Friday 7 October 2011

Afghanistan Inspiration

At the Creative Stitches show in Glasgow in March I was really impressed by an excellent project called Afghanistan Inspiration.

This is a scheme whereby women in Afghanistan embroider 8 x 8 cms square panels which are then sold in Europe with the intention that they will be integrated into a larger piece of work. 

In addition, a number of these squares on the theme of jugs, dishes, pots etc were used by textile artists from all over the UK to be sewn into larger pieces.  These were available for sale to raise more money to help the Afghan women, and one in particular really appealed to me.  The exhibition toured for several months, so I've only recently received the piece I had reserved.


Entitled 'Water Birds' it was sewn by Liza Green from Edinburgh.  She has made a very clever piece inspired by the square sewn in Afghanistan which shows a bird beside water jugs. 

The stitching is done on a very lightweight, sheer fabric and, as it hangs in our hallway, it wafts beautifully every time I pass by.  Threads hang down from the fallen bottle at the bottom as if water is cascading from the picture.  The photo really doesn't do justice to the beauty of the piece.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Kate - I'm so glad you like my work. Thanks for the kind comments and I hope you enjoy it for years to come. I really enjoyed the project and have made several pieces of work on the theme of war in Afghanistan, I guess any little good we can do helps, but the poor ordinary citizens of that country have suffered for so many years it all seems rather hopeless. Check out www.oneearthtextiles.co.uk for some more information on the project, and my very sparse blog at http://lizagreen.blogspot.com

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  2. How fantastic Kate...I love the delicate floatyness and the threads flowing down, the continuing water theme is cool. The whole idea is awesome - crafty collaborations are fab, even better when for a good cause - and great that you are a link in that chain.
    Hope you have lots of pleasure from its waftiness!
    Ali x

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  3. What a beautiful piece of work. Congratulations to both artists.

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