Big shoes to fill
Big Shoes to fill is a textile piece of a small orphaned red kangaroo Joey called “Debo”. The reference image came from the Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs who allowed me to use this image for this piece. The finished piece is stretched over a canvas and measures 75cm x 75cm. This piece will be my entry for the Cossack Art Award 2026. As with any of my textile pieces it starts as a sketch which is then traced onto acetate. This provides my pattern for cutting the fusible webbing, and the placement of the cut out fabric pieces. I cut and place each piece of fabric onto a piece of calico, this provides a stable backing for sewing. I have chosen floral fabrics to give texture to the final piece. This part of the process takes about 4 to 6 hours. The free motion machine sewing on all my textile pieces, consists of thread painting over my placed fabric. This is the same method for every piece I do. I use only straight and zig zag stitches, and a variety of machine embroidery and cotton thread, plus metallic filament and iridised thread. In this particular piece there is a lot of gold metallic thread, I do this first as the thread is fragile and will break if I try to cover too many layers of stitching. My thread changes are too numerous to count, and my selection of colours is important for blending or “Painting“ All my work is produced on my extremely basic, “Janome My Excel 18W” machine. Once my Joey has been completed and cut out I have to work on my background. I like the look of the Alcohol inks on white cotton, it is the closest I can get to my watercolour paintings, the colours are bright and permanent. First, I soak the background fabric in Isopropyl alcohol. I dilute a small amount of the Inks with some isopropyl alcohol to paint with. I chose a more toned down background for this piece as the Joey is very bright, I wanted the red dirt, pindan colouring of the outback for the ground, and used some random shapes to create texture and gravel. The final image has Hot Fix Crystals and some seed beads, plus a splash of the gold Alcohol Ink for that little bit of shine. The eyes have a couple of hot fix crystals for the “twinkle” and just to catch the light from a distance, making the Joeys eyes look alive. The Joey is then sewn onto the background and the body quilted to ensure a firm even surface. I use wadding over the canvas and staple into place, then stretch the finished piece over that. This is more time consuming than it sounds, as the fabric can gather in places where the subject is sewn to the background. once the fabric is smooth and taut I sew calico onto the back of the frame to create a neat finish. Debo is now ready for the Cossack Art Award. Wish me luck!
