Bits and Bobs

It's been another busy week, if sitting on the sofa watching bike racing can be described as being busy. It certainly gets the adrenaline flowing: I've discovered that, when your favourite rider removes himself from the race on the first day,  so you have no-one to will to win, willing somebody (anybody) to beat the one you don't want to win, is just as stressful. (It's the immature, sexist one I don't want to win, and so far I've been successful in getting him beaten.)

That isn't all we've done: yesterday we had a taster meal at the hotel where Cheese Major and his Senorita will be getting married next spring. It was delicious, but we could barely move afterwards!

I went to a Visual Marks meeting at Manor Farm (Babybel was dead jealous, especially when I told her about the baby donkey.) (I wouldn't have mentioned it if we hadn't already planned on going there when the school holidays start!)

We had a meeting there to prepare for our exhibition at the Farm over Christmas. (First, Wartime Farm, soon, Visual Marks. I don't think we will be required to dress up or operate antiquated machinery.)

I took a lot of photographs, and even made some drawings. OK, very basic ones, but fit for my purpose, designing organza appliqués. I want to get cracking on these because when term starts I don't think I'll have a lot of spare time!

I've also been working on another VM piece. Right back at the beginning we had a joint mark making session with a big piece of fabric and some thickened dyes. After some discussion we decided to divide it into nine pieces which we would embroider/quilt and reunite as a series of banners ( I think). I chose to hand embroider my piece, but it is closely woven fabric and very hard on the hands, so progress is slow.

I can't remember how far I had got by last weekend on these two, now known as TOPOKIED (the oddest pieces of knitting I've ever done). Further progress has been a bit slow, because:

a) they need more concentration than I've been able to give while watching adrenaline filled bike races, and

b) I've run out of steam.

So I started some simpler, race watching and subtitle-reading knitting. Another pair of socks. Not my favourite yarn, which is why it was still mouldering in my stash, but it won't show much inside shoes, and hand knit socks are definitely warmer and nicer than bought ones. Not that we need warm socks at the moment, but we will, we will.

There nearly wasn't a book of the week, but I came across a reference to 'acetate books' and that started me thinking.  I printed a tree photo on acetate and turned it into a very simple book. It was a bit bodged because I was in a hurry - the acetate is difficult to fold, and I made a mess of the central cut, but I think the result has possibilities. I love the way you get the printed image, the view through it, and reflections as well. I'm pondering on sewing the pages together to make it more obedient, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. I've stuck it back under my old Singer, a.k.a. the book press, in the hope of disciplining it a bit more before I decide.

Rest day tomorrow for the TDF, but not for us, it's a grandparenting day. Perhaps not as physically demanding as riding 200km, but it feels like it, at times.

Back to Basics

After last week's maundering, back to needlework - although none of it is very exciting. 

There's a sock and a half. I'm expecting to get a bit further up the other leg during 'Inspector Montalbano' tonight. Or, as I think of it, 'Midsomer Murders with Mafiosi'. They are supposed to be wellie socks but it's been so cold here I may end up waering them around the house.

There are three little books. (One of them is stitched, so it's needlework.) I had to miss the practical session of Visual Marks the other week, but yesterday I got round to the challenge, which was to make a concertina book with pockets. Making little books is like eating Pringles, so I recycled some brown paper and made three. They all have pockets, just that some of them are more secretive than others.

And, returning to the subject of organisation, I invested in a new sewing basket. I'm not a fan of those fancy ones with flaps and compartments, and for a while I've been using a small shopping basket, which I think came as a gift with tea and biscuits in it. But it really was too small, and kept tipping over, so Google came to the rescue and I bought a bigger one.

Life is never simple. I hadn't realised quite how big it was. Things were going to get lost in the bottom. I decided to make a lining, with pockets, to keep the contents under control. There must be some suitable fabric in my stash...

