Comparing one day with another …

On Wednesday I felt I’d wasted the whole day – today, although I don’t think I've done much more, I feel I’ve achieved much more.  Not much to show for it, though, short of photographing the shopping, or of the lists I've made [transcribing ideas for lettering from several small notebooks into a large unsketchbook].

There is this, however.  I did several of these ‘halo’ images in my other Installation Art sketchbook. [I can call it that because it does have some sketches in it.]  However this one, on an old ‘Bibliophile’ catalogue, seemed to fit with the graffiti concept – not sure why.

Just to prove

that self-striping knitting yarn doesn’t always work.  It’s OK for socks which are pretty much the same circumference all the way along – but on a sweater you get odd variations in the width of the stripes.

And it was going to have a hood, but I wasted so much yarn getting the stripes to match up there wasn’t enough left.

Still – perhaps the little one [currently on holiday with mum, dad, dog and bikes in Derbyshire] can wear it for mucking about in.

Something much more successful were these, the result of the Ruth Smith workshop today,

 

 

 

 

which will be even better when they have been united with their insides.

For those who don’t know, Ruth wrote this and this, and is an expert on these booklets [scroll down for lots of pictures].

In a day we could only get started on a small sample, but I bought Ruth's pamphlet on how to make one like the dragon decorated example in the photos, plus instructions for some pretty little boxes and an Advent calendar. [I already have both her books and her previous project pamphlet.]

It was a very enjoyable workshop – embroidery in the morning and paper cutting, glueing and folding in the afternoon. Perhaps not a inspirational as Jackie Langfeld's last week, but very good fun, especially for a book making fanatic!

 

Speaking of books … another unsketchbook page.

 

 

Do you ever have days …

when you plan on getting lots of things done, and then seem to achieve nothing?

Glad I'm not alone.

W. is out of action at the moment, due to an injured knee, so we had to cancel our outing with Mr. and Mrs. C. So I had planned a day of embroidery and unsketchbooking.

Well, I managed some unsketchbooking, although it’s not very inspiring. And some housework of course. And that’s it.

So here’s one I made earlier. Yes, I know that ‘R’ looks odd – that’s because it’s a ‘'B' with a chunk cut out of the bottom, because I didn’t have an ‘R’. [That sounds as though it might develop into something rude so I won’t pursue it.]

Tomorrow should be better as I’m going to this. 

An end – and a beginning …

This is the end.

I actually finished it before we went away, but it has been languishing ever since waiting for a button. It is rather a big button for a small girl, but then it is rather a chunky sweater. Babybel is a bit of a jeans and T-shirt girl, so hopefully this will go with denim.

And this is the beginning. A few rows of tent stitch. I hope to get onto the more interesting bits tonight.

 

 

 

 

This is today's unsketchbook page – it says ‘Hanging by a thread’. Twice, once on the page and once on the tags.

I was going to do so much today …

but then I had a lousy night and my get-up-and-go got up and went.

I did manage to draft some more Suzani inspired canvas work –’design’ is too grand a word for a straight steal from this lovely piece. As you can see I changed my mind several times – and I’m still not sure about the left hand border. The colours [grey blues]will be inauthentic, as this is another stash-busting exercise. The embroidery will be inauthentic as well as Suzanis aren't canvas work – but if in doubt, do a bit of tent stitch.

If you want to know more about real Suzanis there’s a good introduction here.

Regular readers of my blog may wonder how, if I find cross stitch boring, I can stand tent stitch. Well, as it’s only 1 stitch not 2, it’s only half as boring - and somehow working on pieces like this is motivating because of the frequent changes of colour.

Even backgrounds aren’t boring if you work them in a range of similar shades, like the background here – and it helps to use up all those partial skeins I have, because I inherited two canvas worker’s stashes.

I did also manage some photo scratching too – another image from the Contemporary Textile workshop. I don't like this one as much – you may not be able to tell from the photo but I found some plant forms in there. There is also a dragonfly's wing at the right, but that is nothing to do with me!

These are today's unsketchbook images – companion pieces, constructed by tearing or cutting as appropriate.

 

 

 

 

Not very inspiring, but they might be more interesting in fabric, if I could persuade it to tear in the right  way …

Two things I learned today.

First, from LK Ludwig’s ‘Point and Shoot’ on-line class, on using your own photos in journals – the wonderful effects you get if you scratch your photos. [!] 

This is one of the photos I took at the last Contemporary Textiles session, converted to B&W, printed on cheapo glossy photo paper from [I think] WH Smiths and scratched with an awl and an embossing tool – which I have never used for its intended purpose.

The loops of thread looked like one of those ‘taking a line for a walk’ drawings I used to do in primary school – so I filled in some of the spaces with doodles. I can see this as free motion embroidery on water soluble.

When I looked at this dribble of thread I spotted a Mackintosh rose in the middle – [well, possibly plastic mac more than Rennie Mac] so scratched parts of it, then coloured it with Inktense pencils. The colour is more intense where the image has been scratched, paler where the surface is left, so you get interesting colour variations without really trying – the texture left by the scratching helps too. I love the translucent, stained glass effect because you can see the photo behind the colour.

The journaling class is pretty good – I have an on-off relationship with journaling, partly because I don’t want to use other  people’s images and I can’t draw – so the idea of using my own photos appeals.

And the second thing I learned was from here.   Going to a class where I embroidered corrugated card has led to a move away from textile-related  words, I’m afraid, but I think the technique could be adapted for cloth – perhaps for appliqué using Bondaweb. [Livewriter’s spell check wants to substitute ‘bondage’ for ‘Bondaweb’. Er – I think not.]

Thank you

for all the kind comments on my recent posts – I’m glad that people are enjoying them!

This pair of pages are really a bit of a cheat. The top is the reverse of one of the painted pages which inadvertently got blots of paint on it – now there's a surprise. I added a wash of Koh-i-Noor to blend it all together.

The bottom is a left over from this which I made in August – clearly I had graffiti on my mind even back then. It is plastic bags, ironed to laminate them together and then machined. The left-over bit was  just the right size for the page so obviously it had to go in. You see why I call it an unsketch book.