Sometimes one thing leads to another…

and you suddenly realise the whole day has disappeared.

I meant to spend some time on this – the latest litter beast, known as Mark because it’s green.

But before that I was going to try some ideas from Gina Ferrari's sketchbook ideas on her blog.

Her second suggestion [after you’ve coloured your pages with watercolour and cling film] was to make a mask [or six], colour round the edges on a painted page with white oil pastel, and add more watercolour.

We’ll get back to that one in a minute.

Her third suggestion was potato printing. 

Slight logistical problem here.

No potatoes.

But I did have fun foam – and long term readers will know that I love fun foam stamps: they are a bit like Pringles – you can’t stop at one.

[Sorry about the colours]

 

 

 

 

While I was making stamps, I thought I’d try some eraser stamps on the litter theme.

Dedication or what, drinking all that Guinness in pursuit of my art?

 

Then I remembered an article in a recent ‘Quilting Arts’ about using eraser stamps to make little figures.

After I’d made the first set of body parts I noticed that the erasers I was using had little logos impressed on them, which I didn’t want on my figures, so I had to remake the body, head and feet using non-logoed erasers. Fun results though.

Then I remembered that I wanted to recolour the nasty coloured felt, because, as I expected, the spray paint had washed out. So I mixed up some acrylic and sprayed it with that.

Believe me, this photo flatters it. Do you it looks sufficiently like the rotting contents of a plastic bag you’d rather not speculate about?

When the external examiner told me that ‘It doesn’t have to be beautiful’, I wonder if she knew what she was letting herself in for. And will she live to regret saying it?

But I digress.

As I had paint left over, I decided to try out some of the fun foam stamps.  The green was really too runny, but I like the patterns it made, and the Guinness cans over pre-painted pages worked really well.

Then I tried the masks.

Oh, well, can’t win them all.

I think the technique is great, but it needs:

1. better quality oil pastels
2. a more interesting shape
3. better quality oil pastels
4. more contrast between the underpainting and the overpainting 

And better quality oil pastels.

So, without meaning to, I’ve done quite a lot for the PMS  - on top of the drawing I’ve done for Sian Martin’s Summer Sketchbook Project. 

All litter, apart from the shell. The one on the left is a stripy plastic bag, top right is some crumpled metal. The shell crept in because none of my litter has the right sort of texture.

Oh, and the black felt did shrink. And really interesting things happened to the iridescent plastic when I zapped it.

I’m not sure how that effect fits into my litter theme but I’m going to have a really good try to find something.

Past work revisited.

 

Remember this?

 

 

 

 

 

Well – now it looks like this.

I forgot to take photos as I went along, but as it was mainly black it probably wouldn’t have been very visible anyway.

The layers are:

1. Black gesso on the outside and black acrylic paint on the inside.
2. Dabs of black paint mixed with glass bead game gel on both sides.
3. Dabs of puff paint coloured with black paint and zapped. [The beads are shiny and the puff paint matte, so the contrast looked good – until I added some more layers.]
4. Colourcraft lustre powder in a coppery colour, mixed with textile medium, followed by Chemtek Verde Green patina which had no effect whatsoever. [Conclusion – no metal in the lustre powder.]
5. Roberson's 'bronze powder’ in deep copper, mixed with textile medium and dabbed with Chemtek – result!

Not bad for a bit of old curtain, which I think has now taken on the status of ‘resolved sample’.

Of course. I'd mixed up too much of the medium+bronze powder, so I splodged some on some bits of coppery plasticky stuff which I think came out of a Glitterati pack. [Magpie? Me?]  I had previously attacked it with webbing spray in an attempt to cut back the shine [as proper embroiderers say] but additional the bronzing powder and patina treatment made it better.

Do you get the impression I like worn, characterful things which look like they’ve seen life? [Like this – and this – oh, and Wensleydale, of course.] You might be right. But I digress.

While I was at it I decided to dab the mixture onto some ‘liberated Bargello’* patchwork which I made after the last but one college class.

I was only going to add a little bit, but I liked the effect so much that I had to mix up some more bronzing powder and medium.

Even the back looks good – if you like worn, characterful things which look like they’ve seen life…

My inspiration was this, especially the square plates, so a bit of wear and patina is appropriate, I feel. 

