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“There's not enough hours in a day for me to realise all the ideas in my head!”
Elyn is a quilt maker working in Sheffield. Housed in an Art Deco former cutlery works in the city centre, her studio overlooks a patchwork of old industrial buildings amongst new build flats - one of many areas of the city where a community of craftspeople proudly uphold the 'Made in Sheffield' quality standard.
She makes patchwork bed quilts, quilted wall hangings and patchwork cushions. She pieces the tops on a machine, quilts the layers by hand and finishes the binding by hand. The patterns are geometric, mostly blocks, stripes and checkerboards, in natural linen and warm cottons.
Her influences are the Bauhaus textile artists: Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl. She calls them "pioneering textile artists who pushed age-old craft into a new era and really knew their way around a complex geometric pattern."
Architecture is the other influence. "Usually, but not exclusively, Modernist and post-war buildings," she says. "I find the sculptural forms fascinating as a whole, but it's the little details that get me. Decorative patterns, material textures, the quality of light."
Her quilts are made to be used and washed rather than kept for best. Elyn believes beautiful objects belong in everyday life.
Elyn trades as Slow Progress. She pieces each top on a machine, then quilts the layers by hand, stitch by stitch. She has more ideas than time for them. "There's not enough hours in a day for me to realise all the ideas in my head," she says. She wants to learn woodworking next, so she can make her own chairs.
The wall hangings are OEKO-TEX certified European linen, with cotton or cotton-bamboo batting. The Large Checkerboard Bed Quilt uses repurposed cotton on both faces and the same cotton-bamboo batting. Bindings are stitched on by machine and finished by hand. Elyn works mostly in linen. It takes hand quilting well, and the slight unevenness of the weave suits the geometry. She keeps the ground in natural undyed tones and brings colour in through the pieced cotton blocks. The repurposed cotton in the bed quilt comes from existing fabric stocks rather than newly milled cloth.
