Today I finished the workshop project for week 2, (last week) with teacher Merill Comeau.

The suggested background for the collage was tulle or net, but I’m glad I found this plastic in my stash and decided to use it. I found it far easier to work with than I irrationally thought it might be. I’ll add a couple of grommets in the upper corners and hang as a sun catcher kind of thing at a window somewhere, although sadly there are security bars across each window in the house. This will not be the last time I use this plastic – though floral motifs might not be the design I work on it.

This week, American textile artist, Merill Comeau, presented her Stitch Club workshop to 880+ students around the world. When I watched the Stitch Club video on day 1, I felt unsure I’d go for this floral subject, as flowers aren’t one of my design motifs 🙂 But once I’d done the homework of identifying and researching a flower that I related to, and assembled fabric snippets and threads, I felt more enthusiastic. Of course the workshops are not compulsory, but on the basis that you learn something new from every teacher, I plan to try everything on offer. Enrichment.

We were asked to identify a flower that in some way was important to us, and use that with her freeform stitchery methods to assemble a fabric collage. I thought about flowers I liked and considered several, including Australian natives Sturt’s Desert Pea and everlasting daisies. I also walked around our garden, where most plants are past flowering now winter’s here. But the several hibiscus shrubs are out, and I remembered that we had pink hibiscus in our first marital home, and had at least one in almost every garden since (Denver was way too cold) That seemed highly symbolic, so I took some photos and settled on hibiscus. Researching ‘hibiscus’ I found a long list of meanings and symbolism associated with them, and focused on a few that I feel say something about me:-
Hibiscus are associated with creativity, positive attitudes, optimistic outlook and as the flower is short lived it serves as a reminder to make the most of the time available. And finally, aparently the unpredictability of life is represented with a hibiscus.

Merrill assembles her richly layered stitched collage works on a tulle base, that allows a sense of looking through, spatial depth in place. Tulle- hmmm, the only ones I have are plain black, fine black with gold speckles, and a white one with small polka dot flecks. I have some very fine nylon organzas in black grey and brown – possibilities I considered until I spotted something else – and what is a workshop if not for trying things out? Last time I was in Denver CO, about 2 years ago, I visited a large fabric store and felt I really needed to buy several metres of clear heavy duty plastic, like the protective bags new pillows come in. I felt I could use it as a fabric but apart from encasing an embroidery in some, I haven’t done anything with it yet. It’s not the first time I’ve been seduced by a material of some kind and have it sit around for ages waiting for an idea to turn up.

In sewing on these two leaves I learned the plastic doesn’t need to be in a hoop or frame, and I’m so out of practice I find that awkward, but it handles just fine. Of course, every pin or stitch makes a non-healing hole in the plastic, but if any are a problem I’ll just sew something over the top.

I also have a few glitzy sparkly party dress fabrics and might add a few snippets as highlights when I see how it’s going.

This is what I’ll use for stitching my collage, as I think hibiscus requires bright. I have heaps of embroidery threads in storage 🙂 but maybe less choice is better. The luminescent floss I also bought somewhere in Colorado last visit, just another of those buy-it-when-you-see-it-even-if-you-have-no-plan purchases, and perfect. I also have plenty of metallic gold, silver and pewter metallics if needed. It’s a wet day here in Montevideo, perfect for cutting and stitching, so I’m headed upstairs for a while.

Of the 2500 or so students in the workshop, many have already posted the containers they made this week, and there are some wonderful creative ones, but I’m sorry, you’ll just have to take my word for that, as they’re on a private page for registered students only. I’m sure the teacher Debby Lyddon should be over the top thrilled with the responses from people she inspired with her interesting video demos and Q&A sessions. She said it was the first time she’d recorded a lesson, and it was excellent.

When I got down to it I found the workshop was a bit more challenging than I thought it might be. Debbie recommended buttonhole stitch to sew the edges together, but though I used to be a whizz with that, I bumbled around and nearly resorted to the sewing machine, but looking in a stitch book found glove stitch which is rather nice although it has never caught my eye before. I guess it’s a long time since I saw any hand made gloves.

