Grandmother's Garden and return to stitching

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.