This is a follow-up to last week’s post (see it here) about the Chelsea College/WI collaboration. Today I’m sharing some of the outcomes from the project.
WI participants in the project were fortunate enough to participate in the same lectures and workshops as the students. During the ‘knitting’ lecture, we were encouraged to do some actual knitting while we heard from a successful former student of Chelsea who has a fashion knit business. This is my experimental ‘wave’ piece, modeled as a decorative cuff, but which might look good as part of a sea-themed jumper, perhaps!
The enjoyable ‘Weave’ workshop turned out to be about macramé, which I haven’t done for many years and thoroughly enjoyed returning to. I made my experimental piece into a bracelet, by joining the loops at the top with a buttonhole stitch and securing the strings at the bottom with a double thread and then adding a button. The macramé loops were coloured with Inktense pencils. Then fish, cut from silver leather straps were stitched on.
Thinking about weaving prompted me to have a go at weaving using paper-based packing strips. These strips were wrapped around a package recently delivered to our house. I used a strong embroidery thread to secure the strips at the two ends and to sew in the woven strips going across the shape. I was inspired in part by traditional coracle-making techniques. In the boat, I placed a gasping human being and a gasping fish, to reflect the idea that we as humans are dependent on the health of the fish in the ocean.
The quantity of fish dying in the sea is very concerning and pollution by micro-plastics (‘plastic soup’) is an important factor. This small quilted panel (24″ x 17″) is my response.
Having learnt about ‘craftivism’ – a mixture of craft and activism, I decorated a pro-fish, anti-plastic, bag. I showed you the ‘orca’ side last week. This is the dolphin side:
The final piece was a larger quilted wall-hanging (27″ x 42″) called ‘Now you see her, now you don’t’. It recognizes the fact that plastic pollution appears to be killing baby whales who ingest microplastics via their mother’s milk. Adult whales have been found dead with extensive amounts of larger plastic pieces in their digestive system.
The backing fabric is my own design ‘Dolphins’ which you can purchase here
As it happens, I also have a design with whales in. It seems that I was strongly drawn to these beautiful creatures, long before I started to investigate the problem of ‘plastic soup’.
The good news is that there is currently a special offer from Spoonflower (until Friday 26 March 2021, 11.59pm Eastern Standard Time) of 15% off one yard/metre or more of Petal Signature Cotton, Cotton Poplin and Organic Sateen fabric. The discount is applied at the checkout.
This is the clickable link to my online studio of designs:
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