FITZ STITCH

The Fitzwillaim Museum Cambridge have started a community needlework project called Fitz Stitch, during the current Pandemic, to create a quilt made up of squares, each sewn by different people and all inspired by different items in the museum's collection. The finished quilt of 48 squares will be displayed in the Fitzwilliam Museum when it reopens.

I feel very lucky to be able to participate in this positive and creative joint effort. There has been an interesting online group meeting with other participants, who shared their ideas and proposed methods and tips from textile artist Lucy Mazur and Museum Education officer Sarah Blake.

I have chosen to take the woodcut print 'Irises and Grasshopper', by Japanese master print maker Katsuhiko Hokusai, as my inspiration. This is for several reasons: having recently started making my own inks and dyes from natural materials, I had been reading about making both dye and ink from Irises and with a plentiful supply in my garden I thought it would be great fun to experiment with this. Also, although I don't really use the Japanese woodcut method in my own woodcut printing, I am influenced by Japanese Art generally and a great admirer of Hokusai's work.

More on my not too scientific dye making findings and progress on creating my quilt square soon!