Fashion, Embroidery, Stitch 2013

Hello,
It's a week since I set up at the NEC for The Fashion, Embroidery, Stitch show and what an eventful week it has been.
Firstly, where has Spring gone??
The weather could not have been worse, with snow on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday ( I woke up to a blizzard on Sunday morning).
Luckily I managed to get in OK, driving very slowly through the country roads.
Despite the weather I had a very busy few days, although predictably, Sunday was much quieter and both my sisters who had planned to come then could not get there, due to the icy roads.
I met some lovely people, so many enthusiastic stitchers and I'm very grateful that they had battled to get in.
The show had some fantastic exhibitors with such a wonderful inspiring array of work, I wished I had been able to spend more time looking.
Thank you very much if you came to see my work and if you could not get in I have a video which you can view, my very first time on You tube! See Here
Now it's time to get back to my stitching, I think I'm going to retreat into hibernation!

Homage a' Matisse

I have a very busy week ahead organising my work for The Fashion, Embroidery,Stitch show at the NEC in Birmingham which opens Thursday next week!
One of my textiles I will be displaying is Homage a' Matisse which stands 8ft tall and took me around two years to complete. ( featured in the March issue of Embroidery Magazine)
The piece is developed from studying the rhythms in the work of the French artist Henri Matisse.
I observed the musicality in the way in which he placed colours and shapes, I took particular interest in his paper collages, "The Snail" and "The Kings Sadness", I combined these themes with my own painting which then led to this work.
Throughout the piece I have layered different threads in machine and hand stitching, emphasising areas of the work which became three dimensional.
I then manipulated those areas further by stitching the work on to a large blank canvas.

On Wednesday I will be transporting ( hope everything fits in the van)! and hanging all my pieces.
I will also be running free one hour workshops at the show everyday, places are limited to ten and need to be booked on the day of the show.
Hope to see you there!

Michala