Hue and saturation

I wound mercerised cotton for tatting around old spools from my haberdashery box, then soaked them in water. I ground 1gram of saffron in a pestle and mortar with a few drops of water. I added the concentrated saffron to the dye bath, which stained the cotton reels saffron gold. I like the idea of dyeing a lot of material with such a precious plant dye and also the symbolic image of everything being coloured by the same experience.

Seren Stacey, March 2012. Tatting copper bullion.

Flotsam...tatting takes on oceanic form

 

           Tatting, vintage mercerised cotton.Seren Stacey.Nanternis beach, 2012.

One year on....

The least of all things, Seren Stacey,Melin Medi Exhibition, September 2010

Photograph by Roger Lougher.  

One year on, having been lodged in the wall and exposed to the elements, this bright, white Pennywort which I made from wool and wire has become alive. At the roots the wire has become oxidised, leeching out like red-brown soil, crumbly white lime has become fused to the fibers where the little weed clung to the wall, its stem and leaves, and all the tiny stitches have soaked up a green hue from the life surrounding. 

Two generations tatting...

This week I asked my granny to teach me Tatting. This video shows my first tatting lesson,  learning how to tension the working thread and make a knot that slips. Tatting seems to be a much less popular process than knitting, crochet and lace making, yet she learned it as a girl from a friend and remembers the stitches despite not picking up the shuttle and thread for some 60 years! It is a time consuming, decorative technique, not a craft of necessity, though it shares similarities with sailor's netting techniques and may have originated from here.Visually it also shares similarities with the studies of oceanic organisms which  I recently re-discovered in my research collection. I have always been fascinated by the way that organic forms are mirrored throughout the natural world- a reminder that that life's blueprint originated from the deep blue sea.

My first chain of tatting.

             

Ernst Haeckel: from Radiolarian Atlas (Art forms of the Ocean) Germany, 1862

A tale to fit the hole....

layered photocopied stitch samples, and text.

Oriel Q Winter Exhibition

                  Seren Stacey: The least of All Things , Felt, embroidery, wood.

 

     Seren Stacey: White branches & untitled (sicks and stones series) charcoal.        no. 46/46 catalogue

Diana Durey: Totem Dolls, Fabric and Mixed Media

Lee Phillips , raffle entry

                      Diana brook: Spoon 1,  Acrylic

Denys Short: When I was 6 my uncle made me a bird table, Mixed Media

Full Catalogue : http://www.orielqueenshallgallery.org.uk/documents/WinterShow2011Wcat_001.pdf