Bad stuff and good stuff.

Bad stuff

I had to have a tooth out yesterday - and I don't have that many to spare. I was eating toast on Saturday morning when I heard a crack, and one of my few remaining, much patched molars became painful and wobbly. It turned out that the root had broken, so it was goodbye tooth. In the words of Pam Ayres, 'I wish I'd looked after me teeth'.

Good stuff

My lovely Welsh dentist told me to go home and put my feet up. I didn't need to be told twice - and so I have finished my first Karen Ruane block. Maybe. It may get extras when I come to join it to its brothers and sisters. (I should point out this is straight out of the embroidery hoop and it needs blocking to make it look better.)

I like some bits better than others - although  I like the look of the cutwork, I wish I'd made it smaller, but that isn't really something you can unpick.

Now on to block two. I wonder how long I can spin out this 'I've got to sit down, the dentist told me to'?

Playing around...

with my Karen Ruane piece.

Look at this piece and admire the dedication that made me tackle two of my least favourite stitches - cross stitch and bullion knots.

I must admit that I love the look of the cross stitch hearts on silk, so much that I bought some more waste canvas.

And my bullion knots are better now that I know the right way to do them (milliner's needle, wrap clockwise). Not good, you understand, just better.

The more I do on this piece, the more I like it. I can see so many things that I could have done better, but I still like it. As there is a lot of stuff in it which I inherited from mum, I find myself thinking about my somewhat ambivalent relationship with her as I work on it, which is quite bittersweet, and adds to the process.

Working on it has reminded me how much I enjoy flitting from one process/stitch/patch to another - low boredom threshold! Only having a little bit of cross stitch or a few bullion knots makes them tolerable and doable. And, as Karen points out in her videos for the course, you can always add more. I like to kid myself that I have a 'less is more' aesthetic, but  sometimes nothing succeeds like excess. 

I think it may become a work in intermittent but continuous progress, as I make more blocks to add to this one. 

I have also been playing with my tiny Sandra Meech sketchbook. I have a collection of printouts from the Internet for ideas for sketchbooks, and I decided to work my way through them with no very clear idea of where I was going. It ended up being a very productive process, giving me lots of ideas for my piece for the NEC in March. 

Hence the scribble on the yellow spread. 

It is definitely going to be called 'Moving On' (maybe).

It is definitely going to be a small concertina book (maybe).

It is definitely going to have eight pages (maybe).

It is definitely going to include those arrows (maybe).

It is definitely going to involve patching and layering fabric (maybe).

It is definitely going to use the indigo fabrics I dyed with Tiggy Rawlings last year (maybe).

It is definitely going to be hand stitched (maybe).

That led to some explorations of ways to join fabric together - only with paper. They are mostly stitch, although I have to admit that a little glue was involved, purely as a temporary measure, you understand.

The second image is the reverse of one side of the first one, and I included it because I like the way the backs of the stitches seem to develop from the black marks on the left - a B&W print of the over-enlarged detail of foliage on the right of the top image. The foliage is in the apped photo of a truck at the top, except I ripped that bit off.

I trust I make myself clear?

More joinings. I vaguely remember doing something similar for City and Guilds, except that variations of faggotting were involved in that one, and mine, which was black and magenta, ended up looking like a section from a tart's corset. Which in turn reminds me of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, although I don't remember any magenta corsets in that, even on Magenta... 

And as I correct yet another nonsensical autocorrection, I must point out that any post which is even more gibberish-ish (yes, autocorrect, that is what I meant) than usual is all the fault of Paddy the iPad (maybe).

Conflict of interests.

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting much about my work for Karen Ruane's latest class. Well, I haven't been posting much of anything, despite all my good intentions, but nothing about 'Embroider, Embellish, Create'. 

That's because I haven't been doing much work for it, as I wanted to complete two other things first.

Thing 1

(I diagnose too much exposure to Dr Seuss.) But I digress. Thing 1 was the 'Attack' series I posted about lat time. (I suppose that should be 'Things 1'.) They were the last bit of the last lesson of 'Embroiderer's Ledger' (although not my last use of the techniques, or the ledger), and I knew if I put them on one side I'd never finish them.

Thing 2

is this. (Haven't blogged about it either.)

Four of the bits I made in the last Contemporary Textile Workshop, embroidered, mounted, and turned into an accordion book. The next CTW is sometime next month (my diary secretary isn't here right now), and again, I wanted to get it finished because I was afraid I wouldn't, if you know what I mean. I wasn't sure quite what we were supposed to do with what we'd made, so I did my own thing. (Now there's a surprise.)

