Curtains

These are the final printed lengths for my latest project - Space Invaders. I experimented with readymade patterns, transforming them through resist printing, overprinting, dying and bleaching. I learned that gloss binder resists well but was unable to rediscover how William Morris got his indigo to discharge.

I also learned to start looking a bit more slowly - even though I don't think I will ever stop printing too fast. I'm preparing some more resist designs - light projections taken from natural shapes and forms.  I'm inspired by the Japanese designer, Soetsu Yangagi who describes patterns - not as reproductions of nature but as new creations, visions of what is reflected by the imagination. So I've been keeping a pattern diary. Each day collecting at least 6 patterns from the world around me. It's becoming addictive.

Stencilling experiment

Just finished stencilling this wallpaper - my first stencils. Have always loved stencilled surfaces - more Japanese than Jocasta Innes. For this design I used a botanical watercolour by my grandmother as my inspiration. The process felt super simple and quick compared to cutting and printing with blocks...

I stencilled these papers as a way of trialling different looks. The client chose the simplest and plainest of the three. I'm now going to stencil straight onto her hallway walls - scary stuff...

Prints for a Floating World

Here is some work from my 'Garden' project. I started with the Japanese idea of the 'Floating World' or Ukiyo-e, 'living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the cherry blossoms, the leaves...diverting ourselves in just floating...'

And went on to experiment with making a portable 'sky dish' or reflecting bowl that can help capture a sense of this floating world...creating simultaneously a sense of sensuality, containment, openings, vistas and temporality. These were some of the images I made this way

I went on to design a series of prints inspired by the incredible pools and puddles I was cycling through everyday (it was raining torrentially throughout this time); each puddle shape taking on a different character and spirit; as each print came to life I began to recognise particular people...

I discovered that love is a great aid to design and I really enjoyed surprising my friends with their prints once I had photoshopped them back into it. But  I used handblock printing to make most of the marks.

Through this project I have discoved a kind of 'digital hand', which enables me to combine my love of spontaneous handmade textures with fantastical shapes and sizes.

Thanks especially to Evie and Robin for all their help and inspiration.



Cloak of Invisibility

For our Transition fashion project I worked with the wonderful Jodie to make an invisibility cloak inspired by the incredible Dazzle camouflage battleships of WWI.

For this project, I loved printing BIG and tackled a huge sublimation print on the heat press - a bit of a nervy process...

I also fell in love with heat pressed plastics which have a beautiful luminous quality to them and can also be quite soft. I made a skirt with these, but would love to try making some softer more floaty pieces. Thanks to all those friends who gave me/collected plastic bags for me - I went through quite a melting frenzy!

Jodie modelled our pieces along with the beautiful wire veil that she wove. I may try wearing my cloak at Critical Mass, I embroidered on some great glass bead yarn to make me super visible/invisible on my bike.