I’m feeling a little more positive…

after a bit of playing around, starting with the thing top right in the photo. It is the plasticky cover from a used up WH Smith’s sketchbook – too good to throw away. I knew I'd think of something to do with it eventually.

I cut out the corners – and they looked useful so I rounded their corners, punched a hole in the corner and added a clip. But that wasn’t the main plan.

I sliced the sides up and punched holes in the ends of the slices – those piano-key-like things bottom right.

Can you tell what it is yet?

Then I found some goodies – sari silk goodies. I bought some more recently from Simply Sequins – so much temptation!

 

And in a departure from my usual round basket – I made a rectangular one.

OK – it’s not flat – but nobody’s perfect!

 

And I’ve got another two sketchbook covers and a whole heap of sari silk.

I also had fun with these. 

At Hobbycraft yesterday I bought a tiramisu kirigami calendar in the sale – as you finish with each page, you fold it, cut along the dotted lines and end up with a paper snowflake – or something. I thought it was a bit expensive even at sale price, but I like paper cuts, so I decided 5.99 wasn’t a lot to pay for 365 days of fun. [Turns out there are only 6 designs per week so it’s not quite such a good bargain…]

Of course it started on January 1st and today is February 23rd, so I’ve got a bit of catching up to do.

I had to decide what to do with the paper cuts after I’d cut them– so I stuck them on some paper – along with the negative spaces – which, as you may be able to tell, was a rather more challenging task. But I do like negative spaces.

And all that despite a bad night – which I turned to some purpose by playing with GIMP, and the graphics pad. I even braved the lasso tool, although I can’t work out why sometimes it did what I wanted it to do – i.e. lasso the internal shapes of my squiggle – and sometimes it just drew triangles.

 

 

Thanks to Karen for pointing me towards this article on Melody Johnson’s blog – I do dip into it regularly because I love her work, and her use of colour – but I hadn’t read that piece. I have printed it off and will refer to it often. I particularly liked this bit ‘Play with your fabric and make what the fabric motivates you to make.’ 

I’ve been feeling that I ought to be ‘doing designing’ before I start making – but I much prefer to play with my fabrics and threads and see what emerges. In theory I know my way is legitimate – but as I used to tell people when I was working, there is a big difference between knowing something with your head and knowing it with your heart. I don’t yet know it with my heart.

I shall continue to draw on the computer every day, even if what I’m drawing [especially if what I’m drawing?] has nothing to do with embroidery! Sumopaint has a fun feature which draws symmetrical patterns – so maybe tonight I'll find time to draw some kirigami …