I have had a burst of soft
sculpting and created some grannies and aunties for my exhibition
Grandmother's Garden. It was fun but exhausting.
Grandmother’s Garden included an
installation of hanging pieced hexagons. The installation is a play
on the quilting pattern of the same name. It is a tessellating
pattern which builds upon itself. I have used old embroidered
table cloths, tray cloths and napkins.
The earliest hexagon template that quilt researchers have
found was made in England in 1770. Hexagon became one of the most popular
patterns in England by 1830. The pattern at that stage
was know as honeycomb or hexagon.
Hexagon patterns bloomed in the United
States in the 1930s under the name Grandmother's Flower Garden. Many
pieced quilts used fabric remnants or repurposed cloth to create a very
distinct pattern.
I ran a couple of workshops during the exhibition and we paper pieced small bowls - we used old table linen and it came up a treat!
Its been a while since I put a needle
into cloth with a decorative purpose in mind. But glad to say I managed
to lay out a fabric collage of sorts and started stitching.
Thinking they may become small bags. Or just a piece of embellished fabric. But trying to stitch sustainably and looking to my stash rather than buy new fabric and threads. More later.
