Dirth

You could be forgiven in thinking that this blog is not about textiles at all- I seem to have shown precious little in recent times- and thoughI have been very slowly working on my travellers blanket-Blue, I don't seem to have done a single thing on the machine since the end of february- do I remember how to use the machine???? Looking at other blogs everyone seems to be so productive and I have little to show.

I hand dyed this piece of fabric yesterday to sort of represent our sunburnt and drought ridden country for the climate change exhibition- in a way it seems too vibrant to me- it will have fire going through it, and the swirling motion of the darker areas does remind me of the tree limbs that were flying around our house on that horrible Saturday in February. I am still thinking about it.

The print above is by an Italian artist named Ugo Barraco- it is of a quintessential Venetian scene, and I hope the artist will forgive me posting this image. Unfortunately there is very little presence of his work online so I can't give you any links, but I bought one of his prints many years ago at his little cart at Piazza san Marco in Venice. On my last visit to Venice his wife was there with his cart but all I could afford was a poster. However trawling on ebay a couple of weeks ago, I found this print and I loved it so it arrived in the post yesterday.

This was my paltry effort for yesterday- stitching the wool fabric I bought- it seems static to me- I am so used to the liveliness of the hand dyed fabrics- but I do like the depth of the black colour- maybe it needs hand dyes on there rather than woollen squares. I don't know. I seem to be curiously bereft of any ideas or creative spark at the moment. I really should do something about getting my Carvanserai exhibition seen elsewhere- but I am aa bit stuck on where? There is still an icon piece I want to make for it also, but again ideas about this have deserted me. In an effort to find enthusiasm I have been reading through some of my older journals- trawling for ideas but that is not doing the trick either.

I am dyeing some muslin at the moment and have ordered a whole lot more. The muslin is a much lighter and softer weight and is beautiful for hand stitching as in the Travellers blanket I am working on ( if anyone would like me to dye any let me know as I intend to do some daily dyeing for the next week or so). Then i one of my workshops I taught a couple of weeks ago someone suggested I should do a 72 Ways book of hand embellishing a la travellers blanket style- I had not thought of doing this, but the idea speaks to me , and then as most of my fabrics are hand dyed and printed how best to do this- though I suppose any fragments of fabric could be used.