"Using a real location of your choice, learn how to create a stitched map from the design stage to a painted, stitched and appliquéd cotton panel..."
Kate Tarling
Stitched Map Lampshade with Machine embroidery,
Silk Paint & Appliqué
3 days: 9th-11th August 2027 Fee: £390.00
Using a real location of your choice, learn how to create a stitched map from the design stage to a painted, stitched and appliquéd cotton panel ready to transform into a 20cm lampshade.
Before coming to the class, students should consider the landscaped map they would like to create. The finished piece will be approximately 65x20cm so the map you make needs to work to these proportions: a long narrow rectangle shape. You might choose an area which has meaning for you and linked to special memories or simply because you like the lines, colours and shapes of a particular landscape. It’s also helpful to think about how the stitched map will ultimately wrap around a cylinder. There are some images attached as examples of landscapes that work well.
Coastlines are a favourite feature of mine but it might be you choose a long road, a river or a woodland walk, however, one focal feature which runs all the way along does work well. Also bear in mind that silk paints are very fluid and bleed easily so watery landscapes are sympathetic to this medium. Bring several map options if you’re not sure. You can bring maps you’ve printed out yourself from satellite images, photos of an area for colour reference or paper maps of areas you’d like to stitch.
During the class we will discuss design and layout and make sure the map works both practically for the painting and stitching but also aesthetically as a beautiful piece of stitched art.
We’ll create trace paper designs to work from but these can be a loose interpretation. Perhaps you might like your finished lampshade to have a more abstract appearance? Once you start stitching lines of contrasting colour onto the painted surface sometimes maps take on a life of their own so it’s important to trust the process, go with the flow and allow your own style and interpretation to shine through.
There are multiple stages to the process, starting with the design, then moving onto transferring the design to the fabric. We will discuss colour and colour mixing and you’ll create your own palette of colours before applying them to the fabric. From there we will move onto the freehand embroidery. It’s helpful if you’re practiced with freehand embroidery but I will offer guidance along the way. Once the main lines and shapes of the landscape are done we can add stitched appliqué of painted silk shapes and some hand embroidery for texture.
Finally the finished panel can be cut to size and prepared for wrapping around a lampshade kit.
Key skills you’ll learn how to:
- Freehand machine embroider to add shape, form and texture.
- Mix up silk paints and create your own palette of colours.
- Draw up and transfer a design from paper to fabric.
- Learn about scale and design choices.
- Appliqué, silk and hand couching and embellishment techniques.
- Making your own lampshade.
Materials
Kate will supply the silk paints and brushes and provide a pack including cotton fabric, stabiliser, silk fabric, tracing paper and a lampshade kit. The cost for this will be £18.00.
ABOUT KATE
Kate Tarling is a self-taught textile artist from Bristol.
She learnt hand embroidery as a child after stumbling across her mother’s wallet of silk threads. By working through a little handbook of step-by-step embroidery stitches she taught herself how to master the basics and that love of embroidery never left her. In later life she discovered freehand machine embroidery and it is via this discipline that she now works.
With a background in geography and journalism, Kate never had any formal training in textiles and yet her map work reflects her early career. Her maps are all about a sense of place and, by stitching memories into a landscape, she sews in the connections that we all make with our surroundings. Most of the maps she now makes are commissioned and held in private collections all over the world.
She was attracted to mapping after casting about for an idea for what to give her father for his birthday and, remembering his love of cartography, she made him a map featuring his home in the Malvern Hills. Storytelling is at the heart of all her maps and this desire to give each map its own heart and soul determines the direction of the design and subsequent decisions about scale, shape and size.
There are numerous processes to her map-making which include research and design work, silk painting, freehand machine embroidery, appliqué and hand embroidery.
When stitching she uses her needle like a pen and her threads as inks, drawing on the shapes and lines to gradually build up the design. It’s a slow process which can take many days and sometimes weeks to complete.
Turning her maps into one-off lampshade designs gave her another way to exhibit her work and the bonus of being both functional and beautiful.
Clients discover her work via social media such as Instagram where she has a large following, but also by word of mouth or by reading about her work.
She has been featured in magazines and books both in the UK and across Europe and was commissioned this year to make a map wall hanging for a gold medal award winning garden at Chelsea Flower Show.
