This is a handstitched drawing; 118 by 129 cm - black polyester thread on a recycled twill weave white cotton blanket. Recycling is very important to me, all the fabrics I use are recycled, cotton/ linen/flax/silk, the thread is the only thing I buy new.
My work is drawing and repetition and stitching. I stitch drawings, by hand. The initial concept for this work was as a much smaller drawing, in pen and ink, on paper. Some years ago I began reworking these drawings using textiles, stitching, thread.
Using thread the work takes on a very subtle and delicate 3D quality. Working these drawings is intense and the placing of each stitch is considered and deliberate, yet in spite of the slowness of the process each work moves and develops in its own way, takes on a life of its own: the stitches get tighter and closer together and create dense patches which take on the appearance of folds and creases, these then need to be 'loosened up', but then too 'loose' and the weave seems to sag. This is the fourth iteration of the ‘Plain Weave’ series and the largest (and slowest).'
