and thread we need to print and dye!

We don't just dye pot-luck but have several different themes, so when you visit our stand you can buy a range of fabrics and threads which complement each other beautifully. So where do we find our inspiration for colour? A lot of our colour inspiration comes from the world around us; nature provides us with the most amazing colour palettes so I thought this week I would share a few of the flowers and plants which have been inspiring us recently.

If you follow us on Instagram  or Facebook you’ll have seen our recent posts of the beautiful display of bluebells which greets us as we come up the drive.

On my allotment the vegetable beds aren’t looking their best just yet, but there was a magnificent display of daffodils earlier this spring. Just wait until the sweet peas, rainbow chard and globe artichokes get going - it will be a veritable feast for the eyes never mind the stomach!

And in my garden the tulips have finally burst into all their glory. When I set out my garden a couple of years ago I deliberately painted my garden shed a very dark inky blue to act as a foil to the ever changing pots of colour. I think it works very well, don't you?

It’s a very busy time of the year for us as we get ready for the show but I always try to make time to enjoy going out and working in my garden or on my allotment. Not only do the flowers and plants provide plenty of inspiration for my textile work but being outside tidying the borders, weeding the vegetable rows and harvest the crops as they ripen helps calm and soothe. These days I can even find joy in mowing the lawn !

So if you come to visit our stand at the various shows over the summer take a look at the fabric and threads and see if you can guess which plants and flowers have inspired us!

Hazel & Terry

In the words of Art Fund Director Stephen Deuchar “It’s the place everyone would dream of having on their doorstep”.

Lucky me, I don't need to dream. It’s on my parents’ doorstep and so is another regular haunt for my family.
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Suspended over the River Calder The Hepworth was designed by the acclaimed David Chipperfield Architect; I just hope no one decided to ‘tidy’ up the outside as the industrial buildings and barges are just as striking.

The Hepworth is home to an impressive compendium of modern British artists including Ben Nicholson, Patrick Heron, L.S. Lowery, Henry Moore and of course it’s name sake - Barbara Hepworth.  But this day we scooted through the main galleries to the special exhibition by Anthony McCall.
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Solid Light Works is the first major UK exhibition by the artist in over a decade. The exhibition includes three new ‘solid light’ installations.  At first I was with Alison on this one - a quizzical look and a “really?”. 

But you need to keep an open mind, so in we went.
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Wow!

Yes, really - Wow!

Equally fascinating are the many note books  and related calculations which the artist need to make to realise the installations.

If you are planning a trip to Yorkshire then the exhibition is on until Sunday 3rd June.  In fact, why not stay a few days and follow the Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle? You wont be disappointed. 

until next time,

Hazel & Terry

Have you one favourite place, come rain or shine, that the whole family likes to visit? With no dragging of feet, moans or whines?, no ‘I can’t be bothered’s, ‘do I have to’s or ‘no way’s?

Ours, for over 20 years now, is The Yorkshire Sculpture Park; or to those of us who considered it our very own: YSP. Located just 10 minutes from my parent’s home (but for the rest of you - 7 miles outside Wakefield and 20 miles south of Leeds in West Yorkshire) it’s a given ‘must’ on all visits home. And that’s where we headed this Easter break.

There’s 500 acreas to explore but given the rather inclement weather we just visited the main indoor galleries this time;although we were glad of our wellies as we trekked across the field to the Chapel!

Outside the C18 Chapel stands the huge Iron Tree by Ai Weiwei

but inside is something completely different...

Chiharu Shiota, an acclaimed installation and performance artist, is known for her large-scale works made from elaborately entangled threads and found objects.

For this installation at YSP, Shiota’s work ‘responds to and activates the unique architecture and heritage of the eighteenth century chapel, interlacing the physical with the conceptual to create a new visual plane - as if painting in mid-air.’

As you come into the Chapel you walk into the centre of the work which flows over and around you. You can’t help but be in awe of the vastness and complexity of this seemingly fragile thread structure.
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Shiota includes found objects in her tangled webs and in this installation it is copies of music, poetry and records from the Chapel's history - 'making poignant allusion to the bells that were rung, the songs that were sung, and the lives that revolved around it, from cradle to grave'.

I love going to the YSP with my family, it’s a very special place. I also like asking my Dad what he thinks of what he sees there; he’s a quiet man and he’s not an artist, but as a Yorkshireman he’s always got something to say, so I wondered, what was his take on Chiharu Shiota: Beyond Time? I’d loved the sheer vastness and fragility of the work, the way it occupied the space and became at one with it.  Also, there are no barriers: you can walk through, under and if you go onto the choir balcony, peer over the work. You feel as though you’ve become part of it.

And what did my Dad say? He said “ well, I wouldn’t call it art, but it is tremendous”.  Classic Dad.

If you’ve never been then click here: The Yorkshire Sculpture Park to explore what’s on offer and there’s also a video on how Chiharu Shiota made the Chapel installation.

If you see the exhibition why now let us know what you thought of it?

Until next week,

Hazel & Terry

When we were in Helsinki we visited the Kamppi Chapel - a beautiful organic wooden building which could have been inspired by an egg. Inside there were some felt floor cushions inspired by pebbles.

I’m one of those people who always has pebbles and pieces of beach glass in my pocket, who walks along a beach, head down, looking for stones with interesting marks and shapes. I love their tactility and the comforting feeling of a smooth, warm stone in my hand.

The beaches of the south coast of England are my usual hunting ground, from the golden sand and rugged cliffs of Cornwall, to the pebbles of Sussex via Lyme’s fossil beaches. I’ve got piles of pebbles, shells, glass and small fossils on most surfaces at home (none of them from Chesil Beach I hasten to add) and they often inspire drawings and stitched work.

I suspect felt maker Sarah Waters is also one of those people, only her stones are not going to fit in anyone’s pockets. Her solo exhibition at The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace last year entitled Stone was an in-depth study, in felted wool, of the textures, marks, mythology and superstitions of standing stones and hagstones. And the pieces were huge.

In her blog she says she had a vision of using British wool to make large scale wallhangings that looked and felt like stone. Her aim was for the textures of all the different fibres to be felt, and she positively encouraged people to touch the exhibits. There are more photos of her inspirational work on her website.

So you can imagine that we are excited to be able to welcome Sarah to the studio in May to teach us how to make nuno felt in the form of beautiful  gossamer scarves.

They'll be a bit of a contrast with her exhibited work but still wonderfully tactile. So whether you have never felted before or if you wish to extend your skills further this would be a great workshop to explore the touchy-feely world of felt.