Showing posts with label patchwork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label patchwork. Show all posts

Monday, 17 February 2014

Mini Quilts inspired by my grandmother

I haven't updated my blog for a long time but I have been busy creating. Last year I enrolled on a year long textiles course at the City Lit in London which I found very inspiring. The quality of the teaching was incredible and I was lucky enough to be taught by a textile artist I already admired, Louise Baldwin. I stitched two mini quilts inspired by my grandmother.

Epitaph


This piece was made from a selection of my grandmother's old fabric scraps alongside some others I have in my extensive stash. I printed a photo of her on a scrap of the nightdress I wore when I was in hospital after giving birth to my twins. The embroidered text is from her epitaph, written by my mother. You can find a larger resolution image on my Flickr page.

Fragments of memories

The mini quilt above was made entirely with fabric that belonged to my grandmother. The hexagon fabric is offcuts of 1970s floral fabrics left over from dressmaking projects, some of it Liberty prints. I used copies of old photos from her photo album and postcards and letters that I had received from my grandmother as a child as templates and kept them visible instead of just using their shape and discarding them as it usually doen with hexagon quilts. The hexagons were then sewn onto an old lacy textile piece that I inherited. A larger resolution image of this is on my Flickr page.

There is an earlier post about my grandmother, Kate Frank AKA Omeli here. Yes it took me about five years to get around to starting on this project. It isn't the end either so watch this space!


Friday, 16 September 2011

My Inspirations: Jessica Ogden

About ten years ago, at the end of my first year studying Textile Design at Chelsea College of Art, I managed to secure a placement at one of my favourite fashion designers' studio - Jessica Ogden. I had first seen her work at Fabric of Fashion: a Crafts Council exhibition in 2000. I was struck by the earthy simplicity and inventiveness of her designs; she created dresses from vintage linen tea towels (back when the word vintage was far less ubiquitous!) and old 1970s Clothkits fabric. It was almost anti-fashion - much of her designs used recycled fabrics.

Dress made from old Clothkits fabric

So I was delighted to spend the summer working in her studio. I don't think that I realised at the time what a huge influence her work would become. I sat there distressing skirts with sandpaper and then darning them, to give them the appearance of a WWII relic. I used a smocking machine to make a beautiful gathered silk skirt. Tattered old quilts were cut up and transformed into jackets. I was seduced by the character and history of these ancient textiles. I had just written an essay on sustainable fashion - which seemed to me to be an oxymoron, and came to the conclusion that the least damaging to the environment was to recycle old fabrics. The word upcycle was yet to be invented.

I helped dress the models at her fashion show and took some photographs...

Hand stitched patchwork skirt

Dress made from vintage patchwork quilt top

Pleated skirt with hand stitching

Smocked and hand stitched wedding skirt

Patchwork skirt

Jacket made from vintage Durham quilt

Dress made from vintage patchwork quilt top

Jessica adjusting the wedding outfit

Monday, 30 June 2008

My selection of fabrics for my quilt

Just a short post to say that I have sorted all the scraps of fabric that my grandmother left me and taken a photo to show you. I will start cutting squares tomorrow. I have never made a quilt before but here goes…