Life is never simple. I realised I was going to need quite a big piece of fabric, but most of my bigger pieces were too big - dress or skirt lengths, which I am keeping in case I decide I want to dressmake again, unlikely as that is. If they weren't too big they were the wrong colour - too bright, too hand dyed or too dark - the wrong weight - too thick or too thin. 

I finally found a piece of coarse Broderie Anglaise I'd bought because it was cheap but never used because it looked it. But life is never simple. It was white and just didn't look right. I really wanted a nice light blue. Fortunately, it's cotton, so I bought some dye. 

That was the easy bit. Life is never simple, but I'll spare you all the tribulations of actually making the lining, nor will I show you close-ups of the stitching. After frequent unpicking, muttering and cursing, it is finished. And I am amazed how much I can get into it, including the varied notebooks I wittered on about last week and. those essential needlework tools, pliers and a screw driver, and it still looks half empty. I could undoubtedly get my hammer in there too, but I think that might be a step too far.

Life is never simple. I like my sewing accessories to match, and the bits and bobs I'd made for the smaller basket didn't go with the pale blue - you can see in the photo that that orange needle boob cushion has got to go. (I wonder if I can find a blue handled screw driver?)

The little plastic canvas box for oddments I made years ago was the wrong colour, and it had never been big enough, and making another one would use up most of my stash of plastic canvas and several hanks of my vintage tapestry wool, and this year is all about using up stash... 

So, I have made a bigger box, which you can see in the photo, and I'm working on a sort of matching (because I used up most of the lighter blue tapestry wool on the box) plastic canvas needle book, which may or may not replace the orange needle boob.

Procrastinating about getting back to my tree knitting? Me?

This week has been like the curate's egg...

 parts of it were excellent.

The worst bits were, worst to least worst;

1. Getting a (fortunately mild and brief) stomach bug.

2. This sock - designed to fill out and warm up my recently acquired yellow wellies, but too long in the foot. I think this wool is a bit of my hand dyeing - whoever did it, the dye comes off on my hands. Hope it will be better when washed.

3. The book of the week - a roughly similar design to last week's, but involving duck tape rather than gummed brown paper. Duck tape is very good at sticking to things - fingers, scissors, itself... This, plus the slightly different design and my innate clumsiness, produced a less than satisfactory outcome, somewhat rectified by neatening it drastically with a Stanley knife.

The good, but exhausting, part of the week was extra grandparenting duties. Fun, but hard work. Which meant that my 5 hours a night, insomnia busting, sleep deprivation only happened on a couple of nights. Believe me, I have not been insomniac this week.

The excellent bit was also the scariest. Ever since I finished the Foundation Degree, I've been thinking about trying to convert it into a full honours degree. My fellow FDA graduate, C, mentioned that she had applied to Chichester University to do the third year of their BA in Fine Art. My first reaction was that I couldn't possibly do that, but the more I thought about it, the better idea it seemed.

So, I applied, I had an interview on Tuesday, and I was lucky enough to be offered a place. It's part time, so it will take two years, but won't interfere with the grandparenting. Of course, now I'm torn between excited anticipation and sheer terror... Me, an art student? 

To finish off the day, on the way back from Chichester we went into Uppark, (I'm ashamed to say we've never been before) to get some lunch, and discovered there was an exhibition of contemporary art in the house. So we ate sandwiches in the sunshine, then admired the art and the house and came home. Another night when insomnia did not strike!

Oddments

Oddment 1.

More experiments with inks - plus a bit of fabric painting and some rubbings.  The inks had additions of freezer paper, washing up liquid, string (very little effect) and cling film. The rubbings were taken from the stump of the late tree. I hoped to get rings but what I got were saw marks...

The fabric painting is the beginning of the February challenge for Visual Marks - I showed you the oversized shoe lace earlier. I'm not sure what it is made of but I'm sure it is synthetic so I used silk paint rather than dye - and added some synthetic fabric and some cotton thread to the mix, while I was at it. Which  brings me to...

Oddment 2.