With a little reworking and practice, I did better with the grommets sewn to the edges of the holes, using the thinnest wire Mike could find in the local hardware stores, but that my wire was clearly harder to use than than Debbie’s is my excuse! I also tried an old technique of winding thread around my finger a bunch of times and then oversewing it to form a ring before sewing that to the edge. Mixed results, I unpicked. Debbie uses a black 0.5mm iron wire (she often soaks fabricated pieces in brine to produce rust and salt crusting) I think my best bet for fine wire will be something in craft stores or jewellery making supplies stores – there’s some which comes in several colours, something to keep an eye out for. Also the local hardware stores didn’t seem to have any metal or plastic rings. (I didn’t want a thick washer kind of thing) But I’ll know it when I see it, and sometime when I’m least expecting it, something suitable will appear in front of me, I’m certain.

I have made one container, a reliquary really, for our wedding day horseshoe talisman – see backstory.

So the large opening does have wire sewn along the edge, but it was so bright and shiny I wrapped it first and then attatched it. Though by last night I was seriously done with this thing, I’ve been thinking about it and might approach the holes thing again. I think if I outline the shape of the hole with a fine running stitch, lay down some thick thread or fine cord and oversew all that, with care it should then be possible to cut away the fabric in the middle, less fiddly to manage, and if this proves to be so, I can give some more thought to the matter of ‘holes’.

Well, this pandemic is turning out to be long term in effect, isn’t it? For some time to come, we seniors especially will be continuing to go out less and spend time in and around our home. Things are gradually loosening, but we’ll carefully think about and plan even the simplest outing, like a trip to a museum or exhibition, which we always took for granted. Instead of just wandering in during open hours, it’s likely we’d have to book a time to attend the Dreamtime Art exhibition I posted about march 9th last, just days before the first covid-19 cases were announced here in Uruguay, and the world as we knew it was changed for ever. We’ll be wearing masks and practising social distancing when we do go out for anything, and it seems the ability to travel is a long way off. Even when we can move again, I expect it will be much more difficult and complicated, though long distance travel’s never been for the faint hearted, anyway. And, most likely it will cost more.

In the last 40 years or so of my privileged life, every 4-6 years I’ve been able to tie in attendance at a top rate textile arts workshop to coincide with either a visit back to Australia, or up to the USA to visit our kids and grandchildren. I’ve found it a great mental health thing to have a refreshing few days in a workshop with a world-class teacher of my choice; and for just a while to be in the company of other like minded students has always been stimulating. I’ve always been prepared to live anywhere Mike’s work has required us to be – and these occasional sorties I see as equivalent to gold stars the teacher puts on my work book, in a manner of speaking.

For several years I’ve received the newsletter and occasionally accessed the archives of an organisation called TextileArtist.org “A place for textile and fiber artists to be inspired, learn from the best, promote their work & communicate with like-minded creatives“… As a response to help creativity in the sudden stay-at-home- or lock-down world of stitchers around the world, they held a 7-week challenge for stitchers they called ‘the community stitch challenge’. It was free, and it turned out to be very popular, with people saying they’d love more. I signed up but didn’t actually do any of the classes, but the workbook download was sent free to everyone who signed on.

Despite the demand for more, TextileArtist.org couldn’t keep doing this without funding, but came up with an ambitious idea which has caught the imagination of stitchers around the world, including yours truly. The information’s all on their website – but basically for a monthly fee, in 3 out of 4 weeks per month, top teachers will each present a one week workshop. Whether to do all three or pick and choose is up to you, but as a subscriber for that month you have all the class videos and materials plus critiques, the members-only FB page and feedback, and continued access to all that as long as you’re a member of The Stitch Club. If you leave the scheme, you can download everything you’ve paid for before you go – which sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I gather many people have signed on for the initial offering price, and to me it seems a great idea at just the right time. For all the reasons people attend workshops or symposiums, it offers much of what you’d expect at a fraction of the price you’d be forking out to travel to something like this, though we all know that nothing online is quite as good as being physically present in a classroom. A compensation is that we don’t have to haul fabric, threads and equipment through airports, we sleep in our own beds, wear whatever we feel most comfortable in and always have access to whatever fabrics and threads we already have in our sewing rooms or studio 🙂 I’m sure I have more than enough thread and fabric in my cupboard to keep me going for several years’ intense study, at least!

So I’ve signed on, and am looking forward to the first weekshop on Monday next, with a stitcher whose work I have long admired: Debbie Lyddon of UK. Her stitcheries emanate from intimate experience with the colour, shapes, lines and textures of landscape around her and it’s shifting, changing moods. I am looking forward to being reminded about taking inspiration from landscape and using hand stitch especially, to explore my own sense of place. I know this is going to be interesting and fun.