I'm pleased with the result, both in itself, and as a try-out for an idea I've had for a book for our exhibition at the NEC next March. (Which is something else I need to get started on, pretty soon.) (And which will look nothing like this.)

Finishing that left a little time for some embellishing. 

I'd love to claim that I made the little bird motif, but I cannot tell a lie, it was one of several I found in mum's stash when I inherited it. This seemed a good time to use at least a couple of them.

You may also be able to see an outbreak of cross stitch on the waste canvas at the bottom. Long time readers of this blog will know that I hate cross stitch.

Never say never. Still don't like it, but it looks so effective on Karen's pieces, I decided to give it a try. I've been breaking up the monotony by working some of the other sections in between hearts.

(Mmm - rereading this, I seem to have used up this year's supply of parentheses.) Whoops, there's two more gone...

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

Bet you're all too young to remember that film.

This is my version.

 

Karen Ruane's emulsion paint and watercolour technique, with a bit of stitch.

It has a companion piece, Attack of the Killer Fried Eggs.

We went to a very important birthday party today, so I'm too tired to be sensible. A good time was had by all - in fact the birthday girl was having such a good time we saw very little of her. The VHC had a good time too, despite being a bit under the weather, and despite not being able to get into the bouncy castle to join big sister, no matter how hard he tried. And rotten granny wouldn't help, because she was worried about him getting bounced on by all the big girls already up there.

The cake was good too. (I don't think I've mentioned that Babybel is an apprentice mermaid.)

And to end a perfect day, there's 'The Killing III' on TV tonight. What else could one ask? (Well, unfortunately we had to sacrifice watching the cycling for the party, but there's more on tomorrow.)

Things are looking better.

Thing 1

is definitely better for a touch of emulsion paint. It is whiter in real life, photographing it in artificial light turns it yellow. I've added some beads and some more tiny French knots.

Thing 2

went black overnight, with a touch of red rub-on.  Also an improvement, I think.

I worked on a few more of the sketchbook pages, using the arrow motif which emerged from Kare Ruane's Ledger class. I'm not sure if I've mentioned that the Eastleigh graduates have been invited to take a stand here, which is very scary. Our theme is - guess what? - 'Moving On', and although that isn't why I started taking photos of traffic, they seem relevant. Of course the arrows are a long way from the photos, but the motif did emerge out of the picture bottom right, so there is a connection. I see possibilities in a couple of these.

I'm beginning to think that I prefer working with linear/geometric shapes - hence all those tubes. Have I discovered my 'preferred way of working' at last? Who knows - I could decide something completely different tomorrow...

Back to work...

after all the excitement.

Today I did something I haven't done for ages. I made a book.

I recently bought  Sandra Meech's new book, 'Connecting Design to Stitch', which includes instructions for making a small, interesting sketchbook. 

So over the last few days I have painted paper, printed off images and details of images in colour and B&W, and painted some of the B&W images, and today I sat down to assemble them into a book.

Well, either I was feeling very dense today, or there are some errors in the instructions. Has anyone else tried them? I know enough about book making to cope, but anyone who doesn't might get a little puzzled. If you do have the book and you want to have a go, I would recommend finding instructions for making 5 hole pamphlets, and using those to assemble the signatures. And don't use the elastic bands until you are ready to weave the pamphlets together, at which point they work very well...

I do, however, like the result, although this is all the actual  'sketching' I've done in it so far. 

I'm thinking of trying some of Karen Ruane's techniques in it, as well as Sandra Meech's.

I don't like the cover, though, it will have to have some attention - like more emulsion paint.

While I had the paint out I screwed up my courage and overpainted this.

Definitely an improvement. When it's dry it will get a few beads and possibly some more French knots. 

Tomorrow we have a day off from grandchild-sitting, as it's Babybel's birthday - hard to believe she's five! Instead we will be making our Christmas cake, using our usual excellent recipe. Which is about all the preparation for Christmas I shall do before December. Bah, humbug!

Congratulations to my classmates!

And all the others who graduated this week.

This is probably the only picture of me which will ever appear on this blog.

For some reason I look like a rabbit caught in the headlights, although I was feeling quite relaxed. 

The ceremony swithered between being quite moving, and very boring. Moving when I caught sight of the procession of dignitaries coming up the nave, from the West Door of the Cathedral, and when we left the same way. (I've never seen those doors open, and probably will never see again, so it was great to walk through them.) Boring after we'd had our brief moment in the spotlight, and had to wait while hundreds of others had theirs. And it was cold ! 

We followed the ceremony with an enjoyable meal en masse (more or less) at Brasserie Blanc, and came home knackered. But Winchester Cathedral is definitely the place to have your degree ceremony - I can recommend it - if you wear your thermals.