Oh, Pollocks

You may remember that on the day the tree fell down I had intended to go out and slosh paint on paper – but it was too wet and windy. And the weather hasn’t got much better. Today it is sunny [so far] but still too windy to spread sheets of A2 out on the grass. So I put down a lot of plastic sheeting and newspaper in the conservatory  and sloshed inside.

I had been inspired by an article by Jacqueline Sullivan, in the Spring 2005 edition of ‘Cloth Paper Scissors’, about using transparent watercolours to make backgrounds. I have a lot of watercolours of different types but I have no idea if any of them are transparent. And most of them come in small tubes or cakes and don't really seem suitable for diluting in water and spreading liberally on paper, using plastic water bottles.

Then I had an ‘Aha’ moment. Brusho.

So I mixed up some yellow, brilliant red, ultramarine and grey [Brusho not running to colours with names like ‘alazarin crimson’ or ‘Payne's grey’] and sloshed them on as per the instructions.

This is the result. Good, no?

Of course they are nowhere near as subtle as Sullivan’s – and I completely forgot her suggestions for adding stuff like salt, metallics, sand, charcoal, alcohol or plastic wrap. [She doesn’t mention washing up liquid but that does interesting things to wet paint, too – just make sure you get the colourless stuff. Unless you want green or yellow blobs, of course.]

I would add a couple of suggestions to Sullivan’s instructions.

First – after the first couple of sheets I took up the newspaper and put down brown paper and wallpaper under the sheets I was painting. Paint was running all over the place and I didn’t want to waste it. 

 

Secondly, Sullivan suggests that you drain off paint into a drip tray. I put paper towels into the tray to slurp up the paint. Instant painted paper towels – a bit murky but not too bad. 

 

It wasn’t just the paper that got painted. Do you know how difficult it is to photograph the soles of your feet? Of course sane people like my readers probably wouldn’t want to…

While I was sloshing and dribbling I had a go with some walnut ink, too. 

So what is all this Jackson Pollocking in aid of? Book pages of course.

 

While I was in the conservatory I spotted this little fellow on the window sill. Not heavily textured but look at his spots!

And he is such a perfect 90 degree angle he is calling out to be tessellated, I think - or something clever with folded hand made paper – with frilly edges.

Must get a book of British moths, then perhaps I can work out what all these are!

I must apologise

if I have given anyone the impression that this is an embroidery blog. Unfortunately my complete lack of inspiration continues. I even got out some of my old magazines and tried to find a project in there that grabbed my interest. Nothing. [So far anyway – I do have quite a lot of embroidery magazines yet to work through.]

However, books are a different matter.

Our homework, for the Contemporary Textiles Workshop, is to start a sketchbook on installation art, including studies of two artists. [Only two? I can think of at least 4 …]

The sketchbook can be bought or made. Now there's a challenge. Of course I have several bought sketchbooks but I’ve decided I prefer working with A4 size and the bought ones are too big or too small. In any case, where’s the fun in a bought sketchbook?

I was going to use the ravens’ claw one, but I realised that although it would be fine if I only sketched in my sketch books, but as soon as I started sticking things in [and I will] it would start to bulge. And as I am rather proud of how flat it ended up …

So yesterday I decided to make a book which would accommodate accretions. [Forgot to mention it in all the tree excitement.]

So this is it. Unusual – no?

 

 

 

This is how it started – except that I forgot to photograph it before I cut the edges off.  Yes – it’s a thingy for packing books to post.

 

 

 

 

Embroidery books, as it happens.

I got the idea from here, but modified it a bit, by using the mailing thingy, turned inside out and lined with brown paper,  and by sewing in the signatures rather than tying them in. Hence the duck tape to strengthen the spine.

It was quick and simple to do and I'm tempted to make another one when I get another suitable cover.

Well – one is never enough, is it?

This is a bit more elaborate.

It is a secret Belgian binding. I’m not sure if it’s called that because Belgian book binders tried to keep it a secret – or because you can’t quite see how the signatures are attached to the spine – but it’s a nice looking binding, and as the spine is wider than the fore edge there's lots of room for padding.

I covered the cover with some Indian paper bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show , with no real idea what I was going to do with it. It makes a good looking cover – pity I didn’t buy more of it …

There may be a few more books in the future because today the postie brought me this – book cover made from an old hot water bottle, anyone?

and this - which I thought was about scrap-booking until I saw some interior images on a website somewhere. A few projects but lots of inspirational ideas.   Including a different sort of wooden cover and as I just found another bit of scrap plywood …

Unfortunately neither of them came in a suitable bit of corrugated card. And I suppose I ought to start doing my homework. I always did leave it to the last minute …

And finally – another in my occasional series of textural moths. [I have several photos of moths because they perch (do moths perch?) on the washing, hanging up to dry and stay there.] I think this would make a wonderful piece of canvaswork – either fairly realistic or Bargello—ish.

Tree trauma

When we woke up to sunshine this morning, I decided it would be a good day to go and slosh some paint on big sheets of paper in the garden. [The coffee-sloshed paper, by the way, ended up in the ravens’ foot book.]

Of course by the time I was ready to slosh, the weather had taken a turn for the worse.  I went outside to confirm that the grass was too wet to put  paper on – and  was confronted by this.

Not a bush, but our beautiful purple lilac doing its best to lie down on the grass – having dealt the washing line a terminal blow on the way down.

I know lilacs are inclined to do this – the white one in the front garden tried to drop a branch on Cheese Minor a few years ago, but fortunately missed.

