I have been somewhat hampered since I began work on this project by my left shoulder which has been hurting since I fell off a bike last September. I went for an ultrasound yesterday and was told that I have torn some of the tendons around the joint, which explains the pain. However, undaunted, I am working as best I can and today was the perfect day to make some progress. I have been sitting out in the garden, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air as I have worked and have enjoyed the twittering of the nesting birds and bleating of the lambs in the fields. It is hard to believe that it is a year ago that I was sitting out in the garden in similar circumstances embroidering the spheres for my final major project of my University degree at the start of the first Covid lockdown. How for we seem to have come since then! As you can see, the leg end is beginning to stand out now within the body of the stitches which is giving some perspective on the size of the work and the number of stitches that I have done. I am not counting the stitches, but I am logging the number of hours that I have worked. This is approx 106 hours to date. I have not been able to work on this artwork everyday due to other commitments, however, I am hoping that I will get the opportunity to spend more time with it over the summer.
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Progress has been a little bit more productive these last couple of weeks. One year after the first lock down and again on my birthday, I managed to work up to the first letter that I will be embroidering in Red thread, which is the last letter in the legend – Covid 19 – UK ie the “K”. This feels like a huge step although I still have a long way to go. I have blocked out the letters properly with French chalk so that the black and red stitches continue to pattern of the work. I have also realised that I will need to leave a small area along the base of the work to embroider my initials and the date on which I complete the work.
As you will see in some areas of the completed work there are areas where the stitching is slightly different in length just slightly altering the rigidity of the pattern as an acknowledgement of the diversity of all our British communities in terms of ethnicity, age, etc that have been affected but also encompassing them within the wider national community of the whole of the UK. When you look at the stitches that I have done I have calculated there to be approximately only 20,000 – so only another 100,000+ to go – but you can begin to get some comprehension of the greatness of the loss that has been sustained and this just within the UK during one 12 month period not taking into account those who died before 23/03/20 and those who will unfortunately lose their lives to Covid 19 after 23/03/21. On the anniversary many landmarks throughout the country were lit up in yellow as a symbol of respect whilst I spent the time on my own tribute to those who have died. On the anniversary this totaled 126,700 deaths in the UK which means that I now have my target although people are still being taken ill and dying from the Corona Virus and will continue to do so for some considerable time yet. I haven’t written my blog for a while as there has been only limited progress on the work due to me investigating means of promoting, exhibiting etc the finished work. I had a very productive zoom meeting with the Enterprise Team from University which has given me some idea of how to progress and will make time to produce a Business Model Canvas as they have suggested.
The work itself is coming along slowly but I have had numerous other domestic issues to deal with (including going for my own Covid Vaccination) and I haven’t dedicated as much time to it as I would have liked. However, when I look at the work to date, I find it quite sobering that I am not yet ¼ of the way through but that there are so many lost lives represented on the canvas already. I have rolled the work onto two lengths of dowel so that like a scroll I can open a clear area without the already worked area being exposed. I am still excited about this project and mean to spend a lot more time during these coming weeks to really make some headway. My business cards have arrived this week and look great - I am really pleased with them and how my own logo design has worked out. The work on the main body of the memorial artwork has started. I am working across the width of the fabric in black perle cotton thread and on the first day I managed to work 2cm. From this you can see the scale of the work to be completed by the amount of the length which is folded beneath. The working width spans the length of my dining table. I had planned that the length of each of the stitches would be the same, however, once I began to set the pattern of the work, I decided that I would subtly vary the stitch lengths in certain areas to represent the diversity of the people in the UK who have died of Covid ie different sexes, ethnicities, communities, religions etc. I have calculated that if I carry on working this amount each day it will take me between 2-3 months, but I know that I will not be able to work all day every day on the project and so anticipate that a more realistic time for completion will be between 4-6 months which will take us somewhere between to July to September. I am still trying to raise money which will go towards the mounting and exhibition publicity for this artwork and if you would like to contribute to my memorial project, I would be very grateful. You can make a donation at:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/user/fiona-worrall/projects/6WkzoXLl Thank you in anticipation. I decided to leave the blocking out of the aida fabric until I had finished embroidering and making the covid molecule ball which will form the dot of the “i” in Covid today and I have put it into my workbox ready for when I have completed the main work. I then got to work on the main body of the artwork. I hemmed the two short edges and left the selvedge to be included in the 10cm mounting frame around the worked area that I had allowed for when I calculated the amount of fabric required. It took a whole day to block out the fabric to ensure that everything was centred and that the lettering of a suitable size and shape for the work. I was then ready to begin embroidering. I also ordered some business cards based on the logo that I had designed while I was at University and which I have used in the header of my web page. These will be used as part of the publicity material to help promote my work and this project. The design features a tool in black which could be either a sewing needle or a paintbrush through which passes a thread forming a Fibonacci curve and a droplet of paint. The thread I have printed in red for half the cards and teal for the other half. One the rear are my contact details printed in black. Above: Width of fabric showing the start of the blocking Above: Blocking showing the depth of the mounting panel.Above: Measuring the legend ready for blocking Above: Blocked lettering of the legend.