The fabric turned out a little pale, and a dragon mysteriously appeared. Well, it is St David's Day, and I am listening to Bryn Terfel. And my cherry tree is  flowering, so I felt it was time for a little blossom.

Oddment 3.

Socks have been completed and another pair started. The green ones are great, apart from the odd coloured spots, the mauve ones are turning out rather large - and I have remembered why I don't like acrylic yarn. I think they will become insomnia socks, kept in the pocket of my dressing gown for those small hours of the morning, cold feet moments.

Oddment 4.

The books of the week have been made. 

This one is recycled packaging, and the single leaf Coptic stitch binding from Keith Smith's 'Sewing Single Sheets'.

This one is a piano hinge binding, after (a long way after, due to not reading instructions properly) the instructions in Alisa Golden's 'Unique Handmade Books', (and no, I didn't pay that much for it!).

We have been eating a lot of Waitrose sushi recently, and because I am too cack handed to eat it with the provided  chopsticks, I had to think of a way of recycling them. They are just the right size to make an A5 book, which is very convenient. I have tried this binding before and I still find it clumsy, but I can see more in my future, unless I can think of another way to recycle the chopsticks.

I made two because, when I said the little guys were coming this weekend, I mis-spoke, it's next weekend, so I doubt there will be much bookmaking. Unless I show Babybel how to make a little folded book and let her decorate it. It is about time I did some more crafty stuff with them, we've just about got the glitter out of the carpet from Christmas!

What did I learn in school today?

Except that it wasn't in school, and it was several days. Why spoil a nice title for the sake of accuracy?

Lesson 1

I learned to love Evolon, from this technique from Judy Fairless's old WOW article. OK, the colours aren't wonderful, but I love the look of the little folded flaps.

That led to a bit more experimentation, and a lot more learning.

Lesson 2

I learned that my machine does not like sewing two layers of Evolon together, which led to the abandonment of one idea and the development of two more.

Lesson 3

I learned that not all velvet is cotton or silk, and therefore it is a good idea to test the backing fabric before soldering the Evolon. Synthetic velvet solders very nicely, till you meet the cotton backing. 

I do have plans for this one, by the way. Whether you ever see it again depends on how they work out.

Lesson 4

I learned that my clever idea to use the soldering iron to make fake chenille was not so clever after all, because the edges of the layers of fabric get sealed together. Obvious, really.

I did think about trying to separate them all, but I don't have the patience. So I switched from burn to slash in mid piece.

This was a positive experience, however. The burned half, on the right, is more rigid than the slashed half, possibly stiff enough for 3D pieces, and has quite an interesting texture. Plus the process broke up the not very interesting paper bag print quite nicely

Lesson 5

I learned that Fairless's suggestion for making Evolon + sheer 'buttons' is fun - I think Margaret Beal uses a similar process. However, these are too big, a bit boring, and not stiff enough.

Lesson 6, parts a, b & c

I'd read on line somewhere that you can colour Evolon with acid dyes, so I tried it once I'd found the dye (easy), some vinegar (harder, we only had wine vinegar but it needs using up) and my dye pan (hardest, until I remembered that I'd thrown out the enamel one without a lid because I'd bought a huge stainless steel one with two steamers and a lid in a charity shop).

The top piece is as it came out of the dye pot, the other was a further experiment with some microwave dyes. My supplementary learning was that the microwave dye is very  concentrated, so I ended up washing a lot of it out before nuking the fabric. In future I shall dilute it a bit before using. 

I also learned that it would have been a good idea to think more about the colours I used.

Lesson 7

My idea for using multiple layers of florists' wrap was not such a good one. Bigger holes? Fewer layers? Different colours. Don't bother anyway, the burnt paper original looked much better?

(If you don't mind, we won't talk about what I did with the holes from the one on the right - the worst bit of free machine lace in the world just got worse and worse the more I tried to rescue it. So Lesson 8 was to stop and fix tension problems, not just carry on regardless.)

