Exhibition ‘Summer Idyll’
by Nicola Whayman
When the open call from Fox Yard Studio came out for their Summer Idyll exhibition my ‘Nettles-Loved By Insects’ piece had to be entered. June brings the time of year to harvest nettles and so the last couple of weeks I have been seen walking through the village with the dogs and a handful of nettle stems.
Back at home it’s coffee time and then I sit down with an old rolling pin and chopping board to start the process of extracting the fibres from the nettles. The fibres are wrapped around the outside of the core, so the stem has to be stripped and split so the wooded centre can be removed to leave you the fibres. As I use it for cordage I don’t want the fibres too fine and so I split each stem into 4 strands of fibres. These are hung to dry out which only takes 24 hours and then they can be made into cordage. These are enjoyable long warm summer days, harvesting nettles ready to be used throughout the winter. My piece used the nettle leaves to create a dye bath for my fabric and threads, and ink to print with, then the fibres I weaved to suspend in front.
Watch the video on Nicola’s Instagram:
Over the past 2 years I have been growing lavender and this is in flower at exactly the same time in June as I’m harvesting the nettles. Sitting with my coffee surrounded by lavender it only felt right to also put in my piece called ‘Summer Breeze’ into the exhibition. This has been created with natural dyed fabrics from plants I grew last year in my dyeing garden. Enjoying the slow rhythm of hand stitching in the sunshine, I then had a play with these lavender heads, seeing how they weaved well together I then created a piece to suspend in front of my stitched work. This piece was chosen for the exhibition flyer.
The exhibition is on from 3rd July 6pm Reception until Friday 10th July
It will be good to hear your comments!