The River Matters

This is an unusually long post - recording the work of several months to create my entry in the   Guild's SALA Exhibition, which opened tonight. SALA, the festival of South Australian Living Arts, is held in August.  Entries in SALA have to be original. The Guild Exhibition is on until 11 August.

The Guild theme is  'a celebration of water'. The organising committee has printed some  sea dragons, sea horses and water lilies on to fabric blocks which can be purchased,  embroidered and developed in original ways. I bought some, but then I had another idea.

A conversation with my brother drew my attention to lines in John Williamson's 1988 song It's a way of life, 

With cotton in their ears and dollars in their eyes

Their banker grins and our country dies.

Last SALA exhibition the Guild's theme was 'Aviarius'' and I made a quilt around the song When the red, red robin. When a friend at the Guild asked me if I was going to embroider a song again, I formed the idea of creating something using John Williamson's words, in the light of the water crisis in the Murray River basin. We surely need to celebrate the life-giving river system as we seek to restore it.

In my stash I had a couple of felt flimsies I had purchased from Dale Rollinson. They were not the right colour for a river project, but they had potential in size and texture, so I searched Dale's Thread Studio site and ordered four more. When they arrived, I selected 'ironbark' as my background and 'emerald' for the river. This is the river affected by blue-green algae. I set aside the others for the back.

I practiced Quaker stitch on the lettering, initially using Appleton's wool, which I doubled to get enough coverage.

I then switched to tapestry wool, which worked better.

It was hard to keep the lettering straight on the felt flimsies. The lines and letters I marked with chalk disappeared into the felt within minutes. Even when I tacked lines the felt shifted as I stitched. I don't, however, mind the crude look.

I looked at a lot of photographs of the Murray-Darling river system and made a rough sketch of my design.

I wanted to show the connection of the river to land and life and the impact of the greedy use of water. I thought of using various Aboriginal words and symbols for water but decided I did not have the authority or permission to do this. Instead, I thought I could use Aboriginal fabric. I figured that this was commercial product, and therefore in the public domain, available for incorporation.

I also searched for Aboriginal designed fabric with water themes and ordered pieces called Baanbaan, On Walkabout, Waterhole brown, Possum land and water blue from Aboriginal Fabric Gallery in Alice Springs. They were immensely helpful, rushing fabric to me before Easter. I also bought Dancing Spirit Brown and Snake and Emu from the One Stop Fabric Shop.

Over Easter I appliquéd, a few pieces of fabric to the flimsy and then embroidered a large tree overhanging the river.

I cut some gum leaves from another piece of fabric I found and appliquéd, them around the tree. It creates, I think, a good sense of a tree losing its leaves and beginning to die.









In the centre of the river felt I embroidered a map of the Murray-River basin, using gimp. The only way I could see to do this was using Solvi. The background is too soft and absorbent to use any marker. I don't much like stitching through a membrane but in this instance couldn't find another way.

I removed as much as the membrane as I could by tearing, rather than dampening the whole thing, as I wanted to wet as little as possible of the felt. It worked, but did need a bit of stitch repair afterwards.

By now it was becoming apparent that the pre-felted flimsy was not sufficiently stable where I had embroidered the tree and appliquéd the leaves.  I therefore applied some strips of iron-on interfacing to the back of the tree and needle-felted any areas of the flimsy that were sagging. I then applied a fine cotton backing the whole piece.







It is not perfectly geometrical, but, I think, close enough. I added orange trees and finished the reeds.


I needed to add more dead fish so printed a couple more photos, incorporating them with embroidered edges and extending the reeds.While I was about it, I extending the reeds around the edge of the river on the right bank.

Somewhere along the way, I had watched an episode of Heather Ewart’s ABC TV series Back Roads, in which she visited the Riverland. Right at the end, a farmer commented that “the river matters”. It stuck in my head and became the title of this embroidery.

