Papergirl Birmingham Night: 24th April

Tuesday night is Papergirl Birmingham night at 48Sheet project Space in the Mailbox, Birmingham.

An array of Birmingham-made artworks will be on show before their free distribution to the city on Saturday 28th.

Hopefully see you there!

Lost in Lace.

Annie Bascoul - 'Moucharabieh'

needlepoint lace, cotton.

Annie Bascoul - 'Moucharabieh', and 'Jardin de lit, lit de jardin'

Assemblage, Feathers, brass wire and cotton.

Close up of the large scale needlepoint lace.

Chiharu Shiota, 'After the dream'

Suzumi Noda 'Juxtaposition'

Knitting, painting, cardboard jacquard punch cards, lacquer, plastic fibre,

wood and thread.

Piper Shepard, 'Lacing Space'

Drawing, screen printing, hand cutting.

[link to Piper Shepard's lovely website]

Reiko Sudo 'Tanabata lace'

“Our NUNO textile Tanabata Lace is pleated like origami, then finished by hand using a heat cutter to create a repeating pattern of slits and a fun feeling of motion”.

Ai Matsumoto 'No Reverse'

Casting, embroidery, handkerchiefs, silicone, thread.

More of her work available to see here

Michael Brennand-Wood, 'Lace the final frontier'

Cutting, painting, aluminium, acrylic, wood.

Here are a few images I took from the Lost in Lace exhibition which took over the Gas Hall at BMAG from October until it closed on Sunday.

The exhibition showed a variety of works from lots of international as well as British artists all working around the broad theme of lace. There was lots of intricate large scale work which occupied spaces and challenged the perceptions of what lace can be.

I absoloutley love French artist Annie Bascoul's piece 'Moucharabieh' [see top 3 images]

Typhoo Tin

I found this lovely old tin in the garage - Dad said I could keep it as he didn't even know he owned it! It's a bit battered and worn, but you can mostly still read the branding and the lid still fits on.

I decided to do a little ad hock drawing of it. I quite like it actually, so I might do an embroidery.

What I didn't realise is that Typhoo is a Birmingham brand, and that it was initially used medicinally. The Typhoo website says:

'Typhoo Tea Limited has a long and rich heritage, stretching back to 1903 when Birmingham grocer John Sumner developed and sold a blend of tea in his shop. John’s sister, Mary, was the inspiration behind the product development, as she highly regarded tea as a cure for indigestion.'

Salt dough decorations

A couple of weeks ago I made lots of salt dough decorations for christmas using cutters I found/bought/borrowed from various sources. I shaped them and dried them in the oven. I got over excited and ruined a few by drying [*cooking] them on too high a heat which made them bubble up a bit!

They didn't dry in time for me to decorate on the day so I left them overnight to dry fully, and then managed to forget about them completely until today.

So today I've decorated them, varnished them and suspended them off ribbon and they are now adorning the house in a very festive fashion.

Here they are before going in the oven. I had made decorative marks in them using a chopstick and made sure there were enough holes in them to enable me to suspend them when they were dry.

Here they are dried and glitter-glued.

Varnished, strung and festive-ly adorning a door knob.

Heres some reindeers, trees, stars and dinosaurs, varnished, glittered and drying.

And here they are sparkling on the tree!

Christmas Knitting.

I've finally begun knitting for Christmas. [ A little bit late really but it's still only November!]

I've knitted 3 hats so far, but I've decided that I like this one so much I've got to keep it for myself. Although the photo doesn't show it, the yarn is a rich bottle green and the bow is the same colour velvet, topped with a lovely little gold button I found.

Although the colour is slightly reminiscent of my old school uniform, I completely love it!

.....Now i've kept this hat I've got one more to add to the list of things to knit.

Cadbury's embroidery.

I dropped my work off at 'The Framers' in the Custard Factory on friday and was given this lovely Papergirl Birmingham paper crane in return. Here he is!

Here's a couple of close-ups of the Cadbury's embroidery. I'm really pleased with this one. I should really motivate myself to do lots more, especially on my days off work!!

Submission for Papergirl Birmingham

Tonight I finally finished the embroidery I've been working on for Papergirl Birmingham.

I've scanned it in on the A3 scanner and printed a few copies for distribution to the lovely people of Birmingham in the new year. All the dates and venues for the exhibition are yet to be announced, but I'll keep you updated!