Group collaboration: a Story in Collage and Stitch

In a recent textile workshop, Bringing out the Best: Visually Telling our Stories in Collage and Stitch, with artist and instructor, Merrill Comeau, I had the opportunity to collaborate with three other artists to create a textile collage. 

Collaborative textile collage project in progress.

My fellow collaborators were Michelle, Susan, and Rae, and our group’s theme was “Spring.”  The “visual thinking strategy” exercises in which all workshop attendees participated, generated lists of words, phrases, emotions, memories, shapes, and colors—both symbolically and literally—that were reflective of each of the four seasons. 

Work in progress: a mandala representing Spring.
36” x 36”

This group collaboration project came home with me. The piece is approximately 36” x 36”. I have backed it with a tear-away stabilizer and am in the process of auditioning threads in preparation for free-motion machine appliqué. 

Auditioning threads for free-motion appliqué.

The seasons in collage

Other workshop groups created collages representing the Summer, Fall, and Winter seasons.

Textile collage: Summer

Textile collage: Fall

Textile collage: Winter

For now, I’m undecided about whether our piece should be quilted or not. I’m sure, however, the piece will speak to me at some point to tell me what it needs/wants.

Day 12 of the 100 Day Project: Textile Collage

For those participating in The 100 Day Project, we're 12 days into it. I'm doing two Projects: 100 Days of Textile Collage and 100 Days of Hand Lettering. 

Second page composition. 100 Days of Textile Collage, 2023.

100 Days of Textile Collage project parameters

My 2023 plan for The 100 Days Project: Textile Collages is to 

• use fabric scraps and various threads to create small textile collages. 
• I prepared 20 fabric squares, 9" x 9" each, from yarn-dyed cotton quilting fabrics [by Diamond Textiles]. 
• Each composition will be worked for 5 days, adding layers, details and stitch. 
• The small collages will ultimately be made into a textile book/journal using a slot and tab bookbinding technique.

Modifying the process

I've completed two pages of stitched textile collages and am working on the third. After the first collage declared its completion after Day 4, I abandoned the 5-day time allotment. 

Lesson learned: Making art takes as long as it takes. 

If a textile collage is finished in 4 days... or 3 days... or in a day... I move on to the next. If I must cut more fabric squares, I can do that.

Textile collage, Days 1 - 4. 100 Days of Textile Collage, 2023.

The materials needed for this 100 Day Project are minimal and portable. I like this.

Textile collage tools and materials.

Last year's stitching project was a self-contained daily exercise. Working on a composition over several days allows for more detail, more thinking, and more time for the fine tuning and details, if needed.

Intuitive stitching

This is the third collage, currently in progress. Sometimes the fabric inspires the stitching. Sometimes the stitching defines a design or shape.

Using paper templates to define contours with stitches.

No predetermined plan. Just intuitive stitching. 

"September Textile Love" Challenge starts today

Welcome September! It's time again to celebrate textiles with the September Textile Love Challenge, hosted by Seam Collective. The Day 1 Introductions are beginning to stream on Instagram.

My Day 1 Intro to #SeptTextileLove challenge is posted on Instagram
at veronica.fiberantics. I'm standing in front of my design wall with
#100days100blocks progress.

I participated in this Challenge last year and was introduced to many textile and fiber artist as well as being very inspired by what was posted. Daily prompts encourage textile artists, makers, students and anyone with a love for textiles to share a picture in response to the prompt. The 2019 prompts are listed here and there is also a worksheet for download.

September Textile Love Challenge for 2019 begins.

People's interpretations to the prompts can be enlightening, inspiring, fun and thought-provoking. This year, the folks at Seam Collective have included prompts that touch on the idea of sustainability and sustainable practices. It should be a very intriguing September!

I'm taking the September Textile Love Challenge

This summer, I joined the #100Days100blocks2018 Challenge. This was my first virtual stitch-along and I'm enjoying it. A recent Instagram post by a friend introduced me to the UK-based textile community, Seam Collective. Seam Collective is issuing their second September Textile Love Challenge. I decided to jump on board!

