I’ve changed my mind.

Although I said yesterday that all samples were potentially personal cloths – these are definitely samples.

Interesting? Yes.

Odd? Certainly.

Unidentifiable litterish objects [ULOs]? Undoubtedly.

Resolved pieces? No.

 

I got up this morning with the intention of playing with plastic bags. The first one which came to hand was the shrinkwrap off yesterday’s paper, so I slid some nearby detritus [raffia and skeleton leaves left over from a long ago C&G piece] into it and ironed it. Mmm, interesting.

So I did it again with two weights of plastic bag, some cellophane, and some cling film. And then to finish off I tried ironing the lining from a wine box, though without trapping anything inside. [Too opaque – and it didn’t melt anyway.]

Then I tried my Clover mini iron [though not on the wine box lining], my heat gun and my soldering iron, all successfully – though the wine box lining took a lot of zapping before anything happened, and was most affected on the edges.

And while watching the last stage of the TDF [what will I watch for the next 49 weeks?] I tried stitching them. The cling film just ripped, but,  with a bit of care, all the others took stitch.

Some of them look very litterish, so may lead to a resolved piece, after I’ve thought more carefully about the contents. [I want something that looks really disgusting, inspired by this. Nasty, isn’t it?]

 

 

Cadel, Andy and Frank made a break for freedom, attracted by the noise of the party next door, but I caught them before they managed to escape.

 

 

 

And after Mr Cavendish had won the final stage and the green jersey, I did some drawing to calm myself down. I cannot get the top right – looks more like a bottle than a can - but I like the shadowy effect of the bit of collaged hand made paper.

Tomorrow – what happened to the can next.

Another productive day. It can’t last.

Time to stop whingeing…

and get going – with the Personal Cloths, that is.

So yesterday, because I think one of my problems [apart from no motivation] is having too may ideas [and no motivation to start any of them].

So I made a mind map – which at least sorted out my ideas, if not my motivation.

Today, after I’d tidied the workroom [again] and made a book for the workbook to go with the PCS – I found the rag shrink wrap ruglet I’d started and finished it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I decided it would look better sewn into a cylinder - and then I wished I’d sewn it into a cylinder round a branch – like yarn bombing only with litter.

But I couldn't be bothered to unpick it and resew it onto a tree  so I took it outside and photographed it in it’s natural environment.

I think it’s cute. I’m tempted to give it him a name. I also think he may be a resolved piece rather than a sample – which means there’s only another 14 PCs to go.

Fired with enthusiasm [I wish] I assembled materials and equipment to try making a hooked ruglet [Tommy is a proddy rug], but then I made the mistake of turning on ITV4’s live Tour de France coverage and couldn’t look away. Talk about nail biting! I was complaining to Wensleydale the other day that no-one makes dramatic lone break-aways in the mountains any more – spoke too soon.

I realise this is really boring if you have no interest in cycling, but I have to put up with all the sports I’m not interested in [i.e. all of them] for 49 weeks of the year, so I make the most of TDF [No satellite telly, so can’t get the Giro or the Vuelta.] 200 fit young men in tight lycra – what’s not to like?

Unfortunately little progress will be made tomorrow due to various medical appointments [nothing serious, just tests], so I hope to get back to number 2 on Saturday, TDF willing. It’s the individual time trial, which I usually find less interesting, but if the yellow jersey race is still as close…

My first personal cloth.

 

I’m so proud. 

You may think it looks like a collection of rubbish – and you’d be right.

You would also be right if you thought it looked nothing like the photos of litter that I have been collecting for my PCs.

But, inspired by some rag rugs I saw while we were on holiday, I’ve been reading up rug making, and getting quite interested. This led to some ideas:

1. rag rugs go under your feet, like litter, and
2. rag rugs were traditionally made from recycled materials, so
3. try recycling rubbish into rugs – well, rugettes, really, this one is about 15x18 cm.

It is made from shrink wrapping from the post – this little piece took 5 wrappers and isn’t finished so I am not about to make any big ones.

No idea if this will turn into anything, but I feel I’ve got started on the PCs.

Tomorrow – plastic bags?

P.S. Shame about Bradley Wiggins… Go Cav!

It’s time to move on …

 

from this …

 

 

 

 

 

 

to these [except it’s crept in there] …

 

 

 

 

 

or these …

 

 

 

 

 

or these …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

or even these – but probably not the fake one.

 

 

 

 

Yes, I have got a lot.

 

I had fun scanning some of them today. Of course, they don’t scan well, being lumpy – so you get images that look like this. Not, I think, destined to be one of the 100.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But sometimes, if you scan and invert the colours, you get something quite magical and eerie.

It needs cropping, but this will be one of the 100, eventually.

 

 

 

So, having made 25 or 26 ‘drawings’ – I’ve given myself some time off college work, and decided to make a replacement for this. Beautiful, isn’t it? It was one of the first things I made in my venture into patchwork and, although it was intended to hold needlework tools, it has seen long service holding a series of zappers.

I looked at it last night and thought ‘yuk’. And this afternoon I did a bit of completely undesigned machine patchwork.

I’m a closet crazy quilter, although I try not to admit to it in public. Every so often the minimalist aesthetic gets junked in favour of OTT. and little bits of embroidery are just the right thing to do while not watching Brits fail to do very well in the Tour de France.

This will become two pockets, when it’s had some hand stitch – rather a random collection of patches as I was trying to make it all out of scraps. Why is it that your scrap bag never gets any emptier, no matter how many scraps you use? [Or that when you first type ‘scrap’ you miss out one letter – but fortunately I spotted the omission in time.]

 

It’s over

for this year at least. And after taking down the display yesterday I felt very flat – just like I used to do after exams all those years ago!

So nothing much else was achieved yesterday apart from cooking and vegging in front of the telly, watching the Tour de France.

I did manage something this morning. Some more shells. [I admit it, I’m fixated on this rather boring shell.]

I did turn it round to draw it from a different position – and I experimented with different media – pen, graphite, ink and a cotton bud, and rubbed out graphite and charcoal – which is the one I like best.

I also played with one of the pages in the homework book which had been dribbled and splashed with Brusho before it became a page.

It looked to me like a landscape so i added some oil pastel to bring out that effect.

 

It was only when I was photographing it that I realised it might be something else. Though I'm not sure what that makes the sun….

I think that makes 25.

And this afternoon I vegged out in front of the TDF again.

A few days ago Cheese Minor, who is the original cycling fan in the family, wrote on Facebook that the great thing about the Tour De France was that Brits couldn’t be disappointed.

WRONG!!!!!!! [Apart from David Millar, of course. So far.]