Naseem Darbey- textile/embroidery workshop at Bowes Museum

I have just returned from a lovely day learning how to use water soluble film and a sewing machine to create interesting free sewn lace/embroidery.

A few months ago I visited  the preview for Naseem's wonderful exhibition of  beautiful machine embroidered lace 3D textile sculptures, at Bowes Museum (the second most popular post on my blog!!) She returned today to explain to a group of fifteen how and why she had produced this display, as well as teaching us the techniques she had utilised.

Naseem is a lovely, enthusiastic and inspirational teacher. She has boundless patience and energy and somehow managed to explain everything, keep on top of all of our efforts and find time for each of us. She had ensured that everything we needed (apart from machines, which were our own) was available and kept the day running at a fast but easy to follow pace.

We began with a short lecture on her work in the Textile Gallery followed by some drawing exercises , which we used to create our own free machine embroidered pieces.

Unfortunately my pictures of Naseem and the group did not work.  However, Naseem very kindly gave me permission to photograph her work. They do not do it justice, but I hope they give a flavour of it's beauty.

The darkened textile gallery has various pieces displayed against illminated screens with what appear to be shadows. This is intential but the shadows are infact photographs, as the original display space  in Cliffe Castle Museum did not have the appropriate lighting.

Various garments have been produced related to phrases and script in letters Naseem found in the castle archives.  They were written by Mary Louise Roosevelt Burke Butterfield, who lived in Paris to her husband in England.  This chemise actually traces her handwriting. 

Mary Louise was a part of a circle of rich women who lived and entertained in Paris. This tiara is based on one from the same period.

This is an anotomically correct, internally lit heart, which as a stake driven through it. this is not  a reference to vampires, but to a sentence from another letter. She was pleading with him to return to her "if your heart is not nailed to Cliffe Hall."

Naseem runs similar courses and others, related to figure machine drawing and printing , for students and groups of individuals, in West Yorkshire. Details may be found on her website., http://www.naseemdarbey.com/
 I can thoroughly recommend them after todays experience.