Stroud International Textiles

letting the grass grow 

trade:

the commercial exchange (buying and selling on domestic or international markets) of goods and services; “Venice was an important center of trade …

the skilled practice of a practical occupation; “he learned his trade as an apprentice”

The tennis balls were collected from Miliken at Lodgemore mill  and the stitching began .  Whilst in Stroud again I thought i would see if there were any local words relating to the mills and weaving.

Terry Eldridge has given me some words

abb - very old, still in use locally (Cam) means weft .

chain - very old, referring to warp threads, which were looped through like a crochet chain as a means of keeping them tidy prior to going on the loom. Sometimes the word also used when they were on the loom.

flight - airborne fluff  that comes particularly off carding machines.

thrum - short lengths of carpet yarn that can be recycled.( not strictly a local word but nice )

nap - direction of pile. ‘raising the nap’ lots of nap on tennis balls

There are two lovely words in carding but not I think particularly local;

slubbing - end product of carding, loosely joined fibres producing a continuous length but having no strength.

They are wound onto a lage bobbin called a doffer- and you take it off.

You can imagine someone shouting over the machine noise doff,doff or doff er..  The slubbings go on to spinning next.

Most of the words are short and I wonder if that is because of the noise .

Do you feel as if you been through the mill? Could be the roller milling machine patented by local engineer James Ferrabee, replacing the fulling stocks, it squeezed and twisted the cloth to achieve the required shrinkage.Soon to be demonstrated at Dunkirk Mill.

colouring swingball poles  red  in Stroud park yard!

myself and tawona had a great day yesterday playing with words and revisiting ideas developed on this project . I was reminded of ideas/ words  earlier on in the blog  which  have now resurfaced in the final stages of the work.

we had an interesting conversation about the beaver fur hat and Tawona was telling me of a phrase in Zimbabue  ‘filling his hat’ which means a good job has been done . ‘he has filled his hat.’

we also looked again at the title of each blog post

• burlers spoolers and scourers
• seeing red
• red things
• from uniforms to tennis balls
• mending
• cloth for fur
• whatever they traded they made their own
• red flannel pieces
• batting to and fro
• swingball
• from cloth to grass
• stroud water
• red strips
• fuzz
• talking with your hands
• code red
• top hat
• currency
• words and things
• red routes of trade
• love=nothing
• raising the nap
• punctuating a collection
• high vis
• top hats and tennis balls
• stop and go
• red card
• red coat
• fullstop
• totem tennis
• lingering cobwebs
• red flannel pieces
• batting words around
• bouncing red
• bouncing embroidered words
• it takes two
• trophy hat
• painting the town red
• playing a straight bat
• stop and reflect
• ball of threads
• bounce
• bat bat bat
• colouring red
• dotting
• batting words around

I am now beginning to work out exactly where the red punctuation marks are placed within the museum.. beside a beaver fur top hat , asian dolls , a soldier on a horse , a tennis racket, red sample cards … American Indian mocassins…

Playing with words based on the research to date, myself and Tawona  will decide which words I will then embroider on the red tennis balls.

‘In Conversation’ -
Do Museums and Contemporary artists make good bedfellows?

Venue: Museum in the Park, Stroud GL5 4AF
Date: Saturday 17th April  2010
Time: 2.30 pm
Tickets: £4.00 from the Museum on 01453 763394
Following the recent residency at the Museum of Deirdre Nelson and the partnering with Stroud International Textiles the staff of the Museum, the artist and members of SIT will discuss this fascinating and topical subject.
They will be joined by Collections manager of Cheltenham Museum & Art Gallery, Helen Brown.
Is it a marriage made in heaven?
Do they make happy bedfellows?
Is linking with contemporary art the future for Museums if they want to increase visitor numbers and move forward in the 21st century?
Join us and let us know what you think.

Tickets: £4.00 from the Museum on 01453 763394

with just a few weeks to go until the textile festival ideas are progressing well ..i dont want to give too much away about final work but i hope to combine elements of my research looking at stroud red cloth, balls, words and objects within the museum collection and of course the  lawn mower and grass

look at THIS animated gif from the site I am not an artist 

Ideas are progressing well and now in collaboration with poet Tawona Sithole ideas and words are emerging which will find themselves embroidered onto tennis balls .