Knit Design

Well, here I am again, I thought I would let you see that since I left college with my textile training behind me I have been trying all sorts of things. For a while I was busy being a mother to a young baby, (he is now nearly 14) During this time I did a lot of knitting and so it was a natural thing for me to try to design some things. I was recommended to a company who bought designs and I did try very hard to come up with things which would be very different, I sent off for some lovely yarns from the shetland Isles and the first of these images is knitted from these plus some hand dyed/spun kid mohair (blackberry). This one was meant to be for a Jacket and obviously the theme was Autumn, it was drawn out on Graph paper first; This wasn't accepted because although they liked the colour and design the materials they said were too heavy.

This one is knitted from a combination of ordinary yarn and some of my own plied experiments. I also added some felt on to this one. The design was meant to be for a short sleeved jumper for Christmas; Obviously when you make these designs you add as much as you can because it is just supposed to be a swatch. Some of the image/design would perhaps be put on the reverse.

Here are a couple of detailed

pictures.

I can't remember why this design was rejected but it was, so that was the end of

my efforts as a knit designer.

Hard Work this blogging!

Well, I have just spent most of the day trying to get to grips with customising my blog but right in the middle AOL decided to have one of their regular blips, lost the lot and had to start again Grrrrr!

Still not happy with the design or layout so if there is anyone out there who can help me then please get in touch, I hate using the set templates, they just don't do what I want them to.

I have just finished taking photos of a lot of work. Some is from way back, some is from a little while ago and some is very recent. Now all I have to do is figure out how to put them into this blog.

I think what I will do is this: I will write a blog next to show a little of where I have been in terms of my creative journey. I will try to remember what was going on at the time when I made the work. Perhaps then anyone reading this will be able to see some sort of progression, I hope!

So lets see to introduce this journey, not right from the beginning but some of the way along in terms of the pictures I have taken I will show a picture first of a piece of work that was a breakthrough for me at the time. I did not like working small although this piece is about 18 inches square. I had left college and was hoping to get involved at the time with a co-operative of artists which I did for a short while.

This was small in relation to the work I had completed for my degree show which was 7ft x 5ft and was a 3 dimensional sculpture. I will not show this piece as it is no longer in my possession, I left it on permanent loan at a school where I worked later on in my career.

Well, I had been looking at Mola work having studied the textiles of South America, I marvelled at the work these people could do and it occured to me that felt could work very well under material as it doesn't fray. So carrying on with the theme I had worked on in college I made a 2 dimensional piece named the "Tree of Life". As I said it was a turning point for me as it was to encourage me to make Art on a smaller less ambitious scale.

Well, that's it for today, my family have to eat. I will be adding more in a sort of chronology so pop back soon when you have time.

It's been a while.

Well, I have come back, no more pictures of my work yet but it's been a difficult time. Late November last year I went in for an operation which has taken me a long time to recover from, just when I am feeling better it seems that I have been too optimistic and I need to take it easy again. Such is life, or lack of it.

I was really hoping that the New Year would have seen an end to all my inactivity.

I am hoping that I will feel more energetic soon, problem I have is that I have so many ideas buzzing about in my brain but I never seem to get any of them out there.

I am going back to needlefelting at the moment, I tried to see if I could do it when I first bought the needles and felting book, but I didn't have time at that point to take it any further than making a small ball. Well that small ball has just become the head of a little green elf like creature, Although I have been wet felting for years I have been very pleasantly surprised by the possibilities of felting with a needle. Now I have even more ideas and they really are begging me to try these out but I will have to pace myself because as usual life has to go on around my creativity.

Talking about creativity, I have rediscovered my love for home cooking. This may have been due to having to eat my husbands meals since being in hospital, no to be honest I can say his dinners are better than the hospital food, but I do prefer to cook from scratch and his dinners do tend to be limited to processed ready made pies etc... It has probably been coupled with the fact that I love home cooked veggies and after my op I had to keep things moving as it were.

We are falling into a new equilibrium of sharing roles too. I can no longer do very heavy lifting. So at last I am learning to delegate and ask for help where as once apon a time I would just dive in and struggle.

Hubby is also going to have to work very hard to get the garden well nourished with manure and other substances to lighten the heavy clay soil, we made a good attempt at this early last year, (being our first year here) but I have been told that I can't dig heavy clay anymore because of the strain it will cause me; and believe me I don't want to go through that operation again. I do however enjoy gardening so I will have to pace myself there too

I am hoping that hubby will start to encourage our 13 year old to do some of the garden as we grow our own veg now, he did try last year by buying some Giant pumpkin seeds, my husband ended up planting these and growing them, our son did however take an interest in making the pumpkin into an evil looking lantern once it had grown in time for Halloween. I managed to make a lovely curry with the flesh of the pumpkin.

