Textile Art Redefined - Saatchi Gallery London

Ian Berry - The Secret Garden, 2026
Denim on denim

 

On until 10 May 2026, Textile Art Redefined is a free, one room, textile art exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London.  It's curated by Helen Adams (@textilecurator), author of Fine Art Textiles: Conversations with Artists Creating by Hand.  Adams is a great advocate for contemporary textile art.

Ian Berry - The Secret Garden, 2026

The exhibition showcases the work of over a dozen international textile artists. Here are some of my favourite pieces.  Most striking when you walk in, is Ian Berry's denim collage, The Secret Garden, which occupies one whole wall.  Up close it's fascinating, with more to see everytime you look.  It makes great use of the tonal variations of denim using both the front and back to give even greater variety. Looking carefully you can see the layers of denim collaged together.

Chiachio & Giannone - Conversacion sobre arte, 2022
Hand embroidered with cotton threads on toile de Jouy, quilt

I particularly liked Conversacion sobre arte, 2022 by Chiachio & Giannone, more for the sum of the parts than the overall composition.

Chiachio & Giannone - Conversacion sobre arte (detail), 2022

Jenni Dutton -  Then a Moment Later She Smiled
Dementia Darnings  series, 2017
Fine wools sewn through bobbinet

Jenni Dutton's portrait of her mother during the progression of her dementia is both wonderful - so realistic - and incredibly sad.  I have seen the Dementia Darnings before and find them almost too difficult to look at.

Magda Sayeg - The Machine Gun, 2017
Replica of a Bushmaster XM15-E2S, acrylic mix triple worsted yarn, vintage children's sweaters
& Yoga Balls, 2025
Acrylic yarn , inflated PVC ball

I must include Magda Sayeg who set the world yarnstorming (knitted & crocheted graffiti), including me, after which I embarked on several successful commmunity art yarnstorming projects.

Simone Pheulpin - Lune de Bois ll, Croissance Series, 2025
Cotton folds & pins

I think Simone Pheulpin's piece looks just like a tree trunk cross section and must have taken hours as it is held together with pins.

Deniz Kurdak - Dysregulated, 2026
Polyester thread on duck canvas

Deniz Kurdak has created this beautiful piece of machine embroidery.

Anne Von Freyburg - In Flight Mode (after Fragonard, The Swing), 2021
Textile wall installation painting: acrylic ink, synthetic fabrics, PVC fabric, tapestry fabric, sequin fabrics, hand embroidery, polyester wadding, and hand dyed tassel fringes on canvas

This enormous, colourful & clever piece would have benefitted from a picture of Fragonard's The Swing for reference.  You can see a picture of it here.

Other work on show included a great text piece by Sara Impey, tulle portraits by Benjamin Shine, colourful pieces by Signe Emdal, Kaffe Fasset & Kenny Nguyen.  You can also see pieces by Caroline Burgess & Jakkai Siributr.

The Saatchi Gallery has a number of exhibitions showing.  Some are free, some not.  There are lots of coffee shops and restaurants close by.  You can find the gallery on the King's Road, a short walk from Sloane Square tube.  You've still time to go see this exhibition and it's well worth going.

On a wall on the King's Road
Fashion is not frivolous it is part of being alive today - Mary Quant

Pond Life Yarnstorm - Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group

Frog - Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group

 

The Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group are celebrating pond life in their yarnstorm this year. You can find it in the arbour by the tennis courts.

Water Lily - Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group

The Pond Life craft display was originally thought up by Rosemary Bentley who is much missed. Although she is no longer with us, the craft group wanted to continue with this theme in her memory.

Duck - Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group

Spider - Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group

Bird in Tree - Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group

 Pond Life - Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group

Check it out when you're next in the park and see what you can spot!

Butterflies & Bees Buzz Off To New Homes

Pompom Bees for sale

Today was the first sale of the butterflies and bees from the Butterflies & Bees Yarnstorm in Rowntree Park, York.  The sun was shining and we had lots of lovely things for sale, all made by the community of knitters, stitchers, crocheters and felters most of whom were local!

Deborah New & I with our stall

We were delighted with the response.  There were so many lovely customers who came along to say how much they had enjoyed the display and were keen to take home a souvenir and in doing so, support the Friends of Rowntree Park.  The Friends help maintain, improve and promote the park for everyone's enjoyment and were the charity our sale was supporting.

Treasures

Here are just a few snaps of some of the fab butterflies and bees that we had to temp people and happily they were tempted.  The beehive and bees found a new home too!

Beehive & Bees and a Basket of Stitched Bees

Beautiful Butterflies

A  Basket of Bees

                                                        

Cool Crochet Butterflies

Fantastic Flowers

Novel Knitted Butterflies

Thank you so much to everyone who came along to buy today and, of course, to everyone who made them which made the sale possible.  Thanks to to Rosemary and Jan who helped us set up and take down our stall.  (I'm keeping how much we raised a secret until after our second sale!)

If you missed out on the sale today you've got another chance because we're doing it all again next Saturday:

Saturday 16 October 2021 10:30 - 12:30

Find us in Rowntree Park, just below the cafe!

