Bicycles have been a bit of a theme recently and I am still working on a new bicycle fabric which needs finishing but annoyingly it won't be ready for the Tour de France, if only I'd thought about this earlier as it starts in Yorkshire.
Anyway I produced a few Le Tour brooches as seen on a previous post and I also did a couple of pictures for the current exhibition running at Gallery 49, Art & The Bicycle.
These were my offerings, I shall start with the simple, graphic piece. This is free cut paper which has been machine stitched.
Like with most pieces of work, I usually finish and then think it looks too plain and I start to tinker about or add more. I'm not sure I improved it by adding flowers and text but that's how it went to the gallery.
I'm thinking with hindsight I prefer the pre flower version! Proving that theory I usually try to work to, "less is more".
The other piece of work I did was slightly more labour intensive and involved some screen printing for the background, a bit of distressed rubber stamping and some embellishing with fabric and threads.
Not surprisingly it's called Bike Ride With Butterflies.
What an odd week, started off with 3 days of downpours and you should see the mud and puddles it brought down here. By Wednesday thankfully better weather as I had a day at the seaside with my sister and nephew over from Belgium. Then today a heat wave and a plague of ants on the patio.
I've been very busy with projects the last couple of weeks, some fairly secret and some just coming out into the open like these.
In just 49 days the Grand Depart for the Tour de France will start in Yorkshire and I imagine it will be a crazy few days. The nearest it comes to me is a brief flirt with York but I'm already thinking it will be too busy and too hot to attempt to go and see it.
Instead I have opted to get involved in a more calm and creative way. My 'souvenirs' for this event are some tiny little textile artworks which have evolved into brooches.
They are made from Harris Tweed with some needle felting, stitching and embellishing.
I have made little linen machine embroidered bags to go with them.
Once I had found some tiny buttons for the wheels they started to take shape.
Adding the riders was the tricky bit.
Only made the very small amount shown here and a couple will go to Gallery 49 and the other few are going to The Attic in York.
Enjoy the sunny weekend everyone, could be as good as it gets for a while :)
