Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

Threads of Narrative is still running at  Walford Mill Crafts  and will be staying there until 22nd April, having been extended due to popular demand (or something)! After the original opening date was postponed due to the snow, it's great that more people will be able to see the work during the extra time. After it's finished at Walford Mill, the show will be moving on just up the road to  Kingston Lacy  - the last home of the Bankes family - where it will be on display for even more people to see! I'm really looking forward to seeing my work placed in the home of the family it was inspired by and will be so proud to see it there. More details of this exciting development to come! Without further ado, here's some photos of our launch event (photos by Steve and Sarah Appleton): Lots of people came along (thank you if you were one of them), including Jude the dog! 'My Own Darling Mummy' - Sarah Appleton 'Apron Strings' - Sarah Appleton ...

I've been a bit rubbish at posting blogs so far this year, this is mainly due to finishing all the work off for the Threads of Narrative exhibition, which opens this week at Walford Mill Crafts in Wimborne. If you've missed my previous posts about this project, you can read a bit more about the beginnings  here ; but in a nutshell the project is a textile exhibition about the Bankes Family of Dorset. Now all the work is complete and up I have more free time to talk about it... or at least post pictures! Here are the two main pieces I've made: My Own Darling Mummy This is the pink neoprene dress I posted about previously, now complete with lights, words and frills. I'm pleased with how it turned out; as with any project there are things I would have liked to have added or improved if I'd had more time, but time just trickled away with this huge commission and I had to end it somewhere! Here are a couple more pictures, I will of course take higher quality shots...

I did some work with the Year 6 pupils at a school in Puddletown in December and the headteacher was impressed enough to mention my visit in their Parish Magazine!  I really enjoyed making coded postcards with the kids and am looking forward to seeing them all in the exhibition this March!

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...