Zhen Xian Bao

I mentioned during my post on the World Textile Day that I would be sharing the treasure I bought there and here it is. I was reminded as this afternoon someone is coming to photograph it for their own reference. Of course I can look at it anytime I want but it's always good to document textiles with pictures for future use.

I have been interested in Miao embroidery since the far off days when I did my City and Guilds Embroidery Course in the early nineties and have visited many exhibitions and have probably all the books ever published on the subject.The Miao are a minority ethnic group living in South West China who produce the most stunning textiles mainly for use on their traditional outfits.

It is only in recent years  however that I have become aware of the existence of these Zhen Xian Bao. They are made to store embroidery supplies such as needles and threads, patterns and the like. And they are made in an intricate folding technique. Above and below you can see the outside of this one and the amazing stitching on the cover that was the main attraction to make me buy it.

Below a detail, and it's a very close-up macro. This stitching is tiny. It seems almost impossibly small and intricate.

And then you fold it open as seen below. I love seeing the evidence of the human stitching hand in all the details and also love the fabrics that were used.

Opening it up further and more treasures are revealed. When I saw this I was lost and simply had to have this particular one.

It's fascinating to see how this is put together and it involves some very intricate folding methods as well as stitching. I'm hoping to make a folded version myself following the instructions in Ruth Smith's series of Folded Secrets booklets (you can order them from her by contacting her on eruthsmith@btinternet.com)

 I'll leave you to enjoy the details! 

I treasure every detail, even the dust inside! And of course all the different fabrics used inside and out.

World Textile Day Scotland

I spend an immensely enjoyable day at the World Textile Day Scotland in Bridge of Allan. Apart from indulging shamelessly in textile buying I also obtained a true treasure of a book/purse which I will share you with you very soon and a wonderful beaded necklace from Africa. The other wonderful thing about these days (they occur annually, the next one being on the 20th June 2015) are the talks. First of all there was John Gillow (I am the happy owner of some of the fabrics he collected and sold in the past) telling us about the textiles of the Islamic world. You can see one above but I didn't take many pictures and instead bought his book (John Gillow. Textiles of the Islamic World).

In the afternoon we had Martin Conlan, owner of Slow Loris Textiles, talking about the ritual cloths of South West China, belonging to the Miao and Lao among other tribes, and the remaining pictures feature pieces from his collection. Photography wasn't easy as the room was quite dark but I wanted to capture some of the essence of his talk. It was from him that I bought my treasure. There was no way I was going to leave it behind regardless of cost. I can always starve myself! I'll dedicate a blog post entirely to that in the coming days, depending on what else is going on here.

In the meantime these textiles should be enough inspiration for anyone.

 

I was ready to pack my bags at the end of the talks and go forth on my own travels around the world to discover more textile treasures but sadly as a woman this is a much harder task and specially John Gillow has travelled through places to collect his textiles that at the moment are no-go areas for anyone, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria etc. It was wonderful to hear about his adventures.

Sorry that the quality of the pictures isn't great and not as sharp as could be. I had aperture times of 1/4 second to contend with.

 

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World Textile Day Scotland

What could be better on a dreich, wet and foggy day than to go and feast your eyes on colourful textiles while at the same time enjoying some fabric (and other!) retail therapy as well as meeting up with like-minded friends?. This happy event was the World Textile Day Scotland taking place in Bridge of Allan. The highlight of the day was no doubt the talk by John Gillow about African and Asian Costume and all the pictures seen in this post are from the examples he showed us.

Most of these pictures were taken while the textiles in question were resting on my knees which explains why not all of them are prefect but for us, textile artists, they will form great source material both for design and techniques.

You won't be surprised to hear that it's the surface embellishment such as the beading and the metal thread work (such as seen above) that stole my heart every time.

But there is also a connection to the (mostly) women who produced these pieces of art, because that's really what they are, although they were originally made to be worn. These women may be far removed from us by both space and time but we are united in our endeavours to make something beautiful with our hands.  And they were better at it than us. Some of the work is minute and you can only wonder how their eyes coped. Their  tools too were far inferior to what we have to work with and yet they produced miracles with what they had at their disposal.

 Just the different patterns achieved with simple stitching are astonishing

 and you'll have to take my word for the fact that the above example of needle lace was little more than 1cm (1/4") long and wide.

 gorgeous satin stitching and the orange was almost giving off light

This was my favourite (and thus became my blip today). The buttons are plastic but oh, the effect of them all together combined with more beading in white and the many different coloured cottons made my heart sing!

 A wonderful peacock

 And more multi-coloured embroidery in the shape of shisha (that's the mirrors) work.

Just see how truly tiny that stitching is if you compare it to the size of the buttons on the left which are less than 1/2" (1cm) in size.

 This looks very much like a figure on the photograph although I didn't realize that when I was taking the picture

 And the patterns in this flow so beautifully over the surface

This was my very close second favourite piece. It features my favourite shape of all time, the circle, and has wonderful decorations with buttons, beads and metal elements. It was to be found on the same piece of work as the picture below

 which has more minute stitching. The white button embellishment around the shapes made me think of how I decorate with beads along the binding of my journal quilts and I'm sure that somewhere along the way this must be where my idea originally came from. I have quite a collection of foreign embroidery pieces myself (many bought from John Gillow!) and look at them regularly for inspiration.

And finally a piece of woven bead work and the randomness of the colour distribution makes it so much more attractive to the eye, at least my eye.

John Gillow spend most of his adult life travelling the world, buying and selling textiles and is a world expert on the subject. If you want to find out more, he has written many books which not only have stunning photographs but are full to the brim with information about the when, where and how of the textiles featured. You can find his books here.

Yes, before you ask, I did indeed spend a fortune, not just on more fabrics but also on some outfits which proved irresistable, and all that more than justified the very tedious drive back in thick (and I mean THICK) fog. Hope this event will be repeated next year. I for one can't wait.