I've still got a few  too many ideas to try with Evolon, but Babybel, the VHC and their entourage get back from France this weekend, so it will be back to work for granny and grandad next week.

And finally...

Lesson 9

It was worth trailing north through 30+ degree heat and traffic jams to go to Waddesdon Manor yesterday. I wanted to go when I found out about this, but when I found about this too, a visit became essential. 

Both exhibitions were great, the house is amazing, the blue badge car park looks like this, and the restaurant provided the nicest lunch we'd had since the salmon salad at Walford Mill.

All in all it was the best lesson I've had this week.

In between...

watching cycling on the TV (Go Froome! Go Cav!) I have managed to find a little time for repetition.

Earlier in the week, after a mini sort-out of stuff, I said to Wensleydale that when I'd finished repeating, I'd start experimenting with some of the stuff I'd bought over the years and never used - like Lutradur, and metal, and foil, and - well, you get the picture.

On Friday I thought 'Why wait?' - I can repeat and experiment at the same time. 

The result of this flash of inspiration was a lot of sorting through boxes, writing an embarrassingly long list of stuff to try, and spending a lot of non-TV watching time Googling what I'd found. I haven't been able to track everything down (has anyone any idea why I might have bought clear polyester sheets from Ario? They're like OHP slides but aren't - so what are they?) - but I've got ideas for most of the rest.

First out of the box(es) was some Evolon - which I bought and then decided I didn't like the texture. It is a not very exciting off-white, but you seem to be able  to colour it with all sorts of things, so as I also found some papers I'd coloured with transfer dyes, and a teetering pile of printable paper bags, that's what I tried.

This was transfer crayon (a rubbing of our garden table) over a mask of a jumble of thread. Not very exciting, but it got a bit of quilting onto felt and will go in the little brown book.

This is a paper bag. The panel on the far right was ironed straight on to the Evolon, top left is on something very translucent which may or may not be light Lutradur, and bottom left is one layered over the other. The pattern on the paper looked very fly-stitch-like, but printed off it looks less so. No idea what I'm going to do with it - possibly a book cover? (Now there's a surprise.) I also found some Lamifix, and as Google tells me you can't wash it, I decided I'd try adding it to book covers, because books are about the only thing I don't chuck in the washing machine. 

So, am I converted to Evolon? No. I still don't like the handle, it doesn't take transfer dyes as well as my favourite, in-your-face polyester satin, as shown on the left, and it makes an irritating popping noise as the needle goes through it. However I am open to persuasion if anyone has any suggestions.

It may make good book covers though, and I have enough left to experiment with other ways to colour it - like the Gelli plate, and someone suggested Inktense sticks.

After those experiments, I went back to the tried and tested - a little repetitive collage, mostly playing with stripes, and using yet more paper bags. They weren't ironed off, this time, just cut up and Bondawebbed into my sketchbook, with a bit of felt tip and rubber stamping. I like the deconstructed triangles, and the layered ones. 

Mmm - it's just dawned on me that if those sheets from Ario are polyester, I might be able to colour those with transfer dyes. I feel further experiments coming on...

Snow dyeing: continued.

I managed to get the snow dyeing rinsed and hung out to dry yesterday while the VHC was asleep, though as you can see I didn't get it ironed, and those threads are going to need a quiet evening when I'm feeling patient. The real colours are rather darker than this looks, and not so green. I used Kemtex Cerulean Blue and Jaquard Teal with a dash of Jaquard black in each. 

I read somewhere that snow dyeing causes dyes which are a mix of colors to split into their constituent colours, and it definitely happened with the Teal, leading to blues, greens and purples. Nice, but not what I wanted.

However, the method of just bunging the slaked dye onto the snow worked fine, with a good spread of colour across the cloth and few if any white bits, possibly because I didn't bother with complicated arrangements for draining off the liquid. There was relativly little liquid anyway, as of course snow contracts when it thaws.