We are still home educating, I did wonder if we would be nearly one year on. Talking about one year on, my 13 year old has only this week been harrased by the bullies once more over the internet and he is not sure how the so and so's managed to find out his details, I wonder if there will ever be an end to all of this. Just let anyone tell me he would be better off at school. In the short year that we have lived back down south I have realised that the state of the schools in Kent have really deteriorated. There is no real discipline or respect, I'm not just talking about the children either, the teachers down here have proved to me that they have also dropped their standards of respect towards the children too. I see no hope in the future for the next generations, not unless the parents take back responsibility for their children's education. Well, enough of that.

I am hoping to take some pictures of my work in the near future so that I can continue this blog in the way I intended originally. When I do put some more work on here I would appreciate any feedback as this is why I am writing this blog. A rather late wish to you all for a very Happy New Year.

Lets Create The beginning

Well, this is the beginning, the name, first, I couldn't think of a more appropriate one than this, it was the name I was going to give to a business that I was once going to start, it was going to be holding art workshops with children in schools, a bit like a residency with a difference, it never happened, although I do still occasionally hold art workshops.

Me, well, I've always done a bit of this and a bit of that, I did settle on something in my mid 30's it was always to be so, that I would go into the art world, allbeit late in life. Opportunity doesn't always knock early for some of us. I decided at some point that my art school training was not just about earning a living although I have done that along the way, just to prove that it can be done in the Creative Arts.

I figured that University is about education for life as well, when I say life, I mean about learning about yourself and about the way to live life to suit your nature and desires. What is the point of becoming intellectually broadened if it is only to fulfill the needs of some mind numbing employment.

Philosophically speaking, I wonder how many people have really considered what we trade in life for the money we are paid. We give up hours of our life, we get stressed, we miss our family, do we actually look back and feel fulfilled at the end of the day, or the end of our lives? No, I feel too many of us actually sell ourselves quite short when I think what we give and weigh it against what we receive. Perhaps if we tried to live more simply we might feel better about ourselves. Anyway, enough of the Philosophy. I only thought of all this because I am at present home educating my son of 13 years and I am wondering what his future career will hold for him. I used to teach in secondary schools and I do wonder what we expect from education today and whether it really prepares the next generation for the new world we are moving towards. New Technology and all that. It's all moving so fast I wonder if we can ever keep up. I read somewhere that what is wrong with education today is that it is always changing and this means that each generation of parents are excluded from understanding what their children are learning. I think this is so true. Anyway, I write all this because it is good to take stock of where I am at present in life. Yes, my biggest task at the moment is to try to give my son everything he needs to get an education about the world in which he will work. I hope he makes the right choices for him.

When, I have fewer commitments in that direction I hope I will be able to really get to grips with my own work. My biggest desire in life has been to create. To be an artist, yes I know I have a degree that says that's what I am, letters BA.(Hons) Textiles. That's only really true though if I continue to practice my art. One of my art teachers said, ' You are only as good as your last piece of work' That stuck with me. It made me feel that I should always be practicing, but that's what I desire anyway. It has given me the justification I need when others expect me to just turn my degree into a wage.

My creative studies have given me and my family much much more than just a wage. It's not always been apparent to everyone but as I said on my profile I am still growing and I do believe that is a merit in itself these days, especially when you have a child relatively late in life, I need to be able to keep up.

Well enough of the philosophy as I said way back.

Now to the important bit. I am on here because I would like to record how I feel about my work and I would like to invite others to tell me what they feel, I need to be less isolated as an artist. I need feed back from other practitioners. So that's why I am going to write this blog and share images of my work. The images will not be in any particular order so I will add work when I have pictures available. At present I only have one on my PC so it's a good a place to start as any other:

The image above is a picture of a present I made for an elderly cousin of mine. I know she liked it but that's not what its important to me here. When I said that I would like feedback, I meant just that, I don't want just to know whether someone likes my work or not, I need to have a real critique. It's hard to know how others really see your work and all I hope for is honesty, otherwise, how on earth can I make progress, I need to improve, to do that I need feedback, so please, not just on this, but on all future images, if you have any comments at all I would love to hear them. Good or bad, so long as they are polite, I will take constructive criticism and hopefully my work will grow with me. Thanks for reading my ramblings, do come back again soon. Tricks