Just add stitch

I’ve just arrived home from my annual artists retreat with twelve textile artists and friends in Grasmere. As always the company was funny, supportive and all round wonderful and the location, in the Lake District, beautiful. And as usual it did me the power of good and recharged my creative batteries.

We all work on our own projects and I took three pieces of printed fabric to add stitch to. Despite an emergency dash home to collect my spare machine when I managed to jam a needle in my sewing machine, I completed all three pieces.

The pieces are from my upcoming online workshop Simply Screen Printing and needed stitch that enhanced the printed marks and lines rather than distracted from them so I kept it simple. The photo above (detail) shows simply curvy lines added fabric that had been printed with a loose paper resist intially then over printed using a breakdown screen. The photo below (detail) shows simple straight lines added to a piece that had been printed using a loose net resist. I also sewed around the circles which really helps them ‘pop’.

And finally, the photo below (detail) shows a simple grid of blue and light brown lines added to a densely patterned piece of breakdown printed fabric. If I have time to add facings and finish these little quilts I will take them to The Scottish Quilt Show in Glasgow on 7th to 9th March.

Simply Screen Printing will be available from this Friday 1st March. Featuring 25 hours of video and detailed notes , it will cost £300 for 12 months access which means that students can work at their own pace knowing that they have support from me via monthly Zoom meetings, a private Facebook group and email. More details to follow, so watch this space!!