Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

This month I'm lucky enough to have been chosen as the featured artist for Balaclafa, a small gallery in Caernarfon, North Wales. I'm always looking for opportunities to exhibit outside of my local area (Dorset) and thus spread the joy of my unique textile art all over the darn place, so to have been asked to show work so far afield is fantastic. I decided to show a mixture of some of my older work alongside the newer prints, brooches and cards that I've been creating. It was brilliant to rediscover some of these pieces that hadn't seen the light of day for a couple of years and I found it quite inspiring and reinvigorating to look over it all again. Without further ado, here are some pictures and thanks to Menna and all at Balaclafa for setting it all up and having my work there! Stickers and Mixed Media  Stickers, Temporary Tattoos and Mixed Media Textile Mask Cards, Prints and Mixed Media Textile Mask Temporary Tattoos, Stickers and Brooches ...

Whilst recently perusing an issue of Embroidery magazine in my university library (yes, really), I came across an article about Leigh Bowser , a super talented embroidery artist who makes ultra rad pop icon brooches in her Etsy shop. On investigating her work further, I found that she also runs an ongoing campaign / exhibition called  The Blood Bag Project , which raises awareness for Diamond Blackfan Anaemia . Anyone can take part in the exhibition and since I am not monetarily blessed I thought this was a really fun and unique way to contribute to a worthy cause, so I did: I liked the idea of trying to make the bag look like a real transfusion bag and then filling it with different textured textiley things which represented the blood; I used ribbons, wire, lace, foam hearts, fake flowers, fabric scraps, shaped sequins and handmade cords, I also made cords and braided them together to make the 'tube' which hangs down under the bag. These were made from yarn, some shiny, sli...