 

I tried embroidering the title on the river, using Quaker stitch and some lovely variegated reddy-brown thread. To try to keep it straight and even I once again used Solvi.

I was disappointed in the result. The words were lost in the felt.

On the other hand, I had a lot of fun adding orange trees - needle felting the tops, (Veronica helped out here) embroidering the trunks with stem and Bokhara stitch and adding French knot oranges in varying shades of green to orange.

Throughout this process I shared my progress with my regular stitching friends  whose opinions helped a lot as I decided what to include or leave out.

I had a couple of attempts at adding some grapes and grapevine to the riverbank. I tried creating grapes from felt - but couldn’t get the definition I wanted.

 

Eventually I remembered my collection of iron-on transfers. I found a book of transfers that included a grapevine! I ironed sections of it on to linen, embroidered the linen, then appliqued this to the felt.

Satisfaction at last! It worked, though it wasn’t an easy process. The layers were, by now, quite thick and the linen edges frayed.  I needed to go around the edges with French knots to cover stray linen strands. This time, the reddy-brown thread worked well for the grapes!

Having rediscovered my iron-on transfers, I used a 1970s Hobbytex one of an ibis to create a banner on linen, adding the title text in Quaker stitch.

This gave the prominence I was after. The top of the banner is appliqued with French knots, blending with the dots on the fabric. The bottom edge is stitched with detached fly to continue the ibis’s footprint.

Appliqued animals add, I hope, a further sense of what we owe to the river.

It was time to turn my attention to the backing of the piece. Because I want this to be in some way a useful object, rather than a picture on a wall, I had conceived it as a small blanket or rug. I needed to keep it soft and flexible. The felt fabric is wonderfully soft, but won’t take hard wear.

My original intention was to back it with another felt flimsy, then bind the edge using cotton fabric depicting fish, turtles and other sea creatures - creating the idea of an island - the land and the river surrounded by life-giving oceans.

However, in order to get the edges straight I would need to square off the felt, which I couldn’t do without losing some content. I discussed this with some members of the World Embroidery Study (WES) Group, who suggested the edge should be as dynamic as the river.

I wanted to use some appliqued panels of Spirits on the back, along with a Rainbow Serpent, who, after all, created the river.  I really wanted to use the Spirits - hoping, I guess, that they ‘have the back’ of the river. A double layer of felt flimsy would make a great rug, but not an even edge.

I went ahead and added the Spirits to the felt flimsy called “Federation”. I love the colours, and I also like the symbolism of federation - a difficult process, but one that gives all of us an obligation to the river system.

I backed them with iron-on fusible webbing, ironed them on, then stitched around the edges of each piece with French knots. It worked a treat on these fabrics.

I was then left with the challenge of putting the two pieces together. One suggestion from the WES Group was to layer the piece on to black, but to do this, I would need to put black fabric between the two flimsies and either needle-felt or applique the flimsies to the black.

After quite a bit of thought and experiment I decided to try to fold the back edge over the front and stitch it down with a fly stitch - more bird tracks!

The process of stretching the back edge over the front was not easy. I managed it on three sides, then added a strip from another flimsy to complete the last side. I used some lovely hand-dyed thread from the Stitchy Box subscription given to me by my daughter in 2017.

I am pretty pleased with the result. The piece is wonderfully soft to hold. I hope I have done justice to the river - and to its importance to those who live along its banks and care for it. 

I have turned this blog into a booklet that I submitted as part of the Exhibition entry.

