Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

I haven't posted on here in quite some time due to sheer complete and utter busy-bee-ness; there are a few very good reasons for this, which I will now explain! Gathering The first and probably most significant is that I've been working on a huge Textile commission with artist Lisa Earley  about the Bankes Family of Dorset in conjunction with  Walford Mill Crafts  and the Dorset History Centre . So most of my spare time has been spent researching in the archives, handling documents from as early as the 1200s, interpreting these documents into craft pieces and all the various admin that goes along with such a project. We've also been working with our local communities; making work with local school and college students as well as independent craft groups to involve the public and raise awareness of the archive. The results of this commission will be in an exhibition called 'Threads of Narrative', opening in March 2018. In the meantime you can follow our progre

Over the past month I've been teaching and assisting with quite a few kids craft classes as part of the summer spark program, so this post is to show off a few of the things we've been up to. A lot of these are sea themed to coincide with our current 'By The Sea' exhibition at Walford Mill Crafts . One of the first was this 'jumpin' jellyfish' workshop that I led: These were made from the plastic dome lids of fancy smoothie cups, decorated with coloured tissue and glitter, with scraps of fabric, ribbon and yarn for tentacles and strung onto a decorative stick with elastic to make them jump up n down! Another workshop I ran was a hand sewing workshop for 8+ year olds. Although I'd never done this before and had some reservations about how it would work, it went really well, the kids were fantastic and really enjoyed it and also made some fabulous felt sea creatures: I gave them stencils to cut the patterns out from, but the rest of the work was

Yesterday I had a day's takeover at the Nutty Parrott  Studio at Walford Mill Crafts. The studio is the shared space of Caroline Parrott  and Wendy Nutt , who are both lovely and extremely talented ladies! During my takeover, I (wo)manned the shop for them and was able to use the space to create some of my own work too. Here's me outside the studio: Nutty Appley Parrott? And here's the bug brooches that I was working on whilst I was there: Buggies These will be available to buy soon from my Etsy store, or directly from me. They are designed from one of my original illustrative drawings, then laser cut onto specially chosen materials (wood and acrylic) in a fabulous colour pallet, then the bug brooches are hand finished with a hand painted, handmade bead and a handmade tassel all made by me! I also 'embroider' them a bit with patterns through holes in their bodies. These are really fun, oversized statement jewellery, not intended for the faint of heart! B

My time at the  New Carnival Company  has come to an end. I'm now back home in Dorset, feeling a little discombobulated after the Mardi Gras yesterday but very grateful and happy to have been involved in this incredible event! On Friday we focussed on finishing Gina's elephant. When I arrived in the morning she had already made him tusks and eyelids: Gina and George / Ellie / Bob I started the day by making heck loads of ruffles from sequinned fabric: Sequince We also had a make-up artist come in and test out face painting ideas on us for the next day. It was nice to have a mini pamper after we'd been working such long hours! Then Gina and I draped a headdress for him which was upcycled from a duvet cover: And I used my sewing skills to sew that and the ruffles together while Gina finished the details and decorated him beautifully: Later I finished a few little touches for my peacock costume (leg cuffs and final headdress adjustments) and was very surprised

We've been pulling some early mornings and late nights at the  New Carnival Company  to get ready for  Mardi Gras  on Saturday. I've been making very good progress on my peacock costume, which is great as it means I won't be naked during the parade!!! Ooh er! On tuesday we were all very happy and excited in the morning because the NCC were granted their creative programme funding from the Arts Council! Congratulations NCC! Here's Gina pouring out our celebratory breakfast: Aw yisss! Here's me enjoying it: Yayaya! I worked on my headpiece, arranging the various feathers out carefully before the final Gluing: Here's a rare photo of me enjoying the feathered headpiece: In the end I trimmed down that very tall middle feather slightly as it was a bit obnoxiously long(!) and added an extra blue piece in the middle of the base structure. This is what they (in carnival-land) refer to as the 'Rio' style headpiece; e.g. an explosion of feathers