Four more pages finished.

Though not without some anxious moments. The top left page has drawing pin stitched circles - OK apart from the appliqued fabric not lying flat - and the smaller flower stitcher circles. First I had to remember how to use the flower stitcher, the instructions not being completely clear. And then I realised that the machine wasn't stitching out the patterns I had selected. They were interesting variations on zig zags, but bore even less resemblance to the diagram on the machine than they usually do.

Quiet panic set in - was I going to need a new motherboard? I have just had a welcome tax refund, but nowhere near enough to pay for a new Bernina motherboard!

Then it dawned on me that you drop the feeddogs to use the flower stitcher, so - I think - the machine was stitching out the sideways movement, the flower stitcher was doing the forwards movement, but any backwards stitches were not happening.

At least I think that's what it was - it stitched OK as soon as I tried it without the flower stitcher.

On the positive side, I had an idea what to do with the very boring bit of hand quilting below the flower stitched piece. It was coloured with Markals but it seems to get paler every time I look at it, so it definitely needed a lift.

The answer was elephants. 

I bought them ages ago and never found a use for them. I had to glue them down - no stitching holes - but they definitely improve the page.

The other two pages are pretty ordinary but, to tell the truth, I'm getting circled out.

Just two more to go. Some more boring quilting, machine this time, which is going to get some couching over the top. It was coloured with spray paints which are also doing a vanishing trick.

The other one is the sunprinting, which I didn't expect to work, but which was very successful. More couching for the larger circles - I'm pondering on what to with the smaller ones. Buttonhole rings come to mind...

Then a quick Japanese style binding and no more circles! Probably.

And finally - an apped-about photo from our Wednesday wander. We went to Salisbury to see the Rex Whistler exhibition at the Salisbury Museum, which is recommended, and I took a few photos of the cathedral, to play around with. I'm rather pleased with this one. Apps were XNSketch, Popsicle and iColorama, to blend the other two together.

Repetition, again.

After my less than exciting efforts last week, I've managed to come up with a few things I like. 

This is more Evolon, coloured with transfer paint on one side and metallic paint on the other, then soldered.  Still a learning opportunity - I attached it to the red fabric before I soldered it, and some of the gold paint was transferred to the fabric. It didn't look bad, but I decided to cover it with some of the worm-like strands of cheap purl I bought when I was doing City and Guilds, and never used. Yet more stashbusting!

For some reason it makes me think of military uniforms.

This is a photo I took at the  ducky goosey place on one of our twice weekly visits.

I used an app called Griditor on the photo, printed it on Evolon treated with Inkaid clear, which made it a little stiffer, chopped it up with the soldering iron, and sewed the bits down on somthing which feels a bit like leather but probably isn't. Oh, I had previusly treated the 'leather' with bonding powder and copper foil. I tried several experiments with foil today and this was the only one that worked, the others were - shall we say 'lacking in sublety'? Even another attempt with bonding powde, on Evolon in this case, came out much too heavy.

Another photo - this one was of a shelf of books, believe it or not. The app looks like Decim8 but might have been something I've got on Big Mac, I can't really remember.

It's backed with wadding and hand dyed cotton. I cut out some areas with the soldering iron and then machined it down. Quite a lot of machining has been going on for someone who professes not to like it, but you will notice that it is not free machining.

And finally, two old aquaintances revisited. I decided the soldered buttons could be improved, and fortunately the little metal template I bought from Art Vango on the assumption that it was meant to be used with a soldering iron had two petal shaped holes just the right distance apart...

The caterpillar like thing on the righ is the holes from the unsuccessful soldered holes in Lutradur experiment, just strung at random with red beads in between. It feels lovely and is very drapy. No idea how I could ever use such an idea, but a least the holes weren't wasted.

Speaking of caterpillars, the VHC and his big sister are due to descend on us tomorrow, so little in the way of needlework will be done until we return them to their doting parents - unless Babybel brings hers.

The forecast was for sunshine...

Wensleydale fancied a trip to Stourhead, so off we set on another Tuesday trip, passing the Stones on the way. No, not the Rolling Stones, these Stones.

(I have to confess that there has been a certain amount of editing of this photo.) 

As we got nearer to Stourhead the weather got gloomier.

(There has been a certain amount of editing of this one too.)

D

As we got nearer, I began to wonder if the place was on fire (no editing apart from a crop).

The good news was that the house is, as far as I know, still standing.

The bad news is that we never got near enough to find out. Half the population of southern England seemed to have decided to go to Stourhead too. Wensleydale and I are impatient souls, and when we realised that we were in a traffic queue to get onto the road that leads to the road that leads to the car park - and the queue wasn't moving - we decided to go to Kingston Lacy instead.

This involved a scenic drive along the back roads of Cranborne Chase - and very scenic they were. (A touch of tilt-shifting.)

We stopped off for a very good smoked salmon sandwich at Cranborne Manor Garden Centre, and found no queues and no trouble parking at Kingston Lacy.  Perhaps the autumn colour wasn't quite as spectacular as ar Stourhead, but there was some - and we had probably left it too late anyway.

There were also roses

mysterious doorways

pumpkins

and lost wellies.

Bet you don't get all those in World Heritage Sites.

And on the way home I got to take more of my signature photos of the car wing mirror - which only needed cropping.

(All photo fiddling with Snapseed and Color [sic] Accent.)

Art Camera?

Today's app is Art Camera.

This one.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/artcamera-super-art-effect/id534486293?mt=8

- there are at least two others. Its strengths are that it is free, easy to use [1 INTUTs], and you can hand write on your images. Its weaknesses are that it has a small range of not amazingly interesting, untweakable filters, and is low-res.

