Girt By Sea

 

Girt By Sea

Item Composition

• Blue merino yarn hand-spun and knit by artist; merino fleece

• White cotton (G. barbadense, Ipswich cotton) yarn grown, hand-spun, and knit by artist.

• Camel yarn hand-spun by artist; camel fleece.

• Possum yarn hand-spun by artist; possum fleece.

• Angora/Cashmere hand-spun by artist; angora fleece.

• Blue variegated cotton inkle woven by artist.

• Green merino, khaki wool, brown wool needle felted.

• Beige and brown fabric scraps from Morris Mills, Redbank, Ipswich.

Background

Enjoying my tea on the afternoon of Sunday 18^th April, a friend had shared a post about Landline’s birthday along with a request for 15cm-by-15cm squares for a quilt for the celebration. Initially I just gave it a cursory glance as I don’t do patchwork or quilting.

Over my second cuppa I thought I’d have a look at the criteria. It was open to all sorts of fabric and fibre mediums. Reading that it was “whatever regional and rural life means to you”, it piqued my interest and I started to think.

My first idea was to spin some cotton to use to knit some lace to represent the expectant clouds we see on our horizons, then I would use it as an overlay on some ‘Aussie sky’ blue merino that I would spin and knit. The cotton would represent the Ipswich cotton mill and the cotton growing done in the area around 1890. The lace knitting references the lace making mill in Ipswich and the wool would reference the Ipswich woollen mills.

G. barbadense, Ipswich Cotton

 White cotton bolls, spun without carding, and plied. I choose a  lace pattern that would have round-ish shapes for clouds, and space between to show the blue sky behind. 

 This genus of cotton was grown in the Ipswich area circa 1880s', and  for 10-12 years the Ipswich Cotton Mill was a major supplier to England.

Blue merino fleece, handspun, and plied. I took a few goes to get the correct number of stiches to get the 15cm by 15cm required. I chose stocking stitch as the fabric texture.

I wanted to include more of flora and fauna with some history thrown in; from native possum, imported merino and goat, to feral camels and rabbits to eucalyptus, wheat, native grasses and shrubs, hills and fields in the area. Influence was also drawn from the woollen mills, cotton mill, lace (and sock) mill, all operated in Ipswich, with the last mill shutting in 1980’s, and all surrounded by the sea.

With the Australian sky-blue background and a small piece of cotton lace as my starting point I dug around for all of the other bits and pieces, working out the layers and processes as I went.

Possum, wool, camel fleece, cashmere and angora (cashgora), merino, cotton, camel yarn, cotton tape.

Starting point - Australian sky blue knit merino, and cotton lace cloud. 

I ended up using the knit piece sideways, to give more visual width for our wide brown lands

Measuring the 15cm square, and getting pieces ready for the needle felting

  Pinning out and layering before needle felting

The beige and brown fabric are scraps from some suiting that was made at the Morris Mills, Redbank, Ipswich.

Eucalypts have such a lovely range of colours that would need some care to show. I needle felted layers of camel, possum, and angora/cashmere fleece and yarn until there was a mini tree appearing. The canopy is made with green merino and khaki wool, pulled and blended then needle felted. I added depth to the border to break the fourth wall and give dimension.

Working on the needle felting. At this stage I was looking for the kind of canopy you see on country drives, with the wind blowing, and glimpsing the sky through the leaves

Laying out the inkle loom tape, and measuring for the 15cm square

Feeling a little unsure about a few things I showed my husband. I wanted his thoughts as he has a good eye for composition, drawing, and colour. He gave me some good pointers that may be tricky to implement with my fibre medium, and my need to keep it to the colours and fibres I had thoughtfully sourced. I did keep them in mind and they were useful as work progressed.

Here you can see the foreground, and a layer of bush, and a layer of field.

And here you can see an horizon tucked in behind the field. I used possum yarn, needle felted behind the fabric.

The horizon is hand-spun possum yarn needle felted onto the blue merino. The rolling rural hills of the farmland and country are layers of Morris Mill fabric, and brown wool. The clouds needed a little something, and I remembered a technique used in embroidery, and padded the clouds with a darker sky blue merino.

Knowing that the criteria for the piece called for binding, and not being confident with the method, I dug through my stash of existing inkle loom weaving tapes and ribbons. I found a variegated, ocean blue tape to use for such a task. Aha! My piece will be “Girt by Sea”.

At this point I sewed the border to the main piece around the outside edge, then the inside edge and corners.

I wasn't happy with the tree. It looked rather anaemic. Trying for the windswept look mentioned above wasn't working (in this scale and my skill level, not necessarily this medium). The eucalypt green canopy of a solid, healthy gum tree was now the aim.

More layering with the green merino and khaki wool.

I also added an extra bit of bush/foreground. The suiting fabric got a bit bunched so needle felting wool made another feature :D 

Much better!

And  I /think/  I'm done!

Close up of the extra work on trunk and canopy

Close up of the fields, and bush, and of the bit of needle felting on the sky

But wait!

There's more!

I wasn't happy with the clouds. It was the first part I had thought of and there they were looking blobby and flat.

What to do??

Remembering something done with embroidery, sewing sections of fabric together in a pattern then padding the gaps, I decided I could do something similar. I thought of using the same blue fleece but I wanted a darker blue for a bit of depth. Using a knitting needle I padded the clouds, thicker in some parts, and needle felt between. Colour is a tad more subtle than I had planned, but I am much happier with the shape and lace definition.

Now I am done!!

Girt By Sea
By 
Damaris Parker