A Journey Through Portugal

My long, continuous sketchbook records my journey from Cannington to Lisbon to Porto using papers acquired during the trip. Tickets, boarding passes, camomile tea bags, paper napkins and the sick bag from the aeroplane were all useful materials to combine to make my pages with a limited kit of needle and thread, water soluble pencils, a pencil and a black pen. I venture from home to Bristol airport via a carpark in a mushroom farm and then on to Lisbon.

A train journey through the dismal suburbs of Lisbon, past Benfica football ground.

An oasis in Sintra, pure silk.

Wrought iron balconies, stone urns, hanging fushias.

Hydrangea, wiseria, sugar packets.

Decorative tiles in summer palaces in leafy, hilly Sintra.

Following the river through old towns: picked eucalypus leaves.

The hills that bordered the river Douro are covered with stripes of vines that produce a lovely port wine that enabled the journey to continue at home!

Summer Time at last

The first day of my hols and I've added stitching to this piece which I started at the PSG Summer School recently. I've used acrylic wax to build up layers of wire rubbings, stitched lines on tissue paper with trapped wire 'drawing'. The acrylic wax allowed for greater transparency of the layers. The stitching was done by machine to add shapes of vine leaves and grapes to this group of bottles. I then unpicked a lot of it to make broken lines as I thought the continuous red lines were a bit too dominant.

'Threads of Meaning' - PSG Summer School 2008

Resolved piece by Una Smith
Three workshops under this banner title were run by Jan Evans, Dorothy Tucker and myself. I optimistically called my workshop 'Seeing the Light'. Using transparent materials and basing ideas on drawings of glass shapes, students rose to the challenge of 'learning their lines' to create a series of experimental and very sensitive pieces in stitched, drawn, rubbed and wire lines.
I was fortunate to work with 16 extremely hard-working and imaginative students. The five days passed quickly and was full of fun, friendship and (I have to mention it) food. We were treated to three 'feasts' per day by the extremely helpful staff at Harper Adams. After such a lot of concentrated work, we almost fought to be first in the queue for the dessert trolley! I hope you enjoy the selection of photos below. If you have any you'd like to contribute, I'd love to include them if you would attach them to an email to me at sian@distantstitch.co.uk .

Students - Valerie, Una, Jane and Julia hard at work.

Below - Valerie then Sandra

Lots of wonderful work was produced developed from drawing of continuous lines from the bottles still life. Transparent and translucent layers of papers and fabrics were built up, sometimes trapping wire shapes and sections of soluble stitching.

The three tutors, Jan, Dorothy and myself spent each evening in serious discussion of the day's work and planning the complexities of the rest of the programme.

'Pfaffing' around in France

The Art Textiles exhibition sponsored by Pfaff is now showing during the summer at Chatelaudren in France after its appearance at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally. Two intrepid travellers, myself and fellow exhibitor Janice Myers set out on the over-night ferry from Roscoff last Wednesday evening to attend the opening ceremony on the Thursday evening. Two short train journeys took us to the nearest town, Guingamp, where we were met by a Tourist Bureau official and driven to the attractive little town of Chatelaudren. The exhibition had been set up by Jacqueline and Monsieur Govin in an extremely spacious and light gallery, which was used as the regions council chamber outside the holiday period.

The opening was attended by many people including press and Minister of Culture and Tourism dignitaries. During the many speeches (in French) Janice and myself were welcomed as 'exotic artistes' and presented with a couple of books as gifts. Janice and I discovered that we could speak a bit of French after the glass of champagne and exquisite 'nibbles'. The dinner afterwards in a local restaurant was a jolly affair as several of our company discovered they could speak a bit of English too!

These photos are just a few 'snaps' taken by ourselves. We've been promised the official photos that the press took so will add those later.

http://www.cdc-chatelaudren-plouagat.com/tourisme/chatelaudren_01_07_08_exposition:_art_embroidery___still_life.php

Summer School 2008; friendship ribbons

Julie's friendship ribbon forms a rosette marking her success at her first Distant Stitch Summer School.

Friendship ribbons hanging from the stairway at Urchfont Manor.

Summer School dessert!

The Urchfont Manor lunch buffet, especially the desserts, are known as the 'disappearing waistline'. Has Maggie's dessert disappeared as well?

Enjoyable evidence

Everyone produced the most amazing pieces which you can see here. I don't seem to have everyones. Please send me an image if your's isn't here or if you have continued to work into it.