Last weekend I was in Belfast and got to see 'Fabrication' exhibition from Girli Concrete. The samples shown were a hybrid of textiles and concrete. Some even reminded me of fossils! Great to see something that is usually thought of as dull and ugly (concrete) take on real beauty when combined with textiles. Definitely worth a visit if you can!Also I have just posted my knitted strip for the Yarn Forward project in Manchester. They aim to cover the banister of the Manchester Craft and Design with knitted & crocheted strips from around the world. I picked some neon brights from my yarn stash to create a stripey strip reminiscent of opal fruits! (... or should I say starbursts :)
Yesterday I attended the Creative Stitches show at the SECC. I saw a lot of inspiring works, met some very talented people and had to resist the temptation to spend far too much money! I brought World Textiles: a visual guide to traditional techniques book that I had been lusting after. I attended a Lucet workshop, and brought an advanced luceting pack - I do like a traditional viking craft! I saw the wonderful work from the National Needlework Archive's Poetry in Stitches 2 exhibition. This has made me start thinking of a poem that I could interpret through stitch... the deadline isn't till 2011! And finally I got to see the fantastic Shaun the Sheep Great British Pic-Knit!
I have been looking at my sketchbook to create design ideas from my drawings. One sketch I did was of an Indian elephant that a friend gave me. Further to the original sketch I created a black elephant silhouette and placed it on a pastel background, based on the patterns on the elephant. I then played around with this image in paint.net. It is interesting to see how the effects change the mood.
I particularly like the first one (inverted colours) and the psychedelic feel of the last one (polar inversion).
