There at last!

Finally the projects are finished, the hooks are hammered in and my final major project is complete! Tonight was the private view for our exhibition, and today was the first time I've seen my installation as I planned it to be. Have a look at some previous posts to find out about my inspiration.
It's called 'Claiming Sanctuary' and consists of 4 parts:
A torn curtain which represents the stresses and pressures of the everyday world
A wall hanging to represent a cathedral, the sense of space and peace.
A memorial plaque, which is a very personal piece, in memory of 3 babies I lost to miscarriage last year.
An icon of St Clare, the patron saint of embroiderers.

I'm so pleased with how it's come together, and that people went in for a look, which I was worried they wouldn't!

Really going to miss my fellow students, but not all the research!

More Stained Glass Patchwork

Gone to pieces!

I decided to combine the crazy patchwork technique from my last project with the stained glass patchwork technique I've been experimenting with. At Winchester cathedral there is a huge window which was destroyed by Cromwell, and restored at the Restoration (ha ha!) What's so amazing is that all the pieces have just been put together in any order - you can see where bits might have gone together and you can see glimpses of what it's supposed to be, but the window is like a giant crazy patchwork. I wanted to recreate this so I drew a design, copied it and cut pieces of both cotton and satiny materials. 

Pinned and ready to go

 Here I've got all the satin fabric pinned on - excuse the pictures, they're taken with my iPhone and look washed out in one corner for some reason! Anyway, everything is pinned and ready to be stitched. I used a small zig zag stitch on the cotton and a large zig zag stitch on the satin material. Both times I used invisible thread.

Stitching

 This is the cotton being sewn. It was tricky sewing the satin as it was prone to fraying. The cotton behaved much better but didn't look so good. The satin looked more like glass because it's shiny.

Cotton

Satin

 
The final stage was adding the  bias binding. It was complicated making sure ends were tucked under the right parts. I used thicker binding on the satin and thinner on the cotton. I am really pleased with the results, but definitely think the satin gives the look I want. I would like to combine it with some heat transfer press printing as this would allow me to create images on shiny fabric which could then be cut up for my window.

Stained glass patchwork

I had my first try at this today, using the Bible story about God leading the Israelites with a pillar of fire and a pillar of smoke. This is the result. It's very easy and I can see it would be addictive!