Of course I had to get in there and take a few photos. Isn’t this lichen wonderful? So this is today's texture photo – velvet stitch again, I think, or a very luxuriant fringe.

So Wensleydale spent the morning chopping up lilac tree. Although I will miss it, the house end of the garden is now much lighter and we have a much better view when we eat outside.

In a way I am glad I didn’t get round to painting the papers as it has given me the opportunity to have a go later at this on Kit Vincent’s inspiring blog. Isn’t that a brilliant idea? Thanks to Dahn for the link.

I promised you a book

but in an outburst of creativity  I made three.

This is the Raven’s Foot binding from ‘Book Arts: Beautiful Bindings for Handmade Books’ by Mary Kaye Seckler. Sorry about the flash reflection – the photos with no flash were even worse.

It’s what I started yesterday but gave up when I got to the last signature and realised that I didn’t have enough thread left to tie it off.

Annoyingly, when I was deconstructing it today, I discovered that if I had spotted an undetected tangle in the second signature I would have had enough after all. However I think I did it better the second time, so it was probably a good thing really. [‘Always look on the bright side of life’ -fill in your own Eric Idle impersonation here.]

In case you are thinking ‘How could she run out of thread on those little ravens’ claws?’ – this is what ate the thread – the sewing and  wrapping which holds the signatures to the ravens’ ‘legs’. [I think one raven may have a badly mended break in his.]

This is the second book. Like the first, the covers are made from offcuts of plywood which Wensleydale donated – skilfully cut and drilled by him, much less skilfully varnished by me.

As you can see I was feeling purple when I made this. It is yet another attempt at a Coptic binding – I’ve tried following several different sets of instructions but don’t really understand any of them!

Then I used the leftovers from the pages of the triangular book to make this one.

 

It uses the technique we were taught in Contemporary Textiles. I made four pamphlets and then held the four together by weaving in and out of the stitching on the spines.

 

Today’s texture photo is another moth – unless you want to look at the texture of the laundry he’s resting on. It was difficult to get a good photo because he was quite small – about 3 cm from wingtip to wingtip. I think he looks like ruffled lace.

Yet more texture

We have pine trees in addition to apple trees – or they may be firs, I'm not sure of the difference. Possibly as a result we have a lot of squirrels. I know grey squirrels are vermin – rats with nicer tails – but then I like rats too – although not the wild kind.

So today’s texture image is a pine cone – and some interesting texture in the grass too. Possibly some canvas work stitches for an abstract pine cone, and random Bokhara couching for the grass?

I had hoped to show you a book as well – but my 2.5 metre length of thread was about 5 cm too short. So that is on hold till tomorrow when it will be restitched with a slightly longer piece …

As a change from apple trees …

here’s a plank. I think this would be interesting in free cross stitch or, as a change from French knots, four legged knot or Danish or Sorbello – which I think are all slightly different, although I could be wrong. Perhaps on top of free machining on something which will disintegrate if zapped with a heat gun …

Bad news on the alphabet - ‘P’ has turned into a bit of a disaster and will need rethinking.

And I was knitting so tensely while watching David Millar not winning today's stage of the TDF my hands are aching.

Time. I think, for a medicinal glass of white wine.

Despite the rain

we went for out planned visit to Whitchurch Silk Mill this afternoon – and even got a walk round the grounds in between the showers. Of course these two didn’t mind the weather.

 

Last time we went the garden of dye plants was looking very sparse and dry – but it seems to have grown a bit. So much so that most of the labels were hidden in the undergrowth and I don’t know what some of these are.

We came home with some goodies.

We paid for the guide book – the feather was a freebie plucked from the river, and probably donated by a swan.

 

 

 

Although the gardens are pleasant even in the rain and the mill is very interesting in its own right [technically minded husbands seem to enjoy it as well], we really went for this exhibition, curated by Lynn Szygenda, from the Embroiderers' Guild.

Like all exhibitions at Whitchurch it is small – two cases, one with smocks from the EG’s collection, and one with items by the Smocking Branch of the EG – or, as one notice has it, the Smoking Branch. Which conjures up an interesting mental image of women with smocking pleaters and other embroidery paraphernalia standing in doorways with cigarettes in their mouths. [Of course I just typed ‘smoking pleaters’ – criticising other people's typing is asking for trouble …]

I found the exhibition a real eye opener, especially the early 20th century pieces which were made for children or as demonstration pieces. I’ve seen pictures in books, of course, but books don’t do them justice –  the dense cream on cream stitching, both smocking and surface embroidery, is quite beautiful.

There is one smock which is believed to be a genuine 19th century work garment – and as you might expect, the embroidery is more utilitarian and the materials coarser.

There are also a few 1950’s girls dresses which may be familiar to those who, like me, were young then, and had mothers who embroidered. I particularly liked the red dress with matching knickers …

Worth a visit if you are in the area and want to see some interesting pieces. Last time we visited the mill we Gift Aided our entrance fee and were given free admission for a year – which is useful as there is an interesting looking exhibition of unusual knitting planned for the autumn …

Oh – and for those who coveted my little loom – they have some slightly different ones in the shop, which you can get to without having to pay to go into the mill. But don’t expect to pick up lengths of silk for a song. When you realise that just warping a loom can take three weeks, you understand why the stuff ain’t cheap.

Today’s texture picture is – yet again – an apple tree. [We do have several but unfortunately they are mostly unproductive, being, we think, about 80 years old – and, let’s be honest, neglected.]

This isn’t an easy one to envisage in stitch -  possibly bits of silk paper layered and stitched? Anyone got any better ideas?