I like the first of these, [HT filter + blur] though the writing is in the wrong place. It is fairly easy to move and rescale the writing, one you've worked out how to get it the right way up - hence the award of one INTUT.

I like the handwriting [or, more accurately, finger writing] bit, so I may keep it for that - I'm thinking of starting a folder on Paddy named '1 Hit Wonders' and putting in it the apps that might come in useful one day, like this one.


But 'Art'? I think not, though 'Camera' is justified, as you can take photos using it. [I came across the name for that on some techy site but of course I can't remember it...]

It seems quiet around here...

I have some finishing off to do before handing in 'the final body of work' on Wednesday, but that is in the diary for the weekend. There is the usual household routine, of course, but that isn't what you might call exciting.

Actually, it's been quite nice.

There's been time for a little more playing around with iPad apps - this time with addLib.

http://www.appart.jp/#/?2-en

At £1.99, this is probably one of the most expensive apps I've bought, and you have very little control over what it does, but I love it.

You can choose where to centre your image, and what text to add - either your own or random. The app does the rest - colour, layout, arbitrary letters. You just keep clicking the 'random' button till you get something you like, which isn't hard. I would like some control over colour and letters, but the font is plain, and the colours interesting.

It's Japanese, and I think that shows in the choice of colours, but I prefer them to a rather brighter palette. I think some of these would make classy greetings cards, or a print it yourself calendar, with very little effort on my part - now there's an idea...

P.S. I forgot to award INTUTs - this gets 0.5 as it requires very little intelligence to use, which is another reason I like it. It is not quite no stars because finding the customising details is a bit tricky [pinch an image, they are hiding behind it].

Slash and burn.

Make that stitch and burn.

This – yesterday’s sample -

 

 

 

 

 

 

led to 21 of these – a stitched photo before and after burning. [You can tell that I am still coming to terms with my new camera.]

 

I like the way the stitch makes the bottle cap look almost 3D.

 

 

Safety procedures were followed – although I forget to wear my mask , and the process is smelly.

 

 

 

 

 

The burned scraps are waiting to be stitched together.

The yellow background is temporary - my messy surface, which is a John Lewis bag over foam board. Useful because I can lift it off the table onto the floor when I want to do something odd like eat off the table.

All that after a bad night, a visit to the gym, and the usual chores.

Will it last?

A chapter of accidents.

1. The bin liners I painted yesterday to see if they would take acrylic paint. They looked fine to begin with but when I tried to cut them up to weave with them, the strips gave way under any tension at all. Into the bin.
2. Then I discovered the paint had come off on my cutting mat…
3. The black bin bag which I tried free machining on. Not a good idea without some sort of supportive backing. Into the bin.
4. Waking at 2 am and not getting back to sleep till 8, when I would have been better getting up.
5. The layered [shrinkwrap, black bin liner, iridescent film, black felt], then free machined, then shrunk piece I had hoped would reveal interesting layers when zapped – didn't. The layers seemed to meld together. Not into the bin, but definitely more boring than I’d hoped, though the burnt felt wasn’t bad..
6. The plastic patchwork – which worked fine till the very end. [It was a bit slippery, so my piecing was not very accurate, but I could live with that.] Then I broke a needle. In trying to find the tip of the broken needle I broke my stitch ripper [don’t ask], and when I started again, the machine decided to rip the plastic not once but twice. Which meant replacing most of one block and a complete section of border.
7. Quilting the result – despite heavy pinning, the plastic shifted all over the place, which means I have to unpick it. Tomorrow – I’ve had enough. Fortunately I have another stitch ripper.

Rather better news – our anniversary present to ourselves arrived, just in time for Babybel’s daddy’s birthday – not to mention that of Babyboy,  who is due around the same time.

I’ve had fun playing with it.

It’s a Panasonic, as recommended by A., and is going to take a bit of getting used too.

Quality Control made a good model for a slightly more elegant image than

 

 

 

 

this one – not taken with the new toy, but when she dozed off on the scanner. Cat scan.

 

 

 

 

This is even less elegant – but interesting – a rotting apple in the garden. 

W. will get a look in, I promise – if only because he knows more about photography than me.

 

And the other good news is that Mark is finished – maybe. I’ve run out of green wool, but I fancy making him into a little cushion, so may add something else round the sides. Macro close up on the left so you can see the shards of coke can hidden in the ‘grass’. Not sure why the other one has ended up with an orange cast, but it is brilliant example of the way shadows are the complementary colour to the object <g>.

Snap happy!

Thanks to Babybel's daddy, I have been equipped with a little photographic knowledge and a tripod. Unfortunately Wensleydale is confined to bed with a bad back, so I have spent today, when we planned to go Christmas shopping, taking two or three [hundred] black and white photographs of inanimate 3D textile pieces -

and Rambo.

I wouldn’t say they were good photos, despite the excellence of Babybel’s daddy’s input – but there are enough not too bad ones amongst the many less good ones to fill the necessary portfolio – especially when the marker hasn’t really seen the originals.

So now I have to edit the photos, select the ones I want to print, print them, get more ink and photo paper, print some more, decide which piece I am going to hand in, [its photos don’t have to go in the book], stick in the photos, write an evaluation, contextualize the samples and I’m done!

This is the piece I will probably hand in – either that or the Anglo-Saxon coffee cosy, but that is a bit derivative of a piece the tutor showed us, so I think it will be this bowl of unidentified archaeological artefacts instead. Possibly with a labelled box? Or am I mad?

Of course I also have to finish this, including trimming off those unravelling hills and adding a train, put more stuff in the sketchbooks for drawing studies [contextualisation for those too], plan and write my essay [more contextualisation]and presentation, [aaagh - PowerPoint!], and start thinking seriously about the real 3D piece.

What will you be doing over Christmas?