Planet Ruby Starrs

This week saw a friend and I make a glorious road trip across country to Fairfield Mills in Sedbergh to look at a very interesting textile exhibition.  It was a great day out - the weather was very kind - eventually - the sun came out and the drive over was just glorious scenery with hills that looked like they were made out of velvet and ever changing skies going from dark and brooding to brazenly blue with scudding fluffy clouds.  All the way there and back we were treated to natures own art show and once there we enjoyed some first class textile art.   Sarah Waters was showing a collection of felted pieces... wonderful earthy colours - using nature for both inspiration and materials.  The exhibits were really well presented and each piece had a story to tell - it was very difficult not to touch as all the pieces looked so tactile.... I just wanted to stroke then all or try and put my hand in the inviting curves.... The other exhibition was a collective of dif...

My first weaving off the loom, the ends sewn in neatly and a rough fringing fashioned...  its a kind of sampler, using several different colours and 6 different simple weaving patterns used fairly randomly - in fact so randomly I'm not sure which is which - a lesson learned in future I need to write everything down so I can record which are the bits I like best so I can do them again!!! All in all I am quite thrilled about how this has turned out, the edges leave a bit to be desired but neatness will come with practice...  I spent most of the lesson tis week preparing a warp for my next project.   this is a completely new experience for me and we started by working out the size of the potentially finished piece of cloth and then having picked some vibrant blue and green yarn I wound a two metre warp onto a wooden frame.. Of course I was so excited I forgot to photograph the actual process and now have a tidy hank of yarn ready to go on the loom ne...

I've been weaving again.  Now progressed to two colours, and even mastered various patterns and today started playing with merging patterns as well as colour!! This is the tranquil and easy bit part- next week we tackle warping up the loom - a daunting task!!   Its an incredibly soothing task, weaving, quiet, slow, methodical yet inventive, contemporary and creative.  I'm excited about taking this off the loom to see what it really looks like and how it feels and looking forward to the next lesson learning the warp process.  Maybe wont feel so soothed next week but will defo be learning a new skill.

I'm busy drawing, stitching, weaving and printing material to inform my next and final brief for college.  This is the last module in my two Year journey to attain a foundation degree in textiles, this work will hopefully go in the final student show so it needs to be a bold statement of what I have learnt this last two years. I've been looking back at my collection of work so far, and my research of artists and ideas that have inspired me and its so eclectic it kind of gives me plenty of scope but also rather too many ideas.  It ranges from the delicate ideas using embroidery both machine and hand rendered that Cas Holmes and Anne Kelly produce - lovely natural colours with subtle highlights and trim to the bold robust multi coloured multi patterned work of some one like Kaffe Fasset whose colour combinations know no limits.  All this via more traditional artists like Marc Chagall - a long time favourite for once again his use of colour and his distinctive style and...

I need to start focusing on my summer brief for college.. It is quite simply to use own images taken of inspirational objects to produce some visible studies to work with later in the year.  These studies need to reflect line, detail, texture, tones, colour and need to be executed in as many different mediums as I am able.   Some of the pieces I have been working on through the summer will contribute but I would like to concentrate on working with more texture and detail.  I didn't do enough drawing and prep work on my last module and the finished samples reflected this so I want to try and draw as much as possible - not just with or on conventional materials  but with the sewing machine, print, natural objects and whatever comes to mind.   We visited some friends in Wales who have a wonderful collection of interesting objects collected over many years from all over the world.   I started by drawing a collection of masks - some carved in simple wo...