Exciting morning

Today I am in the process of removing the backing from my work. My lovely friend Marta came over and helped me pin the engine to loft foam board. My mum had bought me one tin   of stainless steel pins and we soon realised that another two were required. I whizzed up to the local fabric shop to buy more and had the most exciting conversation with the lady who served me - she commented that I was the second person asking for stainless steel pins (required so that they won't rust whilst the work drys) and asked what I was doing - I explained the work and she proudly announced that she owned two 'Bristol' cars and that to buy an engine such as the one I had just copied would cost £25,000 - and then asked if I could bring in an image of my work when finished. What a small world!

With three tins of pins the work was pulled flat and pinned well concentrating on the more isolated parts and any areas where a lot of stitches had been used so that it would not balloon. Once happy that it was secured we took the boards outside and then using a hose pipe we carefully washed away the backing. The whole process was filmed and this is now loading onto the computer whilst I post on my blog. The work is drying in the dining room and as of yet I do not know if more fabric glue needs to be removed. I will post some photos of the work with the pins in but have decided to not include full pictures until nearer my degree show. This work is finished ahead of time but that is at the detriment of textiles - instead of working on the two projects concurrently I have done one at a time and feel it is too early to reveal the final piece. I also need to think very carefully about how the work is displayed. First it must dry and only then will I know how successful it has been.

Here are some photos of the back of the work

And here are some macro images of areas with pins in ready for backing to be washed away

I will add some more images and comments on how removal of backing goes in a few weeks but I must make a start on my textile project work.

Here is the link  for my textiles blog  julieheaton-textiles.blogspot.co.uk