My Creative Journey
My Cretive Journey stareted may years ago. The earliest memory I have of this would be from when I was maybe 10 years old. I remember sitting on Mum and Dad’s double bed (it seemed huge back then) with my older brother and two younger sisters. We would have ranged from about 4-12 years old. Mum was teaching us how to knit. She would cast on 20 stitches or so for each of us. We would each ‘knit a row’ and then count how many stitches we had on our needle. The one with the closest number of stitches to the original 20 stitches would be ‘the winner’ 🙂 That’s about the sum total of my memory of my knitting instructions. Somewhere along the way, I did learn to knit. I love knitting even now, particularly cable and lace patterns, the more complex the better.
Early School Years
From there, my next memory is of doing hand embroidery in late primary school, so about 13 years old or thereabouts. I remember doing huckabuck embroidery and loving the precision and different patterns you could make. huckabuck is relatively simple to do because of the ‘weave’ of traditional huckabuck fabric.
The image on the left shows a sampler I did initially on traditional huckabuck fabric. You can see that the embroidery sits of top of the fabric and is a combination of surface embroidery and weaving. It is also known as Huck Embroidery or Huck Weaving as well as Swedish Weaving, but more on that later. I was brought up in the country on dairy farms so we didn’t have easy access to shops and off course, no such thing as the internet back then :).
The Huck fabric that I used was provided by the schools. When that was used, I didn’t have access to any more huckabuck fabric, but, I did have the good old staple ‘lawn’ fabric. Not to be beaten, I ‘pulled threads’ out of the lawn to create equidistant lines. I then literally counted the threads to created my version of a huckabuck embroidery sampler on lawn. The image at the right shows one of these samplers.
I don’t know if I ever did another one of these samplers ‘by hand’ but if I did, unfortunately, I no longer have it. I have included these two embroideries along with many other ‘orphans’ accumulated over the years, in my ‘Orphan Embroideries’ Gallery. One day, I plan to do ‘something’ with them all. No idea when or what that will be at this stage – but I digress 🙂
High School Years
In the last two year of high, I did a dressmaking course covering drafting and altering patterns and of course all the requisite garment making skills. I loved this and spent the next 5 or 6 years or so making my own clothes. Unfortunately, I’m not a standard ‘off the rack’ size/build so buyng clothes for me has always been a bit of a nightmare. I particularly loved making what I thought of as ‘formal lined business suits’. I worked in banks for many years after finishing school. That was what one wore to work in banks ‘back in the day’.
My Creative Journey Continues
I was married and had my two children by the time I was 25. My creative journey was, for the most part, put on hold until the kids were in their early to mid teens. I did do some cross stitch and tapestry intermittently but that was somewhat limited.
When my children were in their mid teens, I joined the local embroiderers guild. Here, I discovered all sorts of hand embroidery that I never even knew existed. I did a voluntary Treasurer’s role with the Guild for 2 years. at the time, the guild introduced a hand embroidery teachers course. I jumped at the opportunity and earned my Teachers Certificate in hand embroidery. That was in 1998-2000. Basic patchwork and quilting were a part of that course. I then went on to specialise in patchwork and quilting and attaining a Teachers Certificate in Patchwork and Quilting. This was completed in about 2002-2003. Since then, my main focus has been on hand embroidery along with patchwork and quilting. I also do knitting and dressmaking as time permits.
Tangled Line Art
I have also developed a drawing technique I have called Tangled Line Art. The image on the left is a sample. To see more of my Tangled Line Art, please take a look at my Tangled Line Art website. Online courses and youtube are great resource for self-learning. I have learnt acrylic pouring and zentanlge via online courses and youtube. These projects have been added to my Tangled Line Art website as well as they don’t really ‘fit’ this site.
I have also learnt how to write webpages (using wordpress) and create repeating surface pattern designs via online tutorials. My designs are avialable for purchase on a range of fabric and fabric products here on my Spoonflower shop. There are also a wide range of products here at my Red Bubble site or here at my Fine Art America site. Many of my Tangled Line Art designs are also available at my Red Bubble site and my Fine Art America site.
Along the way, I have also taken some abstract art course along with some mixed media courses/tutorials. I will upload some of these pieces to the appropriate site in due course.
I have created the following series of Galleries with projects I have completed to date to create a broad overview of the progress of my creative journey. Please click on the title of each gallery to take you to that gallery.