This is my Textile Love "Introduction" photo to my chaotic studio space with its
wild, uncontrollable yet colorful design wall. Only 2 WIPs on it today.

This is my "Introduction" post photo on Instagram, where the Challenge is hosted using hashtag #SeptTextileLove. I'm not experienced with selfies (nor do I like them much), so just take in the color in the background... or the lovely Art Gallery knit fabric I'm wearing. Be sure to follow me at veronica.fiberantics to see my responses to the SeptTextileLove daily prompts.

Daily prompt worksheet for the Seam Collective September Textile Love Challenge.

On the Seam blog, you can download a worksheet with the full month of daily prompts issued for the Challenge. Here's my worksheet amidst the Majestic batik scraps I'm using for the 100 Blocks Challenge. Yep, my cutting board looks much like my design wall.

I would like to use some of the Textile Love prompts on new work—or in-progress pieces that have stalled. But I'm OK with experiments and practice swatches. I believe that every piece you start doesn't need to be finished. Sometimes a piece serves a temporary purpose for experimentation, skill building, auditioning... or ya just need to busy your hands. If I don't used a prompt for doing hands-on work, it will motivate a search for inspiring photos from my archives. A revisit to inspiration from the past is a good thing, too.

September always reminds me of the end of summer, the saturated colors of Fall, going back to school, and the opportunity and possibilities for learning new things! This September Textile Love Challenge fits this so well.

Textile and printing history in Rhode Island—Part II

William Morris textile print

Another place we visited on our September Rhode Island excursion was the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), in Providence, RI. The RISD campus includes 5 buildings that comprise the RISD Museum (a must-see if you're in the area).

We started the museum tour in the Costume and Textiles exhibit that features its collections of historical textiles, clothing and accessories from around the world and fashions from renown European, American and Asian designers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

One of my favorite designers is the multi-talented William Morris (1834 - 1896). My first encounter with the Morris' work was through my studies in printing technology and typography. Morris designed typefaces [Golden, Troy, Chaucer], made his own paper and founded the Kelmscott Press where he designed and printed exquisite, illuminated works written both by himself and other influential authors—the most famous and most ambitious work being the Kelmscott Chaucer.

Golden, Troy and Chaucer typefaces designed by William Morris.

Morris' textile designs and prints are just as glorious. Focusing on botanicals and complex, repeating patterns, he also employed neglected print processes such as block printing, hand dying and plant dying techniques in this work. The textile print above "illustrates Morris's conviction that good design depicts perpetual motion… and shows the lasting influence of exotic florals [that were] introduced by Charles Darwin's writings about evolution and the growth of plants."

Woman's jacket from Persia, 1850 - 1900.
Block printed with mordants and resist dyeing techniques.

More contemporary textiles and fashion in the exhibit were these timeless beauties.

Left: Cristobal Balenciaga (designer). Weft-striped cotton of tailoring mastery. Mid 1950s.
Right: Emanuel Ungaro (designer). Printed wool, late 1960s.

Left: Muriel King (designer), Marshall Field & Co. (retailer). Screen printed plain weave silk, ca. 1933.
Right: Bergdorf Goodman (retailer). Printed silk crepe dress, 1964.

There was also an exhibit of student work in one of the galleries.

Student exhibit at RISD Museum.

From a textile printing perspective, Cranston Print Works in Cranston, RI was another stop on our trip.

Cranston Print Works administrative offices.

Although print production has ceased in this facility, one can follow the history of cotton mills and textile printing in New England during the American Industrial Revolution though the story of this textile print mill. Read up on Samuel Slater who smuggled textile manufacturing technology from England and helped birth this manufacturing industry in America. One of Slater's early cotton mills became part of the Cranston Print Works Company in 1936.

Ivy-covered walls of the old Cranston Print Works building.

Oh, if these walls could talk! As a fabric rep for several fabric companies, as well as a long time print production professional, I would relish a conversation with the ghosts of the textile print production workers that once labored in these historic buildings.

