Swerving to orange and blue

A little experimenting with a nappy liner and Markal sticks fused onto brown paper - I'll use this as a background for something.



The embellisher got an airing with this one with some fme on top - again this will be incorporated into something else - to be decided!
I've also had a playing session with friends Kath and Mary making some fabric paper. Another little pile on the table!

A journey

Feeling totally lacking in inspiration I decided the best thing to do would be to jump in and just start even if I didn't know where it would lead. So I started with strips of different fabrics with machine stitching on top, gold foil added, voile spirals, more stitching, embellished rectangles, more stitching and ended up with a fabic I liked which became a book cover. At last, something finished! even though I felt like giving up half way! (Random leaf - real! - added for photo!)

More squares

I've been making more squares to add to the ones already made. None are finished yet and I have to admit I don't have a grand plan but am making it up as I go along. I like the textures and the colours and that is what I am concentrating on at the moment before adding more embellishments and deciding how to make them all "hang together". I'm enjoying the journey!

Full circle

This week I dug out a photo taken of one of my C and G projects - one of six squares (vilene, painted and stitched, cut out, the pattern based on the fibonacci series); the squares were then made into a cube. The next two are the image after altering in psp -


The last image was made into a mini-quilt (a quilt consists of any three layers held together with stitching). I might start another "circle" with this one!

Odds and ends

In between some great 60th birthday celebrations and meals for my sister I've had time to do a few odds and ends. The first is a book wrap made up of layered fabrics, machine sewn together with some acrylic stamping. The armband was an experiment, again layers of fabrics with wadding and string inside.




Sitting here in fromt of the computer I can see the bluetits flying in and out of our bird box - definitely some twitching going on!

New covers

I finally got round to finishing off a couple of sketchbook covers. The first one is using one of my favourite textiles - chocolate wrapping papers (come free with smell of choc!)


and the second one was a fabric I made earlier which became this book cover -



Many thanks to my lovely family for MD cards and pressies - I shall enjoy choosing something!

There's a lot of hair on the floor!

This past week has been very frustrating. Changing operating systems on the computer has meant I can't access jpeg pics on the harddrive so will have to wait for a solution unless I play about with memory sticks and things which I find difficult to do (I have a notebook full of little "how-tos").
In the meantime I've been working on a textile made by sandwiching voile snippets between water-soluble "Romeo", then free machining and finally using the soldering iron to make a holey pattern. At the moment I am adding some beads, but rapidly becoming bored! I want to get back to making digital designs .... Will let you know how I get on!

Treasures of darkness 6

Created from -

Treasures of darkness 4

Layers, using these images -


textured surface with machine stitching, zapped with heat gun -


- and an image of scanned lace.

Treasures of darkness

New wind direction

The wind changes direction and suddenly there is a whole new scene, the old familiar things disappear or are transformed and new possibilities open up!
On a personal note I decided it was time to get some "work in progress" now that we are forced to spend a bit more time in the house due to the weather. I used my new flexible tripod -



- and had it clinging to a chair back to take these pics of wip -

- layers of voile on vilene with fused shapes covered with foil, zapped, then some machine sewing ...





a transferred altered image with stitching ...

and finally this photo of a flower which became this -
and then this - transferred to fabric and stitched

Time for a cuppa now! Enjoy the snow if you have any!

Book covers

Although I thought this blog would be mainly about textiles it hasn't worked out that way as other interests keep poking their noses in! But I have made a few things this week, mainly book covers. Here are a couple of them -


The first one is made with "fabric paper" which was then quilted. The second has some embellished felt together with voile and foil, then burnt back, with a fme motif. The next one I made with chocolate wrappers (the smell was delicious! I get some strange looks when I swoop down on chocolate papers after someone has just eaten a choc! You have to be quick!)



Off to learn some more tips at the Camera Club tonight - another steep learning curve! but fun.

For all our heroes

Jigsaw

Take two

Today I completed a piece of work which I started several months ago -


- it was a flower image displaced with another image (I can't remember which one, I should have made notes) and printed out onto scrunched up tissue paper on a vilene and felt backing. The second was my first attempt at encaustic wax "painting" which I did with the group of "textile" friends who generously supplied the wax etc.


- and I must admit it was more by accident than design! You melt the wax onto a smooth iron and spread it onto special white card making marks with the tip and side of the iron. I like this image; it makes me think of Cheviot.

WIP becomes WF

Inspired by this photo of part of a train, I transferred the image onto fabric after using an effect in PSP and stitched some of the outlines.



Now to do some more!