MADELEINE'S HEP HERD

Shirts on show 1 Originally uploaded by MadeleineS . The Mathematician's Shirts finally went on display in the ASCUS Project Space a couple of weeks ago. The Space is a temporary gallery in the St James Centre Shopping Mall, Edinburgh. It'll be there until 26th February, open every day except Tuesdays. This is one of four art science collaborative projects on display there. My collaborator and I will be giving a talk and demo about the work this evening. Next Thursday the group behind "How Steep is Now" will be talking about their work. Full details about the exhibition and events can be found at ascus.org.uk I'm already thinking about the next half dozen projects on the to-do-list. As usual I'll probably post here a bit to late so follow me at @madeleines and @plumandpepper on twitter.com for up to date snippets and lots more nonsense!

silk rag shawl   The Stick Factory Gallery , 69 Mayfield Road, Edinburgh are now exhibiting my silk shawl, hand knitted from strips silk fabric reclaimed from old saris.  A selection of co-ordinating necklaces are also in the Gallery.  Their main shop is the only place you can buy my hand stamped Christmas cards and they've also got a few of my brooches made from upcycled fairisle and cashmere sweaters. The gallery is the shop front for an amazing  complex of studios and workshops along the side of the suburban railway.  If you're looking for studio space in Edinburgh get in touch.  see www.stickfactory.co.uk for details

Cogs and Christmas Originally uploaded by MadeleineS . First foray into hand-stamped Christmas cards today. This and one other design so far. I have a whole load of ideas about building up collaged layers with tints of the same colour topped off with a contrast image floating on top. Once I'm well on top of the technique on paper it will be time to transfer it to fabric. Stamping on silk scarves seems quite promising for fine detail - coarser block prints on felt is probably the stage after that. The cards should be available at the Craft Reactor exhibition this weekend and Coburg House Open Studios next weekend. In other hot news, I got confirmation that Plum and Pepper now has its own home in Coburg House instead of sharing. My health is currently far from perfed, though improving so a team of wonderful volunteers will be helping me move all the stuff to my new location this weekend. While there won't be time/energy to get things exactly the way I want them for Open S...

Hand stamped cards 1 Originally uploaded by MadeleineS . Hello world - I've been riding the rollercoaster of life and work and not been making so much in the last couple of months. There are a number of projects I'm involved in that are crystallising now. If you're in Edinburgh between tomorrow and Sunday 27 November, it would be great if you could drop in on the Craft Reactor Members' Showcase at Coburg House in Leith. see www.craftreactor.com for details. Around six or seven members have taken this opportunity to show off their work. My contribution is mostly from my existing cyanotype collection but I've made some hand stamped cards for the retail desk as well - see above and click the image to see more on my flickr account. If you come along to the show you'll see a great variety of work though. The Coburg House Open Studios is fast approaching - 3 & 4 December in fact. You can come and see my new experiments in transfer dyeing with vegetabl...

Windfall Scarves Originally uploaded by MadeleineS . In among the pressures of work and family and personal health I have been finding time for a couple of things. The Mathematician's Shirts project has a deadline of early November so it's the major draw on my creative energy - see it's own blog for updates on progress. However I did make some work for Felt United - the International Day of Felt - which will be posted later and I've gotten interested in "slow textiles". A few months ago I discovered the work of India Flint and have been inspired to try some of her techniques myself. The process that intrigues me the most is the "ecoprint" - which uses the whole leaf for dyeing and leaves an imprint of it's shape and texture. Being Australian her work involves a lot of eucalyptus which gives great results. I've done some successful sample pieces with that and with red onion skins. So it's time to do more experiments. In Edinbu...

Works in progress Originally uploaded by MadeleineS . It vanished - there seemed to be oodles of year left and now it's gone! Not that I've done nothing with it. Art college summer school was a huge heap of fun once I got past the "I can't draw so why do we have to draw stuff in a textiles course?" phase - answer "because you're here to learn new approaches". The tutor didn't say that, I had to remind myself that's why I'd signed up in the first place. Open Studios was a bit of a let down this August - plenty of good feedback but not translating in to sales. So I had set myself the task of reviewing everything, clearing away the dead wood and maybe even moving to a space on my own where I can stamp it with its own identity. Anyway that on top of other projects mentioned in the previous post was to be my winter pastime when along come more health issues (mine and other peoples) that have stopped me in my tracks. Obviously these have ...

Coburg House open studios Aug 11 057 Originally uploaded by MadeleineS . One out of three days gone and lots of interest in this and the rest of my work. There's a lot more to see than my stuff of course - including a chandelier of ceramic jammie dodgers! Some along to Coburg House and see for yourself...