I’ve started so I’ll finish …

maybe.

I managed to finish one thing today. This. Sewn together and put in my Contemporary Textiles sketch book.

 But then I thought that it would be interesting to try joining two of these shaped pieces with faggotting. Like this. 

The pieces were already stiffened with tear-away stabiliser so I tacked them to a piece of wash-away stabiliser and worked overlapping rows of an automatic stitch to join the two pieces. Then I rinsed it to get the wash-away out.

It was at this stage I discovered three things:

1. there were gaps in the stitching
2. the tear-away stabiliser was really wash-away stabiliser.
3. the wash-away stabiliser wasn’t.

Not so much a case of ‘If all else fails, read the instructions’ – more a case of  ‘Don’t throw away the instructions thinking that you will remember which stabiliser is which - because you won't.’

The good thing is that there is still stabiliser in there, so I should be able to fix the gaps in the stitching.

The bad thing is that I can’t do that till it’s dry. And if it isn’t heat away stabiliser – which is my second guess – it will be staying in there for all time. Good job it’s ‘only a sample’.

So while it dried I decided to try making a 3D thing with several shapes. Feeling lazy, I decided to use the same fabric for all of them – but after I'd ironed some Vilene to a piece of calico I decided it looked a bit boring. I pondered on several ideas but in the end decided to use some interesting tissue paper with swirls printed on it – crumpled and glued to the calico with PVA.

Mmm – glue.

So while that dried, inspired by this image from the workshop, I decided to try an idea from Kim Thittichai’s new book, using some of the papers I printed yesterday. After I’d ripped up the papers I looked at the sketchbook pages and decided they were a bit – white. 

So I drew streamers on the pages with chunks of crayon and painted them with Koh-i-Noor. 

 

Mmm – paint.

 

 

So while that dried I decided to do something which definitely wasn’t wet. Back to those lines.

Remember this?

 

 

This is today’s version. Satin stitch on a scrap of leathercloth –hence the reflection of the flash.

Because I couldn’t mark the front of the leathercloth, I worked it from the back – and for the wider lines I used crochet cotton, which for some forgotten reason I had wound onto a bobbin. The tension isn't right but it looks quite interesting.

I did consider doing the mysterious mountains this way but I couldn’t face all those zigzags.

So perhaps I finished two things.

Today's sketchbook page is one of the weirder ones. It didn’t scan well because it is 3D - little paper clay faces. Roll a ball of paper clay, press it with a thingy also made of [dried] paper clay – and you get this rather Neanderthal face. Can’t remember where I got the idea for the thingy – somewhere on the net – but it makes a fun face. Or three. Rubbed with a little wax to make them less white.