I went into the haberdasher’s in Frankfurt after work today to buy thread ready for the thread painting on Dad’s portrait. I took little snippets of all the different fabrics with me. It would appear I used (at least) 33 different fabrics in the portrait. I would have guessed at a lower number than that if you had asked me. But here is the proof:

This was with a 13.3% discount for bulk purchasing I have 33.000 metres of thread. Should last a bit.

I reckon I’ve spent about 20 hours so far on the fabric collage part of this portrait. Today I’ve added the clothes and the chair Dad is sitting in. I thought I’d finished apart from the background, but when I looked at the image I realised I’ve not put the glasses on yet. I only intend adding the side arms of the frames and the thicker parts across the top and the bridge of the nose in fabric. The frame around the lenses will be done with thread painting.

I shall have to do some practice at thread painting before I attempt anything on the portrait. It’s not something I’ve done before.

I’ve finished the main part of Dad’s portrait now. I wasn’t going to work on it last night as I was quite tired. But I went to have a look at the progress I’d made the night before and the bug bit. I ended up working until 11:30 p.m. and got his hair on!

Today I’ve added the ear and finished off the neck, so the features are all done now. I “just” have the clothes and the background to do. And then the sewing starts. I shall probably have to make a trip to the haberdasher’s shop in Frankfurt next week to pick up the various colours of thread I shall need.

I am currently taking time out from doing my C&G course to take a class at Quilt University on Fabric Portraits. I’m taking my C&G at DesignMatters. Both are distance learning courses. Both courses are completely online. I never meet my tutor face to face and they never get to see my work in the real.

But there the similarities end. The learning environments are completely different. On my C&G course the course material is available online. It is well illustrated with plenty of photographs. The course itself is well structured with each module building on the ones that went before. There are also galleries presenting the work of students who have completed courses. My contact with my tutor is via email. I send her photos of my work and she replies with feedback. She is my only contact. I sometimes feel that I am working in isolation, although this is no criticism of my tutor. She replies quickly to my emails.

Quilt University is much more like a classroom situation. Each class runs over roughly 2 months and there can be as many as 40 students participating. The class is divided into 4 or 5 lessons, which open online on a weekly basis. The information is good with more text than for my C&G course, but maybe not so many photos, though this is of course a subjective impression. Accompanying each class are a discussion forum and student galleries. In the discussion forum every student can post questions. The tutor replies to them in the forum. At the same time students can send in photos of their work, which are published in the galleries. This format allows you to see what other students are doing, what their problems are, what solutions and tips are provided by the tutor. I find I learn an awful lot from seeing how others approach the same topic from a completely different angle.

I can’t say that one is better than the other. I have certainly learnt a huge amount so far from doing my C&G course. I have had to work far more independently. At the beginning I was a bit frustrated because a lot of the exercises seemed rather simple and at times almost childish, but I realise now that they were laying a foundation for the future. A course has to cater for all levels of ability, so it is not surprising that some things I find easy and others are more challenging. One result has been to open my eyes to the world around me. I see far more detail than I used to. Holiday photos have never been so abstract before

I enjoy the QU classes for the interaction with a group of people. Each class is complete in itself and tends to offer more detailed information on the actual doing. Another benefit of QU is that there are many different tutors, who all have their own style of teaching and work, so that again you see many different ways of approaching the same general topic.

So what’s my conclusion? I guess I shall continue to do both. I have at least another year to go before I’ve finished the work for the C&G Certificate. I am still undecided as to whether I will continue on to do the diploma or whether to maybe aim for a degree at the Open College of Arts or just do my own thing. Meanwhile I shall be keeping on eye on the QU classes and taking the odd course there that takes my fancy.

Despite it being a slow process making this portrait, I’m hooked. I’m spending about 2 1/2 hours an evening working on Dad’s portrait. It is quite satisfying to see it taking shape under my hands.

Here’s what I’ve achieved so far. It’s starting to look like him now.

Having spent all week using excuses like catching up with the washing and ironing after the holiday (how pathetic is that? ) to not get started on my fabric portrait, they finally ran out this weekend. I made a start yesterday (but also spent nearly 3 hours on the phone chatting). I have done some more today. It is slow work and extremely time consuming. I hope the end results are going to be worth it.

Here are is a photographic progress report.

I found this amazing project via Helen’s Down the Well blog.

You must go take a look!

And make a stopover at Helen’s blog. Also a fun read.

Hello readers - I’m back. If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been the answer is near Valencia, Spain. We’ve just got back from 2 weeks holiday there. We were really lucky - arrived in time for almost 2 weeks of great weather after the previous week of continuous rain. We had 24 hrs of rain before we set off back to Germany but that’s pretty good going for October in that area apparently.

On one of our trips into Valencia we spotted the traditional costumes of the area on sale in the El Corte Inglés Spain’s largest department store chain. Here are some of the off the peg models. They start at around 700€ for a small child and go up into the thousands for an adult.

You can even buy the complete historical underwear models to go with the outfit

They were also selling the fabric too and offered a made to measure service. The price of the fabric was mind boggling. I first thought it must be pure silk but no this was all man-made fibres.

And yes that does say 625€ and it wasn’t the most expensive fabric on offer!