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Textile Collage

Last Sunday I visited the Hearth Open Studio day and was, if honest, a little over whelmed by the superb standard of work  but also totally inspired.  The half a dozen or so studios house a collection of diverse artists working with ceramics, watercolours, wool, felting, there were some lovely clocks and fun little knitted and driftwood dolls - it was all pretty wonderful but the place that really appealed to me was the studio and work of Mandy Pattullo - a local textile artist who does the most beautiful patchwork, vintage fabric creations using old recycled fabrics, hand embroidery, lace, and is very experimental and creative at putting together the most unlikely materials to produce beautiful art.

I first came across Mandy Pattullo when I moved to Northumberland, a practising textile artist - I was looking for classes and discovered she runs textile workshops.  Unfortunately  I've never managed to get on one as they are always either full or don't fit into my travelling lifestyle.  Now I'm an impoverished art student I don't have so much cash to flash on workshop treats and hoped I would get similar from college, but the visit to Mandy'd studio yesterday has made me determined to treat myself to one of her workshops.


What sealed this deal was I bought her book, Its fab!  Cover to cover colour, ideas, inspiration - absolutely perfect for me, so much motivation -  and practically every last bit of content speaks to me personally in so many ways, recycling fabrics, quilts, vintage materials, collage....  Mandy talks about those bits of fabric stashed and make the excellent case for using it rather then just looking at it and saving it for that - never happening special project... I have fabric from when I was sixteen which I can't quite bring myself to use!!!

Mandy's rationale is all fabric has a story and needs to be bought to life either to tell that story or a completely new one.  She lovingly explains how to revitalise old tired fabrics and charity shop finds and give them new life as a new art art form.  Her signature style of layering different kinds of fabrics, adding embroidery and building up beautiful collages is really very splendid and very effective.  There's not only inspiration within these pages but some good advice on sourcing, cleaning and storing all those precious materials.

I could seriously wax on and on about this book but my suggestion is - if you like nice books, textiles, art, vintage fabrics, quilts, or any combination of those things - buy the book!

mandys website   www.mandypattullo.co.uk

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