Julia Caprara's Buttonhole Textile

I found some more images of the work I posted yesterday. This close up shows the work with the 3rd layer - the buttonhole stitch starting to be built up.

The buttonhole stitch works to blend and highlight specific areas of the textile.

This is another work using Julia's technique. It is a Rockies scene where fireweed is colonising an alluvial deposit. I still need to work in more of the buttonhole stitched flowers before it is finished.

Julia Caprara's Stitching Techniques

Back in 2005 Quilting Arts Magazine featured a series of articles written by Julia Caprara. In the Winter issue, Julia wrote about the importance of all textile students building their own personal "touch palette". Since reading the article, I have followed Julia's advice and used the technique she described as "painting with fabric, thread, and stitches".

This work, called The Day the Queen Came to Tea, has the 2 outer panels worked in Julia's technique to give the feel of what Baffin Island valleys, in Northern Canada, look like in the fall. One early explorer recorded the valleys had the richness of a Persian carpet.

Torn strips of fabric were woven into an open-weave burlap to make the first layer of the textile.

Next, thicker yarns, cords and ribbons are threaded through the woven fabric to make the next 1 or 2 layers.

Then finer threads are worked in buttonhole stitch to make another layer. As the final layer I attached shisha mirrors to this work. [Mirrors to represent the tarns (glacial lakes) and the mirrors the Elizabethans traded with the Inuit that remained after the visitors left.]
In her article, Julia explains how a stitcher can change all of the variables to get many different effects. It is an exciting technique to play around with.

Lesley Turner's Art Gallery

I have added a public web album of some of my work you can access by clicking on the address to the right.
You can click on the map to find the geographical location that inspired each work.
I will continue to add details about each work in the captions.

Sea Ice Melt, Arctic Series, Silent Auction Donation

'Sea Ice Melt' is a work from my Arctic series where I looked at the delicate nature of the environment. It is my response to aerial photographs of the edge of the sea ice as the Northern Hemisphere experiences longer hours of sunlight.
I have donated it to an on-line auction Calgary Academy is organising. It is part of a fund raiser organised by the Calgary Academy Parents Association called 'Big kids Helping Little Kids', running from November 1st to November 17th 2007.