Tuesday 20 May 2008

New Textile Challenge Site

Hi there all, well, you might already be aware that I have started a new challenge site, it is called Tricia's Textile Challenge. We have 15 members to date and we're doing fine, there are some very talented people already on this site so it's quite exciting, go take a look and if you'd like to join let us know.


Well, I said I would blog about the piece I made for the first challenge.


The first challenge will last till the end of June and then we plan to do a swap with the results. It is entitled Ancient Symbols. I asked everyone to make a postcard sized piece based upon an ancient symbol, could be a hieroglyph or a rock carving, infact anything from any culture, religious or otherwise. We've had some very interesting results already.

Well, here's how I did mine,
I have a little book all about ancient rock carvings mainly from the North of England. I am fascinated by what they might mean. Having done a little study about symbolism including universal symbolism I think that the one I chose has probably got something to do with the sun and seasons.
Some of the symbol has obviously worn away but you can gather what it did look like originally.
Well, I cheated, not having seen the rock and only having a picture of the symbol I decided to find a nice stone amongst my collection of stones and so I drew a picture of it and then drew the symbol on top, superimposing it as it were. Here is the drawing below:


The finished piece here below is 6 inches x 4 inches (postcard size) and is needlefelted. The symbol was embroidered on to the felt exactly as it looks in the book. The edging is also sewn as are the little line stitches on the background. The edging I hand dyed myself using a rust technique which worked remarkably well, this picture doesn't do it justice, the thread of the edging is two toned as it almost carries the imprint of the rusted metal it was wrapped around when it was dyed.


Last but not least here is a close up of the piece.
I Hope the person I swap with likes it.
Speak soon Tricia

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I really like this and the way you're drawing with the fleece