Medium rare

Gemma Kelmanson - felting technique

As textile artists, our sense of touch is almost as important as visual stimuli.  This month the Textila 3 group talk about their favourite medium and explain why it is important to them.

My favourite medium to work with is a multitude of threads and yarns. I especially love the Wonderfil range at the moment because of the quality, intense colours and matte, shiny and glitter variety of thread. They are a delight to sew with.  I enjoy mixing all of these threads together to create luscious and colourful texture on my work surface. Susie

Wool and viscose felt is a dream to stitch on - soft to handle and the needle slides through it like a warm knife through butter. It doesn’t fray and you don’t need to put it in a frame. I can spend hours delighting in the sensuality of soft wool against my fingers and the gentle rhythm of stitch that glides without effort ..... Jo

My favourite medium at the moment is darn weaving with mulberry silk threads & random other yarns to see what happens. I have had some interesting results especially with the tags that come from the inside of blouses to keep on hangers.  Julie 

Currently I’m layering and stitching strips of sheer, fine and open weave fabrics onto prefelt, then washing felt the base layer - it creates lovely textures to stitch into! Gemma

At the moment my favourite technique is mono printing using wild flowers.  I am experimenting on old bits of cotton, linen and canvas.  I love the unpredictable nature of this process as the results differ greatly and often guide my work in a new direction.  Catherine W

I have a couple of projects on at the moment. Family portraits inspired by Sue Stone. These are a time to work projects so I have zakka stitching projects for when I am in the garden, little bit of gardening little bit of stitching. New year challenge to learn about folk art and I can do this by putting bits of thread, bit of linen in a bag and take inspiration from the garden. Maggie

Silk-viscose devoré fabrics are some of my favourites – the take dyes beautifully, creating jewel-coloured fabrics.  Using a two-stage dye process I can colour the silk element differently to the viscose which gives me a huge variety colours and effects.   Claire