After the handbags, I did two Textile courses at Open College of Arts – then distance learning courses. I loved the first course and learnt lots of new techniques. During the second course, I started my second series which at the time, I called Bodies. In some ways, it is probably not a true series. Whilst the theme and the basic shape remained the same, the techniques changed as I learnt more about surface decoration on fabric.

I experimented with bleach and here is the first one.It is behind glass so photographs badly. I made two of these and gave one to a friend.  I often get asked about using bleach – these are over 15 years old and still seem fine. They will outlive me.

I also did did some of my first screen printing. My nephew kindly made me a frame to use.

The Gold Lady was an improvement as my screen printing got better and the stencil didn’t disintegrate as it did with bleach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then the series  changed and I used very different techniques to produce the Fan Lady. The Fan Lady was my project half way through Textiles Two. The tutor did not want me to continue with my Bodies series for the rest of the course and wanted me to work on a very different theme – so I stopped the course and moved on.

I have a lot of small paper designs but only completed a couple more. However, I consider that the corsets I made on a C&G Historical Heirlooms course are also a part of the series – a bit of a stretch.

 

At the end of last year, I lost my way with my Collage series. I wasn’t happy with the last 2 I had made in the series. I was also not really concentrating on my quilting – printmaking had taken over.

I really like Kathleen Probst‘s abstract work so to get myself back on track, I joined her Working in Series online workshops. It is working and I am finding that it is re-enforcing working practices and tools that I have used but have let slip.

One of our tasks was to read the Working in Series posts on Kathleen Loomis’s blog, Art with a Needle. I have followed this blog for a number of years. But re-reading the posts, made me realise that instinctively, I have worked in series ever since I took textiles seriously and tried to make art. For me, it was all about trying to improve the previous design and my techniques.

So here is the first series I worked on – some embroidered handbags. They were shown in an Exhibition in Henley-on-Thames, I think in 2002. This was long before I learnt how to dye properly at Committed to Cloth. The black ones were the last I made, a definite improvement on the pink ones!!

Part of my homework is to catalogue my various series including photos. so as well as documenting them on my pc, I thought I would share the images.

The series do improve and I will share more in further posts!