Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

Towards the end of last year I was working with the National Trust's Kingston Lacy  on their 'Creative Christmas' project for December 2018. Myself and two other artists selected female members of the Bankes Family  to represent via handmade decorations, which were then placed around the house as part of the Christmas festivities. This was the second project I've done based on the Bankes Family (the first being  Threads of Narrative ), so I feel fairly well acquainted with the family now. This time I based my pieces on Anne Bankes , who was the sister of William John Bankes , a stained glass artist in her own right and after William John's exile she took on much of the work overseeing the refurbishment of Kingston Lacy. Not a lot of detail about her life is known, however I was able to take a few of her personal letters, portraits and some photos to design a print in homage to her: I had this digitally printed onto velvet and cotton in two colourways, the cott...

Yesterday was the official opening and Private View of the Textile Textures exhibition at Walford Mill Crafts , which some of my work is featured in. I feel very pleased and privileged to be included amongst some truly talented and established names in the world of Textile Art and this has given me a great lift, personally and professionally. Sometimes as a graduate you feel a bit lost out in the 'real world; but being included in an exhibition is an undeniable step in the right direction! Here's some pictures from the gallery: An overview of my zone: The 3D beadwork sampler I wrote about previously : Another strange, alien landscape textured drawing: Deep Sea Viper hand embroidery with audio reactive LED circuit (I program and install all the lights and circuitry myself): Hullo, I eat batteries Some hand embroidery n fluff n stuff: A framed textural drawing / investigation: Laser cut bugs in the window! Note to self: make more of these Sketch book...

It's Easter half term and that means lots of kid's craft clubs to teach at Walford Mill Crafts! I started off my classes by making curly paper snails: Brian This was part of a 'speed-crafting' activity we put on for a local school wherein the children had 3 craft activities to do in 20 minute intervals. We had a theme of Easter / Garden and I decided to keep mine fairly simple since there's usually a range of abilities and it was such a limited time frame. Next, back at the Mill, we hosted a children's crafty birthday party for a little girl where the kids made jewellery and decorated boxes to keep their jewels in.  Caroline  created hand printed, cut and dyed butterflies and seahorses from aluminium for the girls to make into necklaces... and I was lucky enough to be given a leftover seahorse to make my own beautiful mermaid jewels (thanks Caroline)! Neigh-thanial Here's some of the boxes that the kids made: As you can see they had an Easter ...

I've now started teaching some of the children's craft clubs on saturdays and at half term at Walford Mill Crafts. There's definitely been some trial and error on my part with regard to learning the limits of what children can do creatively (e.g. I learnt the hard way that most of them cannot tie knots) and what they're willing to do (e.g. how long their attention span lasts)! But I feel that I'm making good progress now and my confidence with the teaching part is on the up. Next big task: remembering all their names!!! This weekend we made floral wreaths. The children have to be able to finish their project within an hour and a half so the class has to be fairly simple... but not so simple that it's boring. I decided to cut the wreath / doughnut shapes out of paper plates and let the kids decorate them using coloured paper, templates I had created and pens, pencils, stickers, pom poms and buttons. Here's the example that I made: I tried to use differen...