Barb's Spirit Song: Inspiration

Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Come have a cuppa with me and be inspired

Come join me.

Would you like Tea, Coffee, Hot Chocolate....

I'm having Chai

Get comfy and come exploring with me....

First up, go and have a look at this new free E-Zine called Textile Arts Quarterly.

For some TAST 2 (Take a Stitch Tuesday) inspiration go to CJ33's Flickr page to see her Embroidery from the first TAST.

Also Camzy's Flickr page has some amazing TAST embroidery.

And Kay Susan's TAST pieces show many interesting variations of stitches.

To see some more gorgeous stitching go here to Mrs Kitty's page on the Hand Embroidery Network.

Now for some Textile Art:

It was a nice surprise to stumble across this colourful Needlefelted Textile Art piece by KoolKookyKreatures

To see some amazing talent go to Moy Mackay's Gallery. Her felted pieces look like beautiful paintings. She has come up with an inovative idea of having an exhibition of her Scottish landscapes available as an application that can be downloaded onto iphones. We have an ipod so it should be able to be downloaded onto that as well. For the details go to her blog post.

To see a Flickr Mosaic of the gorgeous Fibre Art of Karen Cattoire go here. If you would like to see lots more of Karen's work go to her Flickr site. She is an amazing talented Textile Artist.

To see lots of beautiful colourful Fabric Art creations go to Molly Jean Hensons Flickr site. If you would like to find out more about Molly go to your blog Creative Life and Times.

How about some Painting and Mixed Media:

I love these whimsical folkart paintings by Karla Gerard. To see a gallery of her work go to her flickr site.

Find lots of creative inspiration from Love Stitching Red's many Flickr Mosaics

And for the grand finale of our little adventure go to Art Trader Magazine where you can download these free e-zines. Issue 6 has an article on Karen Cattorie who was featured above.

Now that should keep you nice and busy! Hopefully it has your creative juices flowing.

Thank you for coming along on this little cybertrip with me. I hope you had as much fun as I did. You'll have to come for a cuppa again with me soon!

Thursday, 7 May 2009

Guatemalan Textiles

I love fabric and embroidery from other countries. I have been reading Rayela's Fiber Focus blog and came across her posts on Guatamala. There are some posts on there from Erin, who has an Etsy shop called La Chapina. She sells wonderful packs of Scrap sampler Huipil patches. I ordered one as I wanted to have some interesting pieces to use in my stash.

They came with a cute little worry doll.

They are all so colourful and interesting. I'm going to incorporate them into different pieces that I do.

I went on Dalene's blog - Art4sol today and saw that she has also purchased a pack of these and she has done a post on this today. I hope Darlene doesn't mind that I've also done a post. It's abit like show and tell - I wanted to show mine too. Darlene does some really lovely work, so it will be interesting to see what she uses these for.

I wanted to find out some more about Guatamalan Textiles so I got these two books out of the Library while I was waiting for the pack to arrive.

This book is one of the books in the Fabric Folios series (a great series). Its full of vibrant photos of Guatemalan Textile pieces with explanations of the techniques. The introduction presents interesting background information on materials used, principal techniques, patterns and symbolism plus more. This is a large hardcovered book. Its a beautiful book that covers Textiles from the areas of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand; Orissa, Rajasthan and Gujarat; Mexico and Guatemala; Panama; Romania and Benin. It is full of lots of "Eye Candy". There are many photos of traditional costumes, people and beautiful fabrics. It is written as a Textile Tour of the world where you are transported to each country as she writes about her travels, details about people she meets and her experiences with lots of background information included. It will be hard parting with this one!

Sunday, 8 March 2009

Indian Sensations

This is a piece I've started on, which is inpired by India. There's lots more embroidery on it still to come.

India is so rich in beauty, colour, culture, religion, amazing textiles and architecture. Although I haven't been there before it is one place that inspires me creatively. So I wanted to do a post that celebrated all these wonderful aspects of India and gives lots of inspirational avenues to explore the many aspects of Indian style.

So sit back, pour yourself a cup of Chia, put your speakers on, imagine you are wrapped up in an exotic embroidered sari in your favourite colour and let yourself slip through space and time into a land of enchantment, visiting ancient temples, taking in the aromas of the many spices in the Indian Bazaars and let your spirit dance to the beat of the drums....

Photo Credits

Click on photo credits and click on the links to go to each of the various photographers sites. You can find many amazing photos of India on Flickr.

More amazing Indian photos from various photographers can be found on my flickr favourites page.

Explore the many Indian Inspired books:

Also some books I want to get The Techniques of Indian Embroidery and Indian Embroidery.

Watch these wonderful films:

Slumdog Millionaire

Monsoon Wedding

A Passage to India

The Darjeeling Limited

Spend some time looking at India through others eyes - explore these blogs and websites: (click on the names to go to the sites)

Deezden - Dithi does beautiful Indian art work and her blog is so colourful and inspiring

I'd Rather Be in India - Tiggy writes about her visits to India, her second home. Her dyeing, stitching and teaching are inspired by her love of India.

Rang - The Colours of Life

The Indian Road Romeo

Indian Embroidery Styles

Indian Yarn

Once Upon a Tea Time

An Indian Summer