'If you make happiness your goal, then you're not going to get to it… The goal should be an interesting life."

Dorothy Rowe

Thursday 23 April 2009

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 CheIMG_6283mtek 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. IMG_6281

Here it is pre-bleaching.

 

 

 

 

IMG_6285

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 fabricIMG_6286 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 tIMG_6254o 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.

1 comment:

Kitty said...

erm, I thought mud was a good word....