I suggest mine of course! )

The Auction will run online from September 12th to October 2nd.

This piece fits in with the Timetracks series, and yet I think I may have another title in mind, but am thinking it over.  No rush.

New Work in Progress

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007


Currently my quiltmaking continues exploration of the ground between traditional quiltmaking and my interest in lace and leather. Readers who have been following this leather thing since I began samplising over a year ago will have also seen various old lace samples I have put up at intervals over the period of the blog, and some intriguing pieces of handmade lace from various sources but especially my trip to Paraguay about a year back. Lace has two aspects – the textile stuff and the holes between the bits of thread, and I realise I have been very interested in the ‘holes’ bit for years – I have a lovely pair of silver earings, very modern with holes punched out, and a more recent gold pair of round-ish organic shapes, slightly concave, with holes of various sizes randomly punched out: all these things plus the challenges of a piece of leather set me off on a track where I recognise leather can look lacey. Laciness lightens up a solid shape….and lighter solid shapes can appear to float.

So now these roughly triangular shapes have been glued down, I will be doing a lot of hand sewing behind the scenes today, and may even get to the quilting stage. It is about 1m square, so not too overwhelming.

I haven’t yet decided whether it is to be hand quilting or machine, but I am already planning the next quilt in this series. I want to make it very big with lots of little pieces on it … mad or brave… but it’s there and has to be done.

My client J has accepted my suggestions of colours, (blogged a few weeks back) selected the design and paid her deposit, so that will also be under way very soon.

Altar cloth Buenos Aires

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006

I found this really nice altar cloth pictured in a church in the San Telmo district of buenos Aires when we were over there a few weeks ago.

The lace is a version of the paraguayan nanduti lace I picture on the blog back in march/april. And what a lovely foil the pretty design is to the rather plainer finish on the altar and surrounding wood panelling. Posted by Picasa

lace samples, and writing.

Monday, October 30th, 2006

More interesting samples – this time showing their age plus dust, and the workmanship is even through all samples.

This group was given to me by a friend who found quite a lot on a market stall.
They are all on fairly fine cotton squares which have been hemmed by machine, and each piece is also backed by aging cream tissue paper whiy I am not sure. The whole lot of them are white on white samples.

The whole bunch, about 14, has been held together in one corner for some years by a large safety pin which has rusted in place.

And several of the designs are the same as I have already in my collection, which speaks of some kind of curriculum to a course of study at a school, college or institute.

This one, of quite pretty lace-ribbon embroidered flowers, is unusual and I really like it…. the rust stains over it say something about where it has been stored all these years….could be the beginning of an interesting little writing exercise. Posted by Picasa

A delicate segment to prompt the brain along

Tuesday, October 17th, 2006

This is another of the lace samples I found in the markets at San Telmo while we were in BA a few weeks ago.

One of the themes of the South Project was how vital is the role of story telling in cultural connections and in coming to terms with the past there are stories to be told before constructing in the present. I did a short writing workshop with Ian Gedde NZ and Tony Birch, Aus, where a found object became the trigger to a piece of writing, not about the object itself, but a trigger to write some kind of story.

With this in mind, I think I have always been aware of these samples being a connection to the past, and valued them for that. But up to now I have not thought about their full potential to me and my inner creative self.

At least someone asked me what I am going to do with them – and more than ever I feel ‘nothing’ except go on collecting them. Several quiltmakers have suggested I make a quilt design using them all… nah, just going to let a few ideas swirl around in the cranial cavity for a while while I collect them and occasionally take them all out of their box and run them through my hands…. Posted by Picasa

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