Imperial Festival

 As you may know I am one of the artists in residence with Imperial College London working mainly with the vascular surgery unit. On the weekend of the 28th April I will be taking part in their annual festival where the public are allowed in to see what happens in the college.

                                         http://www.imperial.ac.uk/festival/

  The work that I have done called 'The Textile Body' will be there on show to discuss and explore with the public.
  I also talk about this piece and my experience as an embroiderer working with surgeons on this blog,

                                         http://threadmanagement.blogspot.co.uk/

and I assure you it is suitable for the squeamish !!!! and it is the fact that it is not squirmy that we will be demonstrating  in the Queens Tower rooms at the South Kensington campus near the Victoria and Albert museum.

Please come and say hello!

Shiny and New

  Yes, all shiny and new, that is to say that my website has got lots of new images on!  All of the stumpwork leaves and Gleipnir and Sheela-na -Gig and Goblin Market and some things for sale too!
  Where work is for sale it is clearly priced and you can simply contact me through the website for that (see the 'about ' button at the bottom).

Fleur Oakes.com

Silk henge

  My last piece in this series, the silk henge charm. A little while ago there were some remarkable images in National Geographic of this odd little structure found in the Amazon jungle.Soon it was found that it was in fact an undiscovered spider's web. If you are not troubled by spiders here is the film of what they saw .
  As natural structures are a favourite with me I could not resist recreating this web as a protective  charm. The centre is the creche so to speak of this little critter and how she has managed to evade the gaze of mankind for so long I do not know but good for her.
 And so this is the series complete, click on 'charms' in the labels menu to the right to see them all.

A witch's ladder

 These mysterious objects are usually made with any yarn or string with chicken feathers threaded through the fibres along its length. The idea is that each feather is put in with 'intention' and that is activated when the feather is removed.
 My ladder is for escaping your troubles, my string was made on a lucet with fine embroidery thread and my feathers are from owls and pheasants (donated not stolen!).
  This is the fourth from my series of charms.

Vein charm

  The third in my series of modern charms, the vein charm. I have copied a bifurcated vascular stent in silk organza and thread with enamelled wire and gold plated beads. These are in fact made by hand for surgeons in Mexico by workrooms of women stitching by hand using gortex and suturing thread:the gold is so that it can be clearly positioned under x-ray.
  I began reading the Kalevala a few years ago and was struck by how many charms were used during the saga.These are generally poems or songs requesting help from the natural world and one was particularly fascinating; the hero's mother has to reassemble her son(!) and sings him back together, at one point singing a vein charm.Remarkable in itself but more so the level of anatomical knowledge in the song !
 Mine was not easy, a case of wrong tools and wrong materials but nevertheless I produced this little number (3x8cm).

Gleipnir, a magical rope

 The rope to bind Fenrir the wolf is complete and now becomes the next piece in my series of charms,the first being 'Sheela-na-Gig', a charm against crazy people. Gleipnir is a binding charm for beasts of all kinds.

more charms to come..........

Happy Christmas to you all!

Gleipnir: a bear's nerves

Nerves look more like white elastic but here I made a furry bear coloured twin stemmed piece.

Now the set is complete and the rope to bind Fenrir is ready to be made.....

Gleipnir: a fly's saliva

'difficult not to be a little disgusted by this one! But then I got to use some super fine stainless steel thread and my favourite off centre beads.

The steel thread is caught into the stitches all along the stem, gathering in the bends and meanders.

(if this is you first sight of this piece please read the previous posts to make sense of it all!)

Gleipnir: a fish's breath

  Embroidering a fish's breath ...........air passing through red gills,bubbles rising.

Gill red thread stitches between each silver bead as it loops around,some grow into gills of their own.

Gleipnir: a cat's footsteps

and so we come to the footsteps of a cat. A silent thing, an invisible thing. Four little shadow paws grew from the stem using chaining buttonhole stitches and they don't make a sound.