Acknowledgements and Resources

There are still numerous Aboriginal language speaking groups along the Murray River (though nowhere near as many as there were before white settlement), including the Ngarrindgeri in South Australia and Yorta Yorta near Echuca in Victoria. They have cared for the river for tens of thousands of years and continue to do so.A helpful map and information can be found at http://www.murrayriver.com.au/about-the-murray/murray-river-aboriginals/

Fabric for this project came from:

·      Aboriginal Fabric Gallery, Shop 3 Capricornia Centre, 91 Todd Street  Alice Springs, PO Box 3098, Alice Springs, NT 0870, Australia, Phone +61 8 8952 6163 Email aboriginalfabrics@bigpond.com

·      One Stop Fabric Shop http://onestopfabricshop.com.au/  PO Box 371,

Figtree NSW 2525  Phone: 02) 42299262

The fabric is Dancing Spirit Brown by Colleen Wallace, Possum Land and Water Blue by Heather Kennedy, On Walkabout Blue by Karen Taylor, Waterhole Brown by Arma Price Pitjara and Snake Emu Charcoal by W Evans.

The felt flimsies came from The Thread Studio, 6 Smith Street Perth, WA 6000

Australia Phone  +61 8 9227 1561,  Email: mail@thethreadstudio.com.

Some of the threads were from those sent to me in 2017 as part of a Stitchy Box monthly subscription given to me as a gift by my daughter. https://shop.stitchybox.com/

Photos of dead fish on Menindee Lakes were from:

The New Daily https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/02/07/rescue-murray-cod-deputy-pm/

The Daily Telegraph, Jeremy Buckingham, Ex-Greens MP Inspects Darling River Fish Kill 19 January 2019

Members of the World Embroidery Study Group of the Embroiderers’ Guild of SA provided suggestions and feedback, as did Susan Butler, Jennifer Stehn and my family.

Robin Quilt Construction

When I got home from England with my last Robin panel, I blocked it again to get it, not into a perfect square, but a fraction squarer. I also backed it and quilted the edge with running stitch.

I had stitched over the printed words on five of the blacks. Although the other four were reasonably clear, I stitched over those as well.


I could now assemble and consider all nine panels





In an attempt to apply the construction techniques I am slowly absorbing from a couple of years attending the Guild's B2B (once Back to Basics, now Basics to Beyond) group, I measured all the panels and graphed them up. There were large size variations in the original bird panels, so the edges were different sizes. Some I didn't want to trim too much, so the connecting sashing needed to compensate.

Part of my intention in using the striped batik fabric was to give me choice of colour in connecting the blocks. In fact it gave me too much choice. The stripes are, of course, not one solid colour, so there is no simple or obvious colour choice. It was not possible to get consistency across the joining rows.

In the end, my choices were somewhat arbitrary.


I joined the blocks firstly into columns.
















I had alternated the direction of the stripes on the back of the blocks

I then joined the columns, both front and back, with full lengths of striped sashing with light wadding sandwiched between. I hand-quilted the sashing using six strands of stranded cotton in a single colour (blue) to provide a bit of consistency)


This took a bit of time and care, as I had no frame that would take the piece. I had to take care with tension and consistency through the wadding and two fabric layers.

Keeping straight was difficult - my eye kept following the pattern in the fabric.


This, after the Guild Exhibition for which it is being made, is to be my summer bed quilt, so the final size is tailored to my bed.


I carefully chose pink/red sections of the fabric to frame the whole piece, which left the largely blue/green sections for the backing. I ironed the wadding on to the strips and assembled them in pairs - then machine-stitched the first side on the wrong way round - with the red/orange on the back!

I tried it on the bed again, and decided to reverse all the edges -  mostly blue/greens on top.




This is the back.

At this point I had a dilemma. I only had enough fabric to put a drop edge on one side of the quilt. Either my summer quilt did not have a drop edge, or I ordered more fabric. It was already overwhelmingly bright. Maybe drop edging would be too much.

I pinned on the one side I had, consulted with a friend, and ordered more fabric.

Fortunately, Chrissy at Batik Fabrics Online had a new consignment, and, with her usual fabulous service, got it to me 36 hours after I had ordered it.

In that 36 hours I also obtained more wadding from Create in Stitch - and a reel of red top-stitching cotton to quilt down the stripes in the drops.


