Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

Today's post is a little different than usual because I'm writing about something other than myself! On Wednesday I went with family to visit the American Museum in Britain; I was given a National Art Pass for Christmas and am trying to utilise it as much as possible - the AMiB is one of their places. whut meeee  The fancy gardens are being worked on at the moment so we didn't get to see a lot of those which was a shame. I did spot this rather lovely Art Deco-ey sculpture thingy though, which is maybe some kind of sundial...? My favourite parts were the Native American costume, with all its colours and patterns: And the Room of Many Quilts, especially this Thistle-Disguised-As-A-Pineapple quilt: is it a thistle? is it a pineapple? you decide And then I spotted a few hidden gems too such as this skull in a frieze: Wallpaper that understands and celebrates the glory of corn: Aaaand a quilted horsey! There was of course lots more things to see ...

The past few weeks have been very busy for me as I prepare for my very first proper craft fair. It's being organised by a team of my fellow Dorset-based Etsy sellers and there will be over 60 locally based stalls there selling crafts, arts, vintage and antique goods so it all sounds very exciting indeed! There's lots of elements for me to think about as it's my first one; such as how to present my stall, the equipment I need and packaging and marketing materials... and that's even before I've thought about all the stock that I'll need! With three days left to go I'm finally getting there, I've been checking things off my list, ironing tablecloths, etc. and I wanted to share a few of the new products I've been working on that will be featuring on my stall. First of all there's my new stickers: which come in two fabulous space age designs; 'Planet' and 'Cow Abduction', the latter of which is based on my original linocut, whi...

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 ...