Today I took advantage of our remaining snow and had another go, using Cerulean (which is a pure dye so shuold't split) with a smidgen of black. It will have to sit there till Friday or possibly Saturday before I can rinse it out, as it's another child minding day tomorrow, and the postponed Contemporary Textile Workshop on Friday.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

I mentioned yesterday that I was overdyeing some nasty pieces of hand dye, in an attempt to make them less nasty. All of them, together, at the same time. You may not believe this when you see how they came out.

I used some Dylon ‘Jeans Blue’ machine dye because:

1. I have a theory that you can overdye any colour with blue and
2. it was all I had…

My theory was that anything which was mostly white would end up blue – and that’s what happened.

These were white with purple or blue splotches on them – so now I've got blue with darker purple and blue splotches. Not brilliant, but better than they were – they are actually a bit darker than in the photo.

The second group date from my Kandinsky period, when I was dyeing saturated multi-colour pieces to make my version of this for City and Guilds. I had a lot of fabric left over and while it looked OK in small pieces, overall it was a bit too bright. Not to mention clashing.

The one on the right is silk velvet which I didn't want to bin if I could help it, which is why I decided to try the overdyeing.

This photo is reasonably accurate,unlike the others. Reasonably accurate apart from the one in the middle which does not have a big dark blob on it. [It is supposedly silk, from a charity shop blouse – but given how little dye it’s taken, I suspect there’s more than a little polyester in there as well.]

The silk velvet is much more interesting than it looks here – a deep green with undertones of other colours. Yes, green. No, it wasn’t mostly yellow before.

The final group were either:

1. ‘last batch of the day’ pieces, odd bits of fabric bunged in a bucket with the remnants of dye poured over – for some reason these almost always end up reddy-orange.
2. some underwhelming snow dyeing which was light green and pink.

My assumption, based on colour theory, was that if I overdyed orangey red or red with blue, I'd get purple – or at the worst, brown.

Definitely not green. [They are a lot darker and greener than in the photo.]

The one in the middle is about right, the others are completely misleading – like a cross between how they really look now and how they looked before I dyed them.

But I’d rather have green than brown, so I’m not unhappy, just perplexed – about the failure of colour theory - presumably this particular dye blend has a lot of green in it - and why my camera wants to take pictures of something that doesn’t exist.

Spooky.

The only creative thing I managed today …

was some ironing. Which is not one of my favourite activities – but this was the snow dyeing.

This is some silk organza – lovely stuff. I had one dyebath with blue and red dyes, one with blue and yellow, and one with yellow and red.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a heavier silk. The red and blue has rather a lot of white left, but the others came out well.

 

This is cheesecloth – I had intended to use it with the dyed felt.

 

 

 

 

 

This dyed felt. Maybe not.

 

 

This is needlepoint canvas – or was until I washed it. I inherited it from my mother, but it was musty, so, knowing no better, I washed it. Not a good idea if you want needlepoint canvas, but a better one if you want a soft even weave fabric with relatively big holes. And even better if you then dye it. For some reason the blue/yellow piece is almost entirely green.

 

 

These are some cotton and viscose threads I dyed as well. i always forget about threads until the last minute, so they didn’t get as long in the soda soak as perhaps they needed, so they are a bit pale.

 

 

And this is a piece of calico I used the left over dyes on. For some reason it is mostly green but there are some interesting areas on it. It is darker in reality than it looks here.

These Mondrian inspired trees from my C&G sketchbook go rather well with the calico! I scanned the prints I showed yesterday, printed them and then coloured them with water colour.

 

 

 

 

And that is it for the next few days  - for obvious reasons! Have a very happy celebration of whatever you celebrate – and I hope to be back after Boxing Day.

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

If it snows, do snow dyeing.

I had forgotten all about this fun technique but fortunately I was reminded about it by Wil. Of course, I should have been going to the gym, but – mmm, slippery footpaths, dangerous for a little old lady like me. [Stop laughing at the back, there!]

