Created and Developed By Sandy Snowden

An exploration of incorporating fashion samples into art

International Quilt Festival
Houston, 2005

Patchwork and Quilting Expo
Lyon, France, 2006

A Page from My Book: Journal Quilts 2004

A Page from My Book: Journal Quilts 2006

Since I am working towards my City and Guilds qualification in Fashion, and I need to do a lot of samples, I want to see how I can incorporate sample type techniques into my artwork. So, this month I chose zips (Along with all the various beads, semiprecious stone chips, and whatnot that usually find their way into my pieces!). It seemed to fit the personal feel of the month, as well; as in several different areas of my life, it feels like things are only just being held together, and I only hope God helps me take the strain.

This month was still very difficult, but we began to see the sunlight through the trees as it were, and God started filling in gaps. The background fabric here (from Val Bennett of Farne Designs; as was last month) reminded me of looking through the treetops to the sky. Besides inserting patches of sunlight, my samples were of machine techniques like twin needle, bobbin work, and machine faggot stitch.

This time I chose to do various pockets for the sample. I thought it was a good way to represent the way hidden talents have started coming to light, and God has begun to do things that give a much more cheerful outlook. The background is Val’s again, but the pink shows an interesting effect I discovered when trying some of my own dyeing.

April -

I have been trying rust dyeing. At first, I didn't like the fact that it was so orange.  I decided to embellish the cloth attempting to use the anomalies made by the rust. I started liking it more when paired with green wire spring-like bullion and beads. I think this is a good example of how something that might be considered destructive (rust), can be turned into something special.

I had to do pleats for May, since a few other wrinkles have developed in areas of our lives. However, with a much better outlook, you can see that God can make even things like that work out for good. The pleated muslin came from the blouse C+G project I did a couple years ago. I also thought I would see how unconventional materials would work for binding. Quite fun, really! The feathers are from a costume project a few years ago. I don’t think I will ever use them all up!

June -

I found a wonderful mother of pearl circle in a bead shop in London. This, paired together with layers of dyed wool blanket and twisted bugle beads. Represents some of the warm fuzzies of this past month.

July-

A friend of ours from Nigeria died this month. However, even though he was unwell, he never seemed to make a big deal of it... Always very positive. We had the privilege of helping his family with the funeral service. His wife, from Zimbabwe is a very dear lady.   Hand-dyed fabric with similar effect as mentioned in March. Beads, Buttons and plastic embellishment leaves.

August-

Experimenting with a technique found in Stitch magazine, which involves fusing fabrics, chopping them up, and fusing them, and chopping them up, and...so on - bit like life really. I used red, burgundy, and grey. It looked so much like my migraines feel, I couldn't believe it. The glue struck through the burgundy, as it was lining fabric, so I fused a red sheer on top, FMQ'd it down and then blasted it with a heat gun, which gave a crispy feel...now it felt like the inside of my head, as well as looking like it!

A difficult month for America, so I wanted to express it with all the raw edges and a few buttonholes. But, maybe those people, too, will discover - like I have this year - that you can see very special things happen.  When you put it together with the rough stuff, you look at yourself and your life and see it actually makes something rather beautiful.