Handkerchief Memories

On the requirements list for the  CQ Summer School workshop with Isabel Dibden-Wright, besides paper, drawing and sewing materials and black and white fabrics   was a handkerchief ' for artwork' .

I thought it might be used to mount a piece of textile work but its purpose was far more intriguing.

 

On the Friday evening, Isabel showed us a selection of handkerchiefs ( plain, embroidered, vintage, new)  and we had a brief discussion about what they're used for and  memories  associated with them.  Our challenge  was to decorate/ alter  the handkerchief we'd brought with us in any way we chose with a 'grand reveal' on Sunday afternoon 



 

 The  handkerchief I brought was one of those liberated  when I converted Ian to tissues  from revolting  ' Manky Hankies' ( of course the downside is tissue lint  in the washing machine... ).   Apart from  a  dainty small hankie I use with Olbas oil,  my main use of these large mens hankies is for  wiping eyes when I cycle; removing smears and fingerprints  from my glasses;  around my hand when using a trekking pole to absorb sweat and as an impromptu paint rag. So my decoration, continuing the mark-making theme of the class and inspired by my 'Human Marks' workshop with Dorothy Caldwell  involved fingerprints of  ink using a piece of felt and a  photo  printed on fabric  of my inky finger, tacked on with quilting thread.  This photo was a trial run for my  'Inky Digit' quilt - I'd brought it with other black and white fabrics. Ruth had suggested I should do nostril prints but lets not go there....   

 

The  'grand reveal'  was very moving as apart from the ingenuity displayed in  working with the handkerchiefs (3d origami structures, bags, hats, text , stitch), how handkerchiefs are used and who they belonged to had triggered   hidden and powerful  memories and honest sharing  of the difficulties in caring.

 

 At the time, my main memory was as a child   buying  boxes of them for my Dad  as presents  and finding them all  intact  as they were 'too good' to use.  He persisted in continuing to wear  a very tatty jumper and hat in the garden despite new replacements for the same reason.

Then when I got home I remembered  the stories about  Dandy the Delinquent  Dalmation, the dog we had when I was a toddler , who besides chewing up  anything in sight including heirloom silver napkin rings, used to jump up and snatch the hankies from mens jacket pockets and eat them!  

 

Who knew that a small hemmed piece of fabric  could unleash all this - thanks to Isabel for the suggestion, more than just a creative exercise.

CQ AGM, Journals Quilts and an indulgance

 

Yesterday was the annual meeting of Contemporary Quilt in Central London, an event I look forward to eagerly each year with its opportunity to catch up with so many quilting friends. I picked up my copies of the 'Horizons' Catalogue ( Thanks Hilary), thrilled to find mine is on the front cover!

This was a very successful exhibition  and it's about to go to the Prague Patchwork Meeting.

 

The afternoon talk was by Elizabeth Tarr, not a textile artist I was aware of,  she works a lot with indigo (particularly on paper), now buying Chinese shibori pleated skirts from Slow Loris rather than dyeing her own. A lot of the pieces she showed on slides was very dark and difficult to photograph- the example she'd brought with her showed better the richness and depth she achieves. With indigo  I go for marks rather then the intensity she aims for - just shows how versatile a dye it is, more determined than ever to set up a vat this summer.  She did a whole series around painting' Las Meninas' by Velazquez of the Spanish Infanta, admitting this style of painting wasn't really her thing but adapting images from it to tell her own stories. It made me think of the courses I did at the National Gallery,  finding links to pictures in all kinds of unexpected ways which I am still processing.  

 



Bringing small quilts to the meeting was my incentive to finish off some journal quilts: 2 based on my surroundings at Rydal ('Rydal Colours' and 'Rydal Beck') and 1 an  experiment with all kinds of red marks: pen, stitch and finger painting!

Finally a wander around Covent Garden indulging myself  in London Graphic Centre with a box of  100 Fabriano Medievalis  cards as used on 'Human Marks' class. I'd told myself that I could easily make them myself from watercolour paper but actually because they're mould-made with a  slightly thinner area on the fold, they work much better in  handmade books of  marks. I'm planning to take some ( along with colour catchers, paints and threads ) when we go to Crete in  less than 4 weeks.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

I'm really annoyed  with myself for ignoring the golden rule of 'measure twice, cut once' while  trimming  down my 'Gray Scale' challenge piece for International Threads. Instead of being 40 x 80 cm it is 38 x 80 and that missing  2m on the RH side would have made all the difference.

When I was on the Human Marks workshop with Dorothy Caldwell in Puglia, I took a photo of my index finger stained and ingrained with Indian ink after a morning of making fingerprint marks.
I manipulated the photo in Photoshop, dividing it into 6 overlapping sections, and printed it out on a commercial batik (with marks that reminded me of my fingerprints) treated with bubblejet set.
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