If you want to find out more about this project click here.

Butterflies & Bees Fly Off

Un-Happy

 

Saturday was take down day for the Butterflies & Bees and Happy 100th Birthday yarnstorms in Rowntree Park, York.  We were sad to see them go but pleased to have been able to add to the Park's 100th birthday celebrations.  Some people made a special visit to say goodbye.

Deborah hard at work

Finally it was all down...

Taking down the last butterflies

and lots of creatures were bagged up...

The park went from this...

Yarnstorms

to this...

Empty arbour

Empty tennis court fence

We were lucky because the rain held off till it was all down and Deborah and I were safely in Rowntree Park Cafe warming up with a hot drink and a pastry.

A bee wash

Back at HQ, the butterflies and bees were destrung (is that a word?) and popped in the wash.  Some, like the pompom bees, had a gentle hand wash.  And some enjoyed basking on a teatowel while the underfloor heating dried them out...

Drying butterflies and bees

Don't be too sad though because you get a chance to come and buy your favourite butterflies and bees in the forthcoming sales:

Sunday 10 October 2021 - 10:30 to 12:30

Saturday 16 October 2021 - 10:30 to 12:30

Come and find us below the cafe.  We are fundraising for the Friends of Rowntree Park who work hard to help maintain, improve and promote the park for everyone's enjoyment.  Go on, you know you want to!

Hope to see you at the sales (please bring cash if you can!).

If you want to read more about this project then click here.

First Rowntree Park Butterflies & Bees Workshop

Workshop Participants

We had our first Butterflies & Bees workshop in Rowntree Park on Saturday.  It was lovely to have an in person workshop.  The weather was glorious and there was plenty of room to spread out.  We had knitting, stitching, pompom making, crocheting, some garden fork weaving and finger knitting going on!

Plentiful supplies were available...

Plentiful Supplies

And lots of fab things were made.  This lovely garden fork butterfly was a team effort by Charlotte, her step-mum Mandi and her dad, Martin...

Garden Fork Butterfly

Candi, Alice, India and Louise stitched some fab bees...

Stitched Bees

Sara crocheted and Louise knitted some super cute bees...

Crochet & Knitted Bees

Val, Iris, Cara & Agnes stitched some beautiful butterflies...

Stitched Butterflies

Cara & Iris, Vicki & Heidi & Charlotte made pompom bees...

Pompom Bees

Heidi also knitted a tiny purple and blue bee which is sitting on a lovely leaf that Muna crocheted...

Knitted Bee Perching on Crochet Leaf

It was a very productive afternoon!

We have another workshop in Rowntree Park on Friday 11 June 2021 - International Yarnbombing Day (how appropriate!).  There are still some places available.  You can book here.  Let's hope for more lovely weather.  If you can't make the workshop you can still join in by making at home or with friends.  You've got till the end of July 2021 to get your makes to Rowntree Park Cafe.  All the patterns are online here or use your own.  More project details are here.

Rainbow Yarnstorm in Rowntree Park, York

Rainbow Yarnstorm in Rowntree Park, York

You may remember, back in April, I told you all about the Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group's plans for a Rainbows for Rowntree Park Yarnstorm and how you could join in.  Well, thanks to everyone who did because the yarnstorm is now on display in the park and looks fantastic! The display is a big thank you to the NHS, carers, key workers and anyone who has helped others throughout the last few months.  The rainbows are also a celebration of the park itself which has been a special place for many, especially recently! And it's to celebrate the Park's 99th birthday.  Rainbows are a symbol of hope and in some ways that was why the Park was created -  to symbolise a hopeful future for the people of York.

Firstly, there's a truly magnificent gigantic rainbow yarnstorm on the tennis court fence.  It's a collage of knitted, crocheted and stitched squares.

Rainbow Yarnstorm Detail

On top of these squares there's extra interest added in the form of flowers and other stuff.  See if you can spot the frog, the car and the whale! 

Check out some of the extra decorations

It even looks good from the back...

Back View

Fun facts - did you know there are 86 red squares, 77 orange, 64 yellow, 55 green, 42 blue and indigo and 49 violet.  That's more than 370 altogether!  The whole display was made by over 40 people, from primary school age to over 90, from all over the city and further afield.

Rainbow Bench

You can even sit on the rainbow bench and have your photo taken which quite a lot of people were doing when I was there.  It seems to be proving very popular!

Lots of people like the yarnstorm

You can then move on to see the individual rainbows which are hanging in the arbour.  Here's a sneaky peak...

Rainbows in the Arbour

and a bit more detail...

Rainbows in the Arbour

Don't forget to take a look at the display board by the cafe...

Display board by the cafe

because there's alot of interesting rainbows and rainbow coloured pieces there too!

Detail from the Noticeboard

The Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group hope to keep the yarnstorm up until the end of August so you've got plenty of time to take a look.  Why not take a pic of yourself with the rainbow and post it to social media with the hashtag #RainbowsforRowntreePark. 

Thanks to the Friends of Rowntree Park Craft Group and all who took part for such a fabulous display!