I’m going backwards in time.

I.e. I’m posting about last Wednesday after my last post about last Thursday. Confused? Join the clan.

Wednesday was the first degree session this semester, and was a continuation of our work on 3D pieces. We started by making fairly straightforward little vessels, following Janet Edmond’s technique from this book.

It was, as usual, one of those sessions when I thought ‘If I’d known what we were going to do I’d have brought something different’ – and my piece was pretty boring.

So this morning I got out the black gesso and a rubber stamp. 

Part-way–through and after images to the left. It is due to get some metallic paint and possibly some verdigris at a later date. Anything to make it a bit more interesting.

 

Wednesday afternoon was spent constructing a fabric to make a vessel to stiffen with PVA, which is not a technique I’d come across before, although we did PVA fabric together to make a background on C&G.

The piece I made for that was so uninspired I’m not even going to show it to you.

Instead, as we keep being told to be experimental – and I keep being told I’m coasting – I decided to conduct a small experiment.

Experimental piece one - a yoghurt pot, covered in cling film, draped with various black sheers and painted with PVA – with a dollop from one of these which are my new favourite things.

 

 

Experimental piece 2 - another yoghurt pot/cling film combo, draped with black  sheers painted with wallpaper paste and the essential confetti glue.

 

 

 

 

 

And 3 is – yes, you guessed it, yoghurt pot and cling film, sheers, confetti glue – and Paverpol, this time. Another of those things I’ve had for years and never used.

The sheers are black, by the way – I think I may have been a little bit too generous with the Paverpol.

 

 

Those of you with a scientific background may be thinking that this is not a well-designed experiment – too may uncontrolled variables, like the type of sheers I used and the way I draped them – but doing all three the same would have been boring - even assuming I could remember how I did the first one.

I hope they’ll be dry by tomorrow – though I have my doubts about the Paverpol …

Determination leads to triumph.

Not mine,  - but Babybel’s. I knew she was a stubborn determined little madam [can’t think who she gets it from] but today she demonstrated just how determined she is.

We took her to the local soft play area.I haven’t been to one since her daddy and uncle were small – and soft play areas have clearly changed in the ensuing years. This one resembled a floor-to-ceiling jungle gym – and when I say ceiling, I do not mean a domestic ceiling.

There was a toddlers’ area as well, but Babybel, ilk her father and uncle before her, thinks toddler play areas are for wimps. She did try it out but she really really really wanted to play where the gang of older, noisy boys were playing. Unfortunately the sort of scaffolding tower she had to climb to get up to their level was just a bit too widely spaced for a 2 3/4 year old, even one with long legs. She kept trying, getting increasingly frustrated until finally, just before we were due to leave, she realised that she could help to haul herself up by pulling on the netting round the whole caboodle.

Up she went, level by level, quicker and quicker – until she disappeared from sight.

At this stage Granny began to panic. Not that I was afraid she would fall, I knew she couldn’t – but I couldn’t work out how she could get down again. The only route seemed to be via an enclosed slide, which as far as I could see could only be reached by crossing a rope bridge. And although I knew she had been over one of those before, it wasn’t 20 feet in the air with a clear view down to the ground.

Fear not, granny. Babybel came into view, inching her way cautiously but confidently across the bridge to the lip of the slide, where she paused.

We couldn’t work out from the ground what was happening. Was she scared to get into the slide – as far as I know she has never been down an enclosed corkscrew one before. Did she not know what it was? She had studied it carefully from the bottom when the boys were coming down it, but that didn’t mean she recognised it from the top – and of course, by now, the boys had disappeared so we couldn’t ask one to go up and help her.

Finally, after trying a number of ways of getting into it, she came sailing down to the ground.

Whereupon rotten gran declared it was time to go home – which it was, but gran could also spot the signs of tiredness and knew a second attempt might not be so successful.

Cue for tears and tantrums, but gran has dealt with such before and was not moved. And we will be going back next week for some consolidation of learning.

I am very proud of her guts and determination – and know that she has learned the valuable lesson that in life, determination and effort can lead to success. [Never have a psychologist in the family, it leads to interpretations of your behaviour.]

Of course, stupidly, I had forgotten my camera, so her triumphant emergence from the slide has gone unrecorded.

P.S. Charlotte’s web

 

Wensleydale just drew my attention to this little family, currently occupying a corner of our downstairs loo.

 

 

 

It probably tells you something about the quality of my housekeeping – but what do they find to live on in a windowless room where the door is usually shut?

More glue and glitter.

More Cas Holmes inspired work this afternoon, although it was a bit more muted than the Indian piece – at least to begin with.

This was the first layer – a piece of calico which some time ago, I folded and stood in a cat tray of left-over coffee – as you do. I thought I would get a narrow stripe of coffee along the folds.

As you can see, it didn’t quite work out that way.

 

 

 

Then some  paper – brown, tissue and pattern tissue. [Cliché, I know.]

Yes, it does say ‘shoulder pad cover’ at the bottom. You can tell why that particular pattern was ready to be recycled.

 

Then a fabric layer – cream scraps and some of the inherited, nasty, poor quality, Broderie Anglaise edging of which I have several miles – well, about 7 yards before today.

Other people inherit antiques, money, property – I inherited textiles. And not silk, either.

 

 

A bit of bling – chocolate foil and glitter glue. [Come on, Green & Blacks, make recycling easier – make your foil easier to remove from its backing paper!]

The rather nice swirly design came from an old blouse.