Manipulating the fabric, mitring the corners on both sides of the quilt and stitching through the layers gave me quite a few challenges - and a lot of unpicking. I admit to a few compromises that would not pass the test of quilting precision. The fabric is, after all, not geometric and I tell myself my methods are consistent with the fabric and the embroidery design.

I did, however, once I had added the fall on three sides, mark the top and bottom of the fall at 10cm intervals, top and bottom, before machine-stitching the layers together down the stripe. By now I knew that my eye was easily deceived into thinking the batik stripes were straight when they were far from it.












So here it is, finished. I have to go over it with great care to snip any stray threads, but otherwise it is ready to be packed away, ready for the SALA Exhibition in August.

I am planning on creating a book about its creation from the blog posts, to accompany it. For the moment, however, I can de-thread my apartment and turn my attention to smaller projects!

I am truly grateful to the encouragement of friends and family that have kept me going on this project which began as a single panel to do my bit for a Guild exhibition!

Seagull for SALA

The second panel I purchased for the Guild SALA Exhibition, Aviarius, was a seagull. I really liked the background fabric on which it is printed.









I had several ideas for this panel, but when I visited Victor Harbor with friends in late December and we sat for a while on the top of the Bluff I knew that was where I wanted to place the seagull.






I set about reproducing the back of the seat, using thread left over from the Ahwahnee table topper I made four years ago. There was quite a lot left so I thought I was safe, but inevitably I ran out and was fortunately able to match it exactly while staying near Hampton Court recently.

The seagull went in using stem stitch, in stranded cotton - white and a range of greys and a touch of black.



I then tried to outline the main parts of the scene. it wasn't easy to get the perspective and distance. I needed to enlarge some parts of the scene - to give greater definition to elements like the islands.


I thought the dark green conifer would be easy to embroider. I did vary the dark green thread, and both the shape and the stitch were easy enough, but it was still a little bit solid.

I expected the grass behind the chair to be easy - tiny seed stitches upright, rather than at different angles - but getting the colour right was a challenge. it took me several attempts to get a green that resembled the yellowy-green heading to brown of Australian grass in Summer.

While the background fabric was what suggested the landscape, I still needed to find a way of ensuring we saw water. I did this by straight blue lines.



Finally I needle-felted some clouds and outlined the seagull in black - the definition had been a bit lost against the island behind.




I blocked the finished piece overnight

.All the embroidery had been done in hand, without a hoop, and the heavily embroidered central section was a little tighter than the rest.  Blocking brought it back into line.




I had been giving thought to what I would do with this piece. The shape suggested a zip bag.

I bought a zip, found some blue cotton backing fabric and some oilcloth in my stash. Voila - a bag for keeping suntan cream, mosquito repellant and possibly a hat for the beach.









I printed the photograph on to a post-card sized fabric square as a label..

Once dry, I stitched this to the back - adding a line of feather stitch to cover the fold line I had failed to iron away.






The SALA Exhibition is not until August, so I will need to put this away until then. I've learned quite a lot from this and my other SALA pieces, most of it relating to story, While this seagull piece is a landscape, it is a landscape with association - a narrative. I enjoy playing with different ways of telling stories - and of formatting images to create narrative. These exhibition pieces have allowed me to explore this at some length.

It will be interesting to see where it takes me from here.

Red Robin Panel 7: I'm just a kid again, doin' what I did again

Panel 7 is a a female robin and I worked it once again in stem stitch. The orange is true to the colour rather than the pink! This is also one of the smallest of the robin panels.

When I first conceived these panels, this was one of the first that I knew how I'd approach. I wanted it to reflect the activities that occupied my time as a child.



















  playing quoits, swimming, reading

















skipping, playing ball and Jacks (knucklebones in some cultures)














riding my tricycle and going to high school in my brown uniform carrying a briefcase.

The bird is completely our of proportion to the little figures - but I think that's part of the metaphor of this story.


















I have continued backing the squares with the batik stripe and quilting the edges in a bold running stitch, now using six strands of variegated thread.




I'm very happy with this panel.