Activity ramping up

Lisa and Lucy spent a whole day printing half of my roller towel. They made a sterling job of a difficult task, printing on non-standard cloth that had been manually coated with fixative (rather  than coated by a commercial textile company).  I spent most of the day steaming and washing it.

How to lay out a 16m x 27 cm roller towel on a 5m x 130 cm steaming cloth 

How to ensure the printed strip does not transfer dye to itself.

Rolling ready for steaming.

I have been thinking about the difference between a degree and an apprenticeship.  One of my main criticisms of this degree is that, as a self directed learning qualification, we are not taught.  I found it very fulfilling today to pin out my fabric and learn how best to fit a long narrow length of cloth into the steamer.  If I were studying an apprenticeship, I would have been working with an experienced fabric worker, learning the techniques from someone who knew the 'one right way" of doing things, so that learning involved minimal waste of materials.  With self directed learning, it is usually much more wasteful of materials, because learners do things wrong because there is no-one around to instruct in best practice, or through ignorance.  Sadly, I identify strongly with this statement!

Best H&S practice:  Baker's gloves, sensible footwear,  nothing dangling that could get caught.
Mop ready to clean slip hazards.

Unrolling a hot steamy cloth.

Inspecting the cloth to see how it has fixed.

The moment of truth -
has the manually fixative-coated fabric successfully fixed the dye? 

I was delighted with the outcome, and started to come up with more ideas about how to present it.

The first idea was to just display on a acrylic pole, with a short, medium and long version.  Now I wonder about adding a cross stitched comment on the short one "bake for 30 minutes at Reg 4.  Or a cross stitched shopping list.   Or typical comments about her baking "Vegetables need to be cooked thoroughly"; "Potatoes need a lot of salt, or they won't be nice", "You can't make gravy without Bisto!", "I always make lemon merengue for his birthday".  Or where there are a couple of errant spots of dye - what about a couple of darns?   Hmm.  How much hand stitch can I do before the degree show, without knackering my neck?

Time to start thinking about Press Releases.

First draft is:

Cathy MacTaggart - "My Mother's Work"

Headlines Degree Show - 2-7 June 2014 1000-1600
Private View -  29 May 2004 1800-2200

In My Mother's Work Cathy MacTaggart has quietly challenged social conventions about gender politics and the domestic object.  She uses hand drawing to acknowledge the manual labour of her Mother, and applies the imagery to mundane textiles.  These textiles make a wry observation on how the work done by many women is seen, and illustrates the feelings derived from the traditional domestic role.

This collection aims to focus attention on women as an unsung group of workers and to give positive recognition to their contribution.  If this collection makes the audience think 'My Mum did that too', along with a wry smile of recognition, then, as a woman, Cathy MacTaggart has achieved her aim.