 

 

And a final layer of  coffee dyed polyester sheer – scrumpled and dunked in coffee this time, again some time ago.

 

 

The result is far more atmospheric than I had any right to expect, given my ad hoc approach to design. I think it speaks for the strength of Holmes’ technique that I’ve ended up with two very usable pieces of fabric.

One problem though.

Although it didn’t seem to affect the coffee in the the calico, the paste did begin to dissolve the coffee in the sheer – and the combination oozed out.

Coffee flavoured wallpaper paste – nice.

Shopping and – er – shopping.

Today we went to the Stitch and Creative Crafts show at Sandown – free, courtesy of a kind person who had won tickets and couldn’t use them, so passed them on to me.

I know from past experience that there is relatively little stitch in the Stitch and Creative Crafts show, apart from cross stitch, and this year there didn’t seem to be much of that. However there did seem to be more knitting yarn than previously.

So, having walked half way round resolutely saying that I didn’t need any more knitting yarn …

Who could resist? – despite looking blue in the photo, it is purple, which, I have on very good authority, is Babybel’s favourite colour.

Er – no, it’s not for Babybel. [Purple is her gran’s favourite colour as well.]

 

For some reason, this side of the lovely packaging reflected the flash more, but you can just about see the pattern – although it is unlikely I’ll be wearing it with a skirt quite that short.

Some other yarns from the same pleasant lady here.

 

 

 

Of course that wasn’t all I bought. The one thing you can get at S&CC is stuff for paper crafts, and although I don’t do things like card making or scrapbooking, I do like some of the goodies that go with them. Like this lot. [Plus a pompom maker]. Those paints were all very cheap, which is why there are so many of them.

 

And of course, some books – plus a tip on a good pub near Skipton from the man from Yorkshire Books. [Devonshire Arms in Cracoe, if you're interested.]

I haven’t had a chance to look at the Mixed Media one properly yet, but the Ruth Lee one is great – especially when college work this term is centred on 3D pieces.

So tonight I shall snuggle down with my new books, my [old, but nearly finished] knitting, and my cold…

Getting down to glueing.

 

As a penance for ducking out of going to the gym [bad Cheshire!] I made myself get on with the Cas Holmes/India inspired piece.

In the end I didn’t do any painting, but there was a lot of glue.

The top image in the collage is the first layer, which is paper glued to the hand-dyed, failed-image-transferred fabric. I used some of the paper I stamped earlier, plus some Indian paper. [Note to self: the stitching on Indian paper is chain stitch and comes undone very easily when you are trying to tear the edges.]

The middle picture is after the second layer of bits of fabric from the scrap box [I think I am finally getting to the end of the samples from my C&G gold work cushions.] There are also some of those Indian ‘jewels’ from Glitterati’s mixed goodies packs, which I never know what to do with. Not sure if they’ll stay stuck but they are covered by the final [?] layer of sheers, as seen – or not – in the bottom picture.

The sheers went transparent when I glued them, so it probably doesn’t look any different from the previous one, apart from  the glitter. I bought some Early Learning Centre glitter glue for Babybel but it was rather too gloopy for her use. It’s probably too gloopy for her gran’s use as well, but I dribbled some on and brushed it out – and it looks quite good.

This was destined to be cut up and turned into book pages but Wensleydale doesn’t want me to do that with it – have to see what it looks like when it all dries, about a week next Sunday, after all the glue I put on.

I had a moment of panic this morning when I couldn’t find the bit of paper I thought I had telling me what I needed for the first day of college next Wednesday - [getting ready for college being procrastination about starting the glueing, you understand.]

But then I got an e-mail from college, so I decided I hadn’t lost it after all.

Got most of the stuff but the sewing machine is in for service, nor do I have any ‘Ideas for 3D piece … e.g. shells, fruit etc.’  I guess it will be shells, then.

We are also instructed to bring our 100 drawings for handing in. No one said anything about handing them in!!! In that case I want to add an explanation of my agonising over ‘what is a drawing’ – so I’m procrastinating over that by writing this …

If in doubt – make a book.

I had planned on doing some more on my India/Cas Holmes inspired piece – print on some more fabric, glue things together, that sort of thing – but I have to be in the right mood to slosh paint and glue about – and I wasn’t.

So, I made a book, inspired by this, on Jim Escalante’s site, [where I also found the instructions for this].

You may have noticed that the accordion book is made of hand made paper, laminated together, while still wet, with ribbon hinges.

I didn’t have any pulp, and I didn’t feel like making any – paper making being up there with painting and glueing in the list of things I didn’t feel like doing.

I did have Colour Catchers.  [Surprised?] And Bondaweb, and knitting ribbon. So this is my version.

Looking again at Escalante’s site I realise that Jean Funcke, who made the original, had 4 ribbons, but no ties. My ties don’t work terribly well, but I like look and feel of the result. It just needs a bit of embroidery…

 

After that I decided to do a bit of colouring in – though I definitely went over the lines

Copying - being inspired by A., I joined Carla Sonheim’s on-line class ‘The Art of Silliness’. After all that stress over ‘what is a drawing?’ I felt the need of a bit of silliness.

The test piece was this, to which we had to add a story.

A’s story was about cooking,  mine about mental illness. Does that say something about each of us?

‘But it looks like paint’, I hear you cry. Well – it was water-soluble crayon – and I did take a wet paintbrush to it, at the end. So maybe I felt like painting after all.