Cranston Print Works, Cranston, RI.

For now, I will have to do my own printing and fabric surface design with my purchases at RISD. The zippered pouch, hand crafted by "Jan Baker Text Tiles," is from the RISD Museum gift shop—very calligraphic as well as functional.

Art supplies from RISD stores and two visitor passes from the RISD Museum tour. 

The assortment of Pigma Micron fabric markers and Sharpie Paint markers were purchased at the Fab-U-lous RISD campus store. OMGosh… a full-blown, art supply store with a humongous selection of anything a fabric/quilting/surface design enthusiast could possibly want. Unfortunately, we were flying back, so suitcase space was limited. Otherwise, the enticing art papers, sketchbooks, drawing and painting supplies would have been in the shopping basket, too.

Textile and printing history in Rhode Island

Classroom in the Textile, Fashion Merchandising
and Design school at URI.

"If you're not home on your birthday, it doesn't count." 

I like this concept. With enough annual out-of-town excursions, you can be at least a decade younger than what your driver's license indicates. And it's as good a justification as any for taking a trip, don't ya think?

So, L and I spent our birthday week visiting 11 lighthouses and other sites in the smallest state of the union, Rhode Island. In addition to lighthouses, Rhode Island is rich in textile history and it abounds in art and design exhibits and venues. Inspiration and visual eye candy are everywhere!

One of the original 13 colonies, Rhode Island is 37 miles east to west and 48 miles from north to south, so it doesn't take a lot of driving from one border to another to see the state. Our points of interest included the University of Rhode Island Textile, Fashion Merchandising and Design School, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD),  Griswold Textile Print, the former Cranston Print Works plant, and several of Guy Fieri's [of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives fame] restaurant recommendations along with a visit with our buddy, Fred, who lives in Warwick.

Above is one of the classrooms at the Textile, Fashion Merchandising and Design School at University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI. Doesn't it remind you of the workroom in Project Runway? The current textile exhibit, "The Other White Dress," was on display in the first floor Textile Gallery at Quinn Hall.

"The Other White Dress" textile exhibit, Quinn Hall.

We caught the end of a freshman orientation tour of the Historic Textile and Costume Collection while in Quinn Hall. The school's library also houses a special Commercial Pattern Archive of 40,000+ paper patterns for clothing from mid-19th century to the present time.

"The Other White Dress" textile exhibit at URI

After the visit at URI, we headed to Westerly, RI in the southwest corner of the state. This is the home to Griswold Textile Print, one of the last remaining US hand-printing textile mills. Griswold has been in business since 1937 and does high-end custom screen print work—by hand. The craftsmanship, artistry and expertise needed to consistently lay down and register multi colors on 50" to 60" wide textiles is phenomenal.

Griswold Textile Print plant, Westerly, RI

When I asked how many colors can be screen printed on a single fabric, Josh, the employee that manages the remnant store, said he was involved with printing a 32-screen print design when he was in the production department. It was a very custom job, as you can imagine.

Griswold remnant store.

The remnant store at the Griswold is small, with limited hours of operation, but the designer prints are a delight to behold. The remnants—rejects or cast-offs from print runs or test runs—can be purchased by the public. The fabrics printed are primarily for home dec, draperies, furniture and accessories, so are of a heavier weight that quilting cottons but the fiber content is primarily natural fibers—cotton, cotton/linen blends or 100% linen. There were one or two polyesters that were for outdoor uses.

Assorted cotton and linen screen printed remnants.

I did pick up a few assorted remnant bundles to bring home (above). The photo below shows the edge of a design—or print repeat, as it is called—as it is set up for printing registration. The next screen print must register (line up) with the image of the previous screen print so the pattern on the fabric looks continuous.

The edge of the image repeat.

From Griswold, we drove to the coast to board a ferry for the lighthouse tour. So, I'll stop here, for now, and leave you with one of the many tiny lighthouses we saw on the Rhode Island Lighthouse Harbor Tour.

Dutch Island lighthouse.
Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.