Busy doing nothing …

or not achieving very much, which comes to the same thing.

I mentioned here that I had tried to rust some washers for a postcard swap [as you do] and been disappointed with the result.

I have to apologise to Chemtek Instarust because when we came back from holiday this is what they looked like.  Rustier.

The background, subsequently cut up for the postcards, is my favourite -  layers of paper ephemera pasted down [in this case to paper not fabric.] Then it  was brushed with gesso or emulsion paint, whichever came to hand, rubbed with oil pastels and Markel, painted with burnt umber watercolour, sprayed with Moonshadow mists – I was after a distressed look …

I decided I wanted some fabric layers on the cards. I have rather too much of some very boring calico which for some reason, long forgotten, I dyed brown in the washing machine. [I just did a colour association exercise from Dunnewold, Benn and Morgan’s ‘Finding Your Own Visual Language’, and almost all the words I came up with were negative. Starting with mud and going downhill from there. My subconscious is telling me I really don’t like brown.]

But I digress. I decided would try discharging the boring brown to see if that made it a bit less boring. And then I decide I would sort-of shibori it with buttons and elastic bands – proving that there is a use for boring buttons and the elastic bands from packs of spring onions.

Here it is pre-bleaching.

 

 

 

 

And this is the result. I found it hard to judge the effect of the bleach, so it is a bit overdone – but definitely less boring.

Unfortunately it is quite the wrong shade of rust for the – er- rust.

So I turned to the trusty scrap bag – or in my case, large size plastic box. The biggest size you can get without wheels. [I keep those for the wool stash.]

As I am a sad person I have my scraps sorted by colour in bags in the box. Why is it, that when I don’t like brown and I love purple, I have far more brown scraps than purple?

Unfortunately I neglected to photograph the fabric I chose before I ripped it up – but this is the left overs. It is a piece of poly satin, sunprinted with fig leaves.   Suitably grungy and the right colour.

I stitched that down to the postcard bases, and added small, well frayed left overs from the  backing of this. And a bit of lace and ribbon which they seemed to need. I [blush, blush] glued the washers down – and decided it was time to find some threads to stitch over them. And came to a halt because I only had a little bit of the best one – a variegated  floss from Anchor. So that is all on hold until I can go shopping tomorrow. although if I can get perle in the same shade it will be perle not floss.

These cards are supposed to be in the US before the end of the month – apologies, Surfacers, I think they are going to be late …

I can’t show you a photo until the cards have arrived at their destinations, so instead  here is today’s purple flower – which I think is a self-heal, photographed at the Red House Museum on Tuesday. Lovely delicate shades merging into each other.

Purple is definitely nicer than brown.