Cloth and Culture NOW

There is a lot to say about cloth and culture now but most importantly it is the title of an absolutely fabulous exhibition I went to see today. But the first thing that happened this morning was that the monkeys 'decorated' my bedroom. They felt mum needed cheering up and had nicely put drawings and sleeping beauty cards on the chest of drawers.

Then off I went to the Whitworth Art Gallery to see the cloth and culture NOW exhibition. On show were pieces of contemporary international textile art that had all incorporated traditional methods but worked in a totally new way. I had seen a few of the works before in magazines but seeing them close up was pretty amazing. The detail and craftmanship that had gone into them was just amazing. One of the works that appealed to me most was a photo print on canvas with embroidered detail. 

After coming back down to earth (and home) I started gathering information for a talk that I am preparing about embellishing and refurbishing clothing. With the current credit crunch looming it seems that crafts are becoming more important yet again. Over the last few years there has been a revival of all crafts and I am not sure what the reason is but nostalgia, originality, eco-friendly, make do and mend are a few words that come to mind. I believe the current vogue is only just starting. 

Anyway, I am a great believer in all the above reasons for crafting and refurbished an old skirt myself today. Some time ago this had a funny shade of khaki. It was one of those impulse purchases. I don't have many but it does happen during the sales sometimes. The skirt was a bargain but the colour was just not great. I bought myself some fabric dye in my favorite colour blue and decorated it with some flowers.

The flowers were cut out from a sweater that I felted a while back and the circle shapes were hand sewn on with running stitch.

The rest of the jumper ended up as a tea cosy and some egg cosies. I'll try and put a picture up some day. Waste not want.....