Tiny lavender bouquet brought by bluebird, delivering relaxation and sweet slumbers.
Textile illustration using hand and machine stitch with appliqué.
First sketched as part of the #illustrationworkshop process before being made in paper, then fabric.
Inspired by the lavender at #dawnirelandtextileartist group
Poppy stages embroidery inspired by our morning walk.
Saw this pretty poppy on our walk yesterday morning so I decided that it would be my subject for an appliqué embroidery. It’s not quite finished, a little hand sewing to follow, please pop back to see the completed work.
Created at @dawnirelandtextileartist workshop at #stitchedupandfleeced
I did some line drawings, coloured them in with intense pencils and then brushed water over them to activate the inks.
I used shadow and still images as backgrounds for club member testimonials…
Echoed a champagne cork popping with a tennis ball tube as a poster design for display and social media promotion.
I hand painted tennis balls in heat sensitive dyes and printed them onto fabric and ribbon, repurposing a bed sheet, to make bunting to use at the event on Sunday.
I’ll be demonstrating these fabric design techniques, showing how to press designs onto fabric at my workshop on 2nd June 2019 at Stitched Up and Fleeced textile studio in Sheffield 10 – 4pm. £60. Book or enquire at this link.
“Symptoms of capsicum allergy result in serious situation like anaphylaxis or mild signs like asthma, abdominal pain, hives, eczema and head ache.”
Free Download – I’ve created an illustrated download for those with Bell Pepper allergies and intolerances. This is for use in restaurants, hotels at home and abroad. Please feel free to print and/or share this with someone that it may help, and to raise awareness of this food allergy. Card size set to 9 x 13cm.
During #inktober I created my first bell pepper allergy illustration. I then saved this on my phone to show when ordering food in restaurants.Watercolour painted peppers added to the original many language background
Now don’t get me wrong it’s not that I don’t like peppers. I find them deliciously tasty, but it took some years to pinpoint that being doubled over with severe stomach cramps, hot and cold sweats, three days when I couldn’t get out of bed, diahorrea until my system was empty, was due to eating bell peppers.
Bell Pepper Allergy and Intolerance Symptoms – Found through research.
Give me a chilli and I’m happy and fine, but a fragment of bell pepper or a pinch of paprika and I loose the next few hours at least. Until my body has painfully fought the peppers and kicked them back out of my system.
It was suggested to me by a GP that it may be IBS, which is why I believe some people could be thinking and dealing with what they believe is IBS when they might just need to drop peppers from their diet.
Heatpressing hand painted peppers
Machine rendering after hand sewing
Now peppers are very nutritious for some people, but they can be anaphylaxic for some. However they are almost never listed on food menus and food packaging as allergens. Often they’re not written on food menus, despite them being part of the dish. Due to their colourfulness peppers are often used in ‘food on the go’ meals such as salads. Really helpfully they’re often finely chopped and written in minuscule font on the ingredients list on packaging.
So I just want to make people, you even, more aware of the possible reactions and physical responses to peppers. Maybe this work can take away someone’s pain or discomfort.
So I’m asking people to think before they eat and serve bell peppers and paprika, I’m asking food retailers to think before they add bell peppers and paprika and to make it as an allergen, and for restaurants to always state where bell peppers and paprika have been used in their dishes. And please use a different chopping board for peppers.
Thank you for reading to the end. Next time you eat peppers just observe in the time afterwards how you feel. If you have any of the symptoms listed in this article you might want to see if the symptoms clear up or cease.
Eat happy, be happy, consider pushing aside the peppers.
Related work: Work that relates to the techniques is at the following links. I often find that the work is stepping stones to the next creation, like a bright creative path where the next step is revealed upon completion of the present one. These creative projects led to this work.
Next Step – in the campaign is to use the content created with supermarkets, restaurants and through PR and social media to raise awareness of bell peppers as an allergen.
Mini Case Studies – If you’ve a bell pepper story please email me as I’m collecting personal accounts and experiences that can demonstrate how this intolerance can affect individuals.
Everlasting passionflower lovingly crafted from textiles. The satin cheese plant I made led to my decision to make a textile passion flower….I studied the beautiful flowers that I have been growing in garden for 15 years.Some all-white varieties surprised me in the garden this year.Passionflower study in coloured pencilsMonochrome study aiming to simplify the forms.Watercolour study of passiflora.I then took the designs into stitch. This was the first iteration of the passion flower with a little fused Angelina fibre panel for the centre.Free motion embroidery and ribbon couching to create the second flower design.After considering different fabrics I decided to use satin with scrim behind for the third flower experiment.It was important that I create depth for the flower’s corona filaments, anthers and stigmas. I used felt, a bead and embroidery silks.My intention whilst working at Chelsea College of Arts at the start of the month was to create screen printed designs that I could later add 3D passionflowers to. A passionflower couldn’t exist without its leaves. I created this one using satin that I have designed and printed using Colourcraft products, with felt behind/underside made at Stitched Up and Fleeced in Sheffield.
