The Art Chain

Last week over on Facebook a friend nominated me to take part in the Facebook Art Chain and post an image of my work everyday for 5 days. I enjoyed taking part and looking back on previous work (especially looking back to college days) so I thought I'd share it here too! So this is the journey of my work from 2008 to today!

Day 1

I graduated from Colchester back in 2008 with a degree in fashion and textiles. Since starting to make things when I was little I've always loved to recycle, using all sorts of bits and pieces my Gran used to give me, and my work at college really cemented my Make Do and Mend philosophy. 

For my Graduate Collection I created an installation of three, three metre long cream knitted hangings. They hung from floor to ceiling and were embellished with all sorts of recycled and found objects, from meat hooks, to nuts and bolts, plastic packaging and broken glass, all of which I spray painted white. I really enjoyed looking back on this, it was stressful but such a great time! 

Day 2

When I left college I was lucky enough to win a studio space for a year at Cuckoo Farm Studios in Colchester. I stayed on there after the year was up and in 2010 I had a solo exhibition in the gallery there. This piece is a detail from the installation of knitted hangings, which hung on the ceiling like light fixtures. I was exploring light and texture and for this piece explored the Shibori felting process to create a really unusually textured piece

Day 3

When I finished college I started making jewellery, like this knitted necklace embellished with found objects and spray paint, straight away. I wanted to capture the ideas from my Graduate Collection but in a wearable form. Louise Dawson Design jewellery was born!

Day 4

This is a selection of my knitted and Harris Tweed Button Brooches, embellished with a scattering of recycled materials. I first started making these because I didn't want to throw away leftover scraps of fabric, so I decided to make something with them!

Day 5

At the end of 2014 I was super chuffed to have an article about my work published in Green Craft Magazine. Here are my Knitted Button Rings, embellished with recycled fabrics

Thanks for indulging me on a little look back. I nominate you all to take part in The Art Chain and share your work too!

Learning Fair Isle with a beautiful British wool!

Earlier in the year I began experimenting with learning Fair Isle Knitting and this weekend, with my mind on a Winter jewellery collection, I have taken up my needles again to make some more Fair Isle samples! I'm not sure where this collection is going to take me yet, so I'm just trying to master the basics and then I hope to mix it up a little!

I have discovered a beautiful new yarn by Wendy that I have used to create these pieces.  Ramsdale is a pure wool, Double Knit yarn, born, bred and made in Yorkshire and it's lovely to work with - I'm very excited to be using a British product and I'm looking forward to experimenting with it more later in the week. I'm gradually buying all of the colours in the range so it's going to get colourful! I also think it'll make great felt so I'm planning on felting some pieces later in the week and also incorporating some cables into the Fair Isle. I'll post some updates later in the week!

I think I'm getting the hang of stranding the yarn on the back between colours-  it's getting neater!

How to... Techniques: Make felt in your washing machine

Introducing a new series: "How to... Techniques"! 

This is a technique I learnt in College- making felt in the washing machine using Wool Tops. It's a great way to make small amounts of felt and is much quicker than making it using the traditional hand felting techniques.

1) You will need

Two A4 sized pieces thin lining fabric, Wool Tops, scissors, sewing needle and thread.

A few notes on materials:

Thin polyester dress or curtain lining is relatively inexpensive to buy, but you may already have a jacket or a skirt with lining in and you're planning to up-cycle it for the fabric, so that would be a double up-cycling bonus! I have tried this with thicker materials, such as calico and t-shirt jersey, and although it still produces a felt, it is next to impossible to remove it from the backing fabric, so I recommend sticking with the lining fabric!

You don't need much wool tops at all for this as you're only making thin layers (I only used a tiny amount of the bundle you see below). I buy my Merino Wool Tops from Crafty Notions as they source their wool from a single trusted farm in West Faulkland, and it is produced without herbicides and pesticides. They have a great range of colours and a small bag will go a long way- they also sell packs of colours if you just can't decide! But you may already have a stash just waiting to be used...

2) Make your layers

Gently pull thin pieces of wool tops away from your main bundle of tops.

You're going to make 4 layers altogether. For your first layer, firstly, take a single piece of your lining fabric. Next, lay your wool tops vertically on top of the piece of lining fabric, overlapping each piece of tops as you do so. Leave a gap of one inch around the outside

For your next layer, repeat the same process again, but this time lay your wool tops vertically. I've used pink tops for this layer to create a two toned piece of felt

Your next layer will be horizontal

And your next layer vertically once again. On this layer I've again mixed in some of the contrasting colour

3) Stitch your fabric together

Next, lay your second piece of lining fabric on top of the felt layers you've just made. Poking any stray fibres back in, you can now tack your felt parcel together. Stitch as close to your felt layers as you can

Next, tack a cross diagonally across your felt pillow. This helps to create a flat finished piece of felt. If you don't stitch the cross, you will end up with a small screwed up piece of felt (have done this a couple of times when I've forgotten to stitch the cross!)

4)  Felt in the washing machine!

Your felt parcel can now go in with a  regular load of washing on a 40 degree setting. The friction from the other washing in the machine, combined with the heat and washing soap will cause the wool fibres to felt together

5) It's finished!

Don't be alarmed if when you take your felt parcel out of the machine it looks a little out of shape- undo the tacking and remove it from the fabric and you should have a lovely flat piece of felt! 

These small thin pieces of felt would be ideal to hand or machine embroider onto, or to cut pieces from to use for Applique. I'll be back in a future post to show you some examples of how you can use your felt.

Happy making!

Lace Making!

The amount of Bobbins we needed to use for one tiny piece  was daunting at first! We started with 10 pairs!

Yesterday my good friend Louisa and I were lucky enough to spend the day with a lovely patient lady who is teaching us to make lace! It's something I've always wanted to try but know very little about, so we jumped at the chance to have a go!

I love knitting and felting because I am excited by the idea of creating something from nothing- creating a whole new fabric from raw materials, and lace making ticks these boxes too. Although it took me a while to master the stitches and create a tiny section, it was very satisfying to watch this tiny piece of fabric take shape. Of course I'm already thinking of how I could make lace with wool, and I'm even thinking about blowing up a lace pattern to see if I could make giant lace! Much experimentation is needed and I'm excited to see how I can develop lace making into my work!

We punched holes in our pattern for the pins, which you then build the lace around using pairs of Bobbins with  fine cotton thread 

Although it required a lot of concentration, I also found it to be a very therapeutic process, and I imagine it was once a very social craft, in much the same way that knitting fashionably is today. I feel very privileged that we have the opportunity to learn this skill because unfortunately it's not a commonly practiced craft anymore. However I think now we've tried it we'll be hooked!

You don't need vast amounts of equipment to start lace making, just a  pattern, brass pins, bobbins, cotton thread and  a solid "cushion" to attach your work to- you could make one using polystyrene covered in fabric. Plenty of coffee and cake is also recommended!  

 I'll keep you updated on our lace making progress, there are so many exciting possibilities that I am really looking forward to learning more!