Asia Adventure

This summer has been one of new and old adventures!

I was lucky enough to revisit Hand & Lock, an established embroidery company in London, who i spent a month with last summer! I loved seeing familiar and new faces at this lovely and friendly company and once again learnt an awful lot!

Thanks Hand & Lock!

But for my latest adventure three friends and myself set off for south east Asia for a month, travelling around Thailand, Vietnam and Laos! This is a new continent for me to explore and i couldn't wait to get absorbed in to a new culture.

These beautiful and incredible countries were each such unique experiences, and i couldn't have had a more amazing time. Each country has such a different feel, with its own fascinating history and such warm and friendly locals, but having so many similarities, making it feel like a new start everywhere we went and yet always so easy to feel right at home. And don't get me started on the food! (drooling as we speak...)

But there's no better way to describe these amazing places than through the power or sight, so here are a few images that i hope will inspire you as much as they inspire me.

Looking over Hanoi

Fishing village, Halong Bay

Vietnam

Beautiful details of the Reclining Buddha Temple

And again

And again!

Temple in Laos

Everyone knows the Phi Phi island

Waterfalls in Thailand, with water as cold as our own

Rice fields in Vietnam

One of my favourite places in Laos

Cheeky Elephants in Thailand, asking for MORE bananas.

My latest project: Embellishment for Fashion!

My latest project for fashion was based on a trend of my choice. I chose to work to a cultural trend based on escalating fashion on travel!

Here are a few cheeky snaps of some work from this project!

So lets start with some drawing! I started by looking through photos galore, a great excuse to look through some of my own travel photos!

All background paper has been created by either screen pull through's (pulling through pure pigments, acids and procions, playing with colour and mark making! very messy and brilliant fun) and also mark making using different brush sizes and also paper towels and smearing it over the page! i also used some artificial flowers to make marks as well as the occasional hand print! 

 A Peruvian Woman, drawn in charcoal, with water colour.

 A Mehndi pattern, inspired by a selection of Indian images of mehndi henna tattoos.

 Possibly my favourite, an Indian man surrounded by some Aboriginal and Asian pattern! Such beautiful colours! Too exciting!

An African woman, i assure you she looks happy in the real image, not quite as scary as this!!!

 Various culture inspired patterns, colour, a cheeky man who i like to think is from Nepal (I don't know why...) and some stitching on to the paper and in with the pattern! And i didn't break my machine! phew...

 Beautiful little Asian girl! With some European inspired embroidery and some lovely bromeliads!

And now for the final embellished garment shapes! 

 This one is based on African jewellery! I wanted to do this with a modern twist, so used colours that perhaps meet a more western culture. I used bead work, stem stitch, straight stitch, back stitch, and satin stitch! This piece took me up to four days. The top itself has been dyed yellow, then dyed again with a pull through of pigments!

This piece took the longest and is probably my favourite of the four. It took about two weeks and is entirely hand stitched! The only thing that a machine was used for was to make the gold circles which have been done using water soluble paper and therefore are made entirely of gold thread! The elephants are each sewn with a different technique; The first on the left is simply a stem stitch, the middle was couching and the one on the right was a raised stem stitch, but very finely done.
The main detail of the hands were done using beading, a very delicate chain stitch, stem stitch, back stitch and satin stitch! The outside detail is stem, satin and back stitch, each layer being a different stitch!
The back ground again has been done using a pull through with a mixture of pigment and procions.

 This piece is possibly my least favourite. I wanted to bring in more to the colour scheme i had and thought i could do this through another culture. The main body of the top is based on Peru, and i wish i had stitched in to it further neatening up the painted background. This was done through a pull through, painted on to the screen, then painted on to the fabric itself to brighten the colours using all pigment. Exciting though it was, I'm not sure how successful this piece is.
The beading is quite simple but i thought it would be good to use more ethnic looking beads.
I also used some ribbon work and simply sewed squared using a red ribbon, which took quite a lot of stress and pricking of fingers! 

I pleated the top of the dyed fabric and sewed it on to give it a bit more to it but again, I'm not so sure of how well this has worked.

 And for the last garment! This was unfortunately mostly done by machine which i do not like to do. I think embroidery looks best when done by hand as it is more personal, and more beautiful. I also don't like the lack of control i feel when i use a machine, but that's just me!
So here we have another pull through dyed fabric and a tunic dress shape with a collar that has been sewn using machine stitches (zig zag and straight stitch using different lengths) and also some tambour beading and tambour stitches (as its quite beautiful just using the stitch without sequins or bead work)
There is some hand embroidery within the machine just to give it that extra lift.

 I used free hand machine embroidery, and a combination of zig zag and straight stitch playing with the length and widths of the stitches to make lines and shapes of different thicknesses. And of course some Hand embroidery, i wonder if you can pick out which is hand and which is machine?

So there we have my last project, a fun one and rich in fabulous content but how successful do you think it was, i wonder!?

Summer Antics: Europe

My radio silence comes with explanation... Summer 2012 has held many exciting new experiences for me! The first of which is travelling around somewhere i have not yet ventured to, despite being so close... Europe! On June the 8th me and two friends set off to Prague, where we started our three week Inter-rail extravaganza! We had no plans of where to go, only taking with us our packs with three weeks worth of clothes and our purses, hoping to find accommodation in each place we went to as we went along! Go with the flow and take things as they come, my answer to everything!

So from the beautiful Prague we then went to Vienna, rich in art and architecture, having enough time to stop in on the Klimt exhibition (fantastic!), before continuing our journey to Croatia - Zagreb, Krk island and Rijeka, as well as a beautiful national park! We then managed to tear ourselves away from the stunning scenery, coast and friendly locals, to make our way up to Budapest! A very interesting city indeed! After a few days we then went up to Krakow, rich in history of the war. We made sure we went to Auschwitz, something i think is very important to do to fully understand and appreciate just how terrible death camps and the Holocaust was. After an emotional few days we then went for a brief stop in Berlin (I'll be back for more!) Before our final stop in Brugge, where we felt quite at home and were very grateful for some home comforts (CHOCOLATE ON EVERY CORNER) as well as a charming, pretty small town for which we are much more accustomed to, being country bumpkins ourselves and finding the bigger cities a little daunting at times! We had the best time we could have possibly had, but sadly had to make our way back home to England, so i could start my first work experience placement the next day! No rest for the wicked!!


But before i tell you more about that, here are just a few selected photos from our trip! Some inspiration to get me started to do some summer work before uni!

Prague

 Vienna

 Vienna

 Vienna - Food market (we spent a long time there)

 Budapest

 Krakow

 Brugge (isnt it lovely!?)

Welcome To My World

I feel i may have gone a bit mad with the first few entries, i do appologise! I get a bit excited a bit too easily! I will try to keep future blog posts a little more quick and snappy in the future!!

But before i do that, i thought i would show you a little bit of my world, and let you in on why culture is such a strong passion of mine.

I have spent the past year travelling and living in such rich and fantastic communities in Tanzania, Kenya, New Zealand, Bolivia and Peru. Doing this has allowed me to meet the most amazing people, find a new understanding and attitude to life, and learn new and exciting crafts and ways of life. And this is only the beggining! I intend on visiting many more enchanting cultures to really absorb their way of life and their intense cultures, learning their crafts and approaches in textiles amongst other things as i go.

So instead of rambling on and boring you, i'll show you some photos i have taken along the way. I hope they give you the same rush that they give me.

Lots of love!