Loss makes artists of us all as we weave new patterns in the fabric of our lives.
Greta W. Crosby
Jude Hill is a fabric artists who makes slow cloth things. They are both smaller art quilts and large quilts in a very unique and artistic way. I have been a fan of her blog Spirit Cloth for a long time now, and I feel grateful for the time she spends taking photos and sharing her cloth stories. Just recently I found out that she does little movies too, short extracts of her stitching life. She shares her work, the ideas behind it and some of her stories.
She seems very productive and always has something new to share. It is all very inspirational. She was the one reason I bought the latest issue of the magazine Quilting Arts (August-September 2010) when I saw it at Presstop. In the magazine she has an article called Weaving a Cloth Base where she describes how she weaves strips of fabric together to make a base for her work. She uses this technique to create a unique look both for her big artsy quilts and smaller embroidery work. It is kind of her signum and it creates a interesting starting point for your work.
I have made a cloth base using a few of the tea dyed fabrics, and now I am hand sewing them together and embellishing with more tea dyed strips and embroidery. I don’t know where it is going but I think it is quite pretty…
Slow cloth inspiration resources
For more cloth weaving and embroidery check out Jude Hill’s flickr photos, Kristin’s post Cloth to cloth (she is taking an online class with Jude!) and some more weaving samples at quilting arts, to see how it is done check out her video day 57 and her youtube channel of course. :-)
I too love Jude Hills’ work! But I fell so lazy when I see all her projects on the blogg. She is showing something new almost every day. I’m longing to see the result of your work as well, Hanna!
Elisabet, thanks for commenting! Comparing yourself to others is never easy – everyone else seems to be doing so much more, but I agree, Jude is hard to keep up with. :-)
I have been a fan of her site for quite some time , too. Recently I started a flanell quilt that I pick up and sew on every now and then all due to getting inspired by her blog posts. Good luck with your project, looks very interesting. I have tea dyed some cotton fabric before and it is a great way of getting it to look kind of vintage..
Lisbeth, thanks! I like your “primitive stitchery” pillow too, isn’t it nice to have an embroidery project around to stitch on… :-)
your post just makes me want to pick up a needle and start stitching! i can’t wait to see what you do with this project.
Just love these pictures. Makes me wanna grab needle and thread. It looks gorgeous :)
Thank you Laurie, stitching is fun when you take the time to do it. To me it feels like a bit of a labor to “get started” on a project and once I am sewing I don’t want to stop!
Christine, thanks for your comment!
I recently found Jude’s website and some other stitching artists…it has inspired me to start embroiderying again…I ordered one of the samplers that Charlotte Lyons offers and I’m working on that. This weaving piece looks very inspring too…love it! Show us what it looks like after you do more to it.
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