Claire began the day by explaining her approach as a painter. Just as you would layer up a background, foreground and final focused finishes, so you would colour your cloth, add stitches to create ‘visual noise’ and then finally focus on creating recognisable blooms, leaves and grasses.
Claire demonstrated ways to colour the background cloth using Inktense, fabric crayons and mono printing with acrylic paint.
Participants had a picture to work from and set about referencing it as they created a background to stitch into.
For the middle ground thin gauge threads to build up texture quickly using stitches like seed and running stitch. Participants were also shown new stitches like Picot leaf Woven Wheel Rose and Giordes Knot to use among others in the the final focused layer.
Sitting round in a social circle as our members know well is social and relaxed allowing partiipant to share knowledge and techniques. Everyone went home with projects to finish.
Pictured below are all the day pieces to be taken home to further develop.
One participant Angela carried on working on her piece and brought it to Ihe April BETA meeting and great to see what she had done.
Birmingham Embroidery and Textile Art 