It’s arrived! The thread and red fabric that I ordered for this project from Sew-it-all arrived very promptly this lunchtime, less than 24 hours since it was ordered. I am so impressed with the service and that Sarah who is part of their team bothered to write a really lovely message on the invoice slip.
This afternoon I will spend my time drawing out the design onto the fabric and hemming the ends. I am very excited! Well today is the day!
Due to the wonderfully generous donations from people who have crowdfunded this project, I have enough money raised to order the fabric that I will need. It has taken a while to get hold of RED 11 count Aida fabric in the right proportions ie 4.50m x 1.5m. At one point I thought I might have to order it from Canada however, at the last minute a good old British company came up trumps! I still will not have enough money to promote and publicise the work but I am proceeding with the project hoping that when I start and can show that the work is progressing other people might sponsor my work as well. I am aware that I said that this would be an illustrated blog but as yet there have been no pictures. That is because the research and planning work does not produce visible results. However, from now on I shall start including photographs as and when appropriate. I have decided that now I know that it is definitely going ahead I will start work on making the sphere that will represent the Covid-19 molecule as I have some grey wool fabric left over from another project and some coloured embroidery threads left over from one of my University projects which I can use. Fabric shapes and thread for making the representation of a Covid-19 Molecule I have already designed the piece of Textile Art which is to be a large scale, hand embroidered memorial artwork. I did some calculations on stitch size and worked out the kid of fabric that I would use and how much I would require. This worked out at approximately 4.5m x 1.5m where one stitch represents the life of one person who had died. The artwork will also include a 3D embroidered representation of a Covid-19 molecule and the legend “Covid-19 UK.” The colours used in the embroidery will be minimal to provide impact ie black stitches on a red ground.
As the death toll rose to over 100,000, around Christmas 2020 and it was announced that despite a vaccine, having been developed, the virus would still claim victims for the foreseeable future due to variants of the Covid-19 virus developing. I have decided that I had to make a cut-off point somewhere to make my project viable and have decided to represent everyone in the UK who had died from between 23/03/2020-23/03/2021 – my birthday date and the anniversary of the date of the first lockdown. Due to the large number of stitches involved I anticipate that this work would take several months to complete as I would be the only one undertaking the embroidery. FUNDING I realised that due to our personal financial situation, I could not afford to fund the work myself, so looked at obtaining sponsorship for my project but kept being met with declinations or did not receive answers from the potential sponsors who approached. Time was now passing quickly, and so I investigated the possibility of Crowd funding my project. This was an easy process and my appeal for funding was launched today- 05/02/2021 at 09:00. The money that is raised will provide me with the appropriate amounts of fabrics, threads and other embroidery materials to complete the project. Other monies will provide finance for promotion and exhibition of the work in the public domain. I decided to really go out of my comfort zone and produce a blog to accompany the project so that people can see the work in progress and the results as they happen. If you would like to contribute to my memorial project I would be very grateful. You can make a donation at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/user/fiona-worrall/projects/6WkzoXLl
As the year went on, and the fatalities from the virus increased, I felt the need to produce a hand stitched piece of textile art commemorating the lives every person in the UK who had died from Covid-19.
I was, however in a quandary. I had finished University in June and had not been able to get employment after my graduation therefore had no income of my own. My husband who is a Project Manager, and who works via contracts through his own Limited company finished his last contract in April 2020. Due to the government’s ruling he was excluded (see #excluded UK) from any of the governments grants and support payments and we did not qualify for any universal credit. We therefore had to live off the savings that we had during the whole of the year. It was my intention that the scale of the project would help people who see it to understand the enormity of the impact of the pandemic for one year, and understand that for each stitch, there are the families and friends left behind who are also affected. It would also put into perspective that this number was the death toll from only one small country in a truly global pandemic. Due to the large number of stitches involved I anticipated that this work would take several months to complete as I would be the only one undertaking the embroidery. |
AuthorI am a Textile Artist based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. ArchivesCategories |