Unlike Wil, I haven’t nuked it in the microwave [did too much] so fingers crossed it turns out OK tomorrow.

I took these just before the snow finally melted – that’s snow, not ironed cellophane …

It’s batching now next to the central heating boiler.

 

Speaking of ironed cellophane – this was the wrapping off some Sainsbury’s chrysanthemums. It’s eat  my words time – sort of – I like these, but I can’t imagine how one might use them as they are very fragile.

 

No ironed cellophane here – this was the point in C&G when woman-with-flowers-in-her-hair morphed into man-with-leaves-in-his. We’d been told to make a 3D piece with silk paper [one of the techniques I do like, as I don’t think it overwhelms the stitch]. One of the suggestions was a mask – which was what led me into the Picasso portraits, as I thought, mistakenly, that he’d painted a pierrot with a mask. And that led to the woman with flowers.

And then I thought ‘Green Man!’ I’d always wanted to make a Green Man, but never found the right technique.

This is the result, which I’ve probably shown before. I moulded the silk paper over a plastic mask, and over real leaves. I left tendrils of silk paper round the edge of the mask, and held the whole thing down on some hand dye with couching, and beading. He’s still one of my favourite pieces. 

More bits and bobs

I spent the day doing bits of finishing off – like this

 

 

 

 

 

and this – with its inspiration.

 

 

 

 

I got the idea for the sewing from the booklet by Betsey Palmer Eldridge shown bottom left. Thanks to the Green Chair Press blog for the link to the Guild of Book Workers site where you can print off your own copy. Then you can probably do it better than I did!

I’ve also done a bit more arashi – yesterday I discharged the pieces I dyed earlier. And in one case I wish I  hadn’t bothered …  Can you guess which? The piece dyed with a mixture of Procion dyes gives much more subtle results than the one dyed with Dylon, – and the discharged blobs are too big. I prefer subtle.

Perhaps it needs overdyeing …

Today we reach the letter ‘D’, a drawn thread work dragonfly. Bit difficult to make a curved letter with a linear embroidery style, so please forgive the cheating!

Looks like rain?

That was the forecast for today – and so far, as you can see – wrong, wrong, wrong.

I had intended to stay in and tackle the tatty fleur-de-lyses – but when we woke up early and the sky looked like this – we decided to go out.

First we went to Walford Mill – well, to be accurate, first we went to the Mill cafe, and then fortified by coffee and brownies we went to the Mill.

We wanted to catch the  exhibition by Caroline Sharp before it closed at the weekend – and we were glad we did. Beautiful contemplative pieces that made me think both of Andy Goldsworthy and Hilary Bower, whose exhibition was the last thing we went to at Walford.

I was particularly struck by one of these, although I don’t think these images do them justice. [This is a better one.]

Think of a giant [1.5 metres or more ] dandelion clock made of twigs. And the shadows it cast were beautiful too. [I have a thing about work that casts interesting shadows.]

Then we went on to Kingston Lacy, which is one of those places we have driven past saying ‘Must go there sometime’. Today its time had come.

We realised as we drove in that there was a sculpture trail, and we fully intended to visit that as well as the house – until we realised how much there was to see in the house. So we postponed the sculpture trail till another day and after visiting the house, we went and had a cream tea in the cafe instead. We enjoyed the scones and so did the chaffinch. 

[I should point out that in between all this calorie-laden food we had a healthy picnic lunch of cheese salad … ]

Not many embroideries in the house and strictly no photography, but we did find something textile-related in the laundry outside where I sneaked a photo.   The one on the right looks like my 19th century model although mine doesn’t have Egyptian decals, unfortunately.

Opposite them was this. A bit more robust than the one my aunt used to have, but I think she did rather less laundry.

So one of these two images is my daily photo – I can’t choose between them.

 

 

And finally – the arashi dyeing. Low contrast as I expected, but quite interesting. I'm thinking about re-arashi-ing them and  then discharging to get a little more contrast – I’ll see what I feel like over the weekend.