The final addition was the tendrils shaped with a little love as inspiration. Photographed in the sun, which is what prompts the passionflowers to reveal their striking beauty.
Thanks so much for reading to the end. I’m delighted with this work and will be looking at the display of it. So watch this space by popping your email address in the box at the top of the page to follow my blog. Normally a maximum of one post per week, a little bright creativity into your inbox
Here is the work that led to the passion flower creation.
And finally here are flowers I painted in pomegranate juice (and a little green watercolour). The juice was a stunning pink so I could resist making art with it. The work is inspired by a great book I’m reading The Joy of Watercolour by Emma Block.
Had a great week at UAL Chelsea College of Arts, working in the Textile Print and Dyeing Room. Here’s my favourite work – screen prints (including foil) and silkscreen painting.
This two colour screen print was created using cut paper.Experimenting with foil
Silkscreen print, from hand painted design. My earlier screen potent can be seen where they had marked the cloth.Design inspired by element of passion flowers, as part of ongoing study of this plant species. I love how this came out and like the tendrils.A productive few days work.My final and favourite piece was using cut paper and three colours.
I’ll be developing these pieces and creating with them so pop your email address in the box at the top of the page to see how they develop.
If you’re interested in this work here are other related textile work I’ve been busy with…
I had an idea to make a cheese plant, this was inspired by seeing the cheese plant when doing Yoga With Adriene. I didn’t want a cheese plant that would grow too big or might result in soil spilling onto the carpet, so decided that a mini one would be ideal.
My favourite fabric at present is satin, I love how the light catches it and used it recently for the Bird and Flowers Cushion. The cushion featured leaves and so I can recognise the idea flow through these projects.
The Bird and Flowers Cushion
Following this commission project I made a bookmark, a pretty lady emerged, and then an eye mask.
So botanics were a theme flowing, or should I say ‘growing’ through my work, largely this was inspired by Botanica – Encyclopedia of Inspiration by Uppercase Magazine, a book I love. My garden is also a huge source of inspiration and vital to my creative process.
Here’s the cheese plant creation process in a one minute video. Including a quick animation that I was inspired to make. This quickly shows the steps to creating the miniature cheese plant…
This video and my growing collection of art videos can be seen on my YouTube channel.
I’m really pleased with this outcome and eager to see where this leads on to, I have some ideas but not ready to share them just yet.
I wanted to make a really special and unique gift for a loved one, encapsulating all the things they love about Blackpool and the Lytham St. Annes in Lancashire.
I transferred carefully selected images to a range of fabric textures using sublimation and gel medium methods. Then stitched into the images before assembling them in a kind of patchwork.
I added hand painted seaside icons such as ice-creams, buckets and spades, fish and chips.
I included some of my own repeat pattern fabric designs and sewed into the design to represent the sea, rollercoasters, the beach and also to accentuate elements of the design.
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I chose a candy stripe fabric to represent rock and a fun ice lolly fabric for the reverse side of the cushion. Bright blue bias binding and zip really made the colours ‘pop’ in the design.
I’m delighted with the outcome, as is the recipient who hopefully will have many hours enjoying the images, detail and references which will evoke nostalgia, memories and encourage a new way of seeing a favourite place to visit.
As a small sofa-friendly project over the easter weekend I decided to embark on a small embroidered portrait of the little dog that spends some days with me.
I found a high res picture that really showed the detail, and began first to represent the darkest areas gradually and carefully colour matching the different tones with embroidery silks, and representing the different textures. I took a drawing in silks approach, using drawing techniques that I use in life drawings.
I was pleased with how the embroidery began to take on his likeness and reflect some of his character. I added a paw print, from a picture I captured of it whilst walking during a snowfall.As I liked how the portrait looked in the embroidery hoop I decided to turn that into the frame, giving it a collar effect using a football boot lace (ssshh!)
The little dog is a lhasa apso with a lovely coat and sooo cute. He’s a great little guy who it is fun company.
The little dog’s owner was really pleased with the picture and how it captured the detail of his face and coat.
This is not the first cute dog that I have had the pleasure of capturing in art, I previously used acrylic paint to illustrate a children’s book about a white dog called Sam who wanted to fly.
Its been a pleasure to share this story and its fab to have you here, please share my site with friends who’ll enjoy it x
I write my blog as story by story I’m logging my creative journey and writing my book. If you’d like to read the chapters as they are created you can follow this blog. It’s presently a small and select group but it would’ve lovely to have you join us. 😊
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I’m delighted with the outcome, as is the recipient who hopefully will have many hours enjoying the images, detail and references which will evoke nostalgia, memories and encourage a new way of seeing a favourite place to visit.
Early work by Kim 
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