 

* Tear up some strips of fabric. Sew them together including a strip of water soluble fabric. Slice across the strips and sew up again at random. Work free machining across the water soluble bits and wash out. This one had some free machined spirals, stars and grids added, before I covered them up with all that gunge.

Then this evening I revisited the failed fabric printing pieces. This time, rather than freezer paper, I stuck them to paper using wide double sided sticky tape – and as you can see, it worked – once I’d discovered that I needed to use the tape down the sides as well as at the ends, or the fabric lifted and moved and the printer jammed. Which is why the bottom pink one is only half a butterfly. [You can reuse the paper though, at least twice]

The bright blue green one is on the white Inkaid, which works well but has the biggest effect on the handle of the fabric – past experience suggests it will be too stiff to hand stitch.

The clear Inkaid [top pink] also worked well, and it feels slightly softer than the one using the white version.

The bottom pink one is Printability, which is softer still but slightly less crisp looking than the Inkaid version – although that may be caused by the fabric distorting as it printed.

Bottom left is the Bubble Jet Set. This is NOT the same image as the one above, so it’s difficult to make direct comparisons, but it does look faded relative to the others. However:

1. I have had the bottle of Bubble Jet for rather a long time.
2. Using calico contributed to a faded look for all but the white Inkaid.
3. Sometimes faded [worn, characterful, looks like it’s seen life] is good.

Mmm – I thought I hadn’t done very much today but reading what I’ve written, I'm exhausted.

Now I'm off to eat my Wensleydale-prepared burger and chips and to watch Mr Wood, followed by Wallander - who is also worn and characterful and looks like he’s seen life – but doesn’t have quite the same effect on me as the other gentlemen.

Some days I wake up …

and feel like stitching. Not often  these days, but this morning it happened. I had some ideas to explore my Banksy-inspired interest in lettering.

Like this. [Sorry about the reflection.] It’s my favourite technique of sewing things into plastic pockets. Not very challenging, I admit!

 

 

While I was at it I made a couple of wonky samples of lettering ideas – the plastic pocket one and some couching. These are on recycled Colour Catchers, but after my previous experience I backed them with iron-on Vilene. There are bits of pages which fell out of an altered book under the letters, and recycled card to stiffen them. I’m feeling virtuously green.

In due course they will get grommets and strings, but I couldn’t be bothered getting out the hole punch, the grommets, the grommet setter, the hammer and the string.

I didn’t entirely neglect the printed papers I did yesterday – the blue-greeny-yellowy ones got a wash of Koh-i-Noor. I think these will become – guess what? - book  pages - but I’m not sure about the black ones. There are rather a lot of them. And  there are still 9 chapters of Peot’s book to go, and I haven’t finished the chapter on prints yet.

I hope to get back to Peot later, depending on whether the embroidery muse goes to sleep on me again. She’ll have to wake up in a couple of weeks though. Actually she’ll have to be awake tomorrow but I’ll tell you about that later.

Yesterday I showed you one of the two types of flowers we have in the garden [apart from daisies, dandelions etc., that is.] Here’s the other one. A sedum. Green, I may be, but definitely not green fingered.

Some unsuccessful experiments?

I’m not sure.

This is the Trapunto’d and quilted on to felt piece after it emerged from the washing machine. It is difficult to see in the photo – but it is now very puffy. The fleur-de-lises are about 1” deep – and I only used low loft batting to Trapunto them. So if the experiment was to find out of the process worked – yes it did. i haven’t measured how much the felt shrank, and I'm too lazy to get up and do it, but I'll try to remember to do it tomorrow.

The ‘background’ where there is just the layer of felt under the fabric, and which I seed stitched, has a lovely texture too – the whole thing is very tactile.

But it still looks like a multi-coloured lump …

I also had these in the washing machine – 3 little bits of knitting [I haven’t completely abandoned  brown.]

This was an experiment in felting some  wool i hand dyed ages ago – and didn't like the colour. It felts beautifully though – very soft and with a faint fuzz to it. I’m thinking this could be used in the embellisher – definitely successful – apart from the colour …

I spent the afternoon working on a background with the embellisher, inspired by Sheila Smith’s ‘Embellish, Stitch, Felt.’ [I had to get up to check the title so I measured the multi-coloured lump – out with the calculator – about 25 % shrinkage. No wonder it went so puffy!]

Back to the embellisher. The piece looked best at Step 1 but I forgot to take a photo. it was one of those pieces where everything I did to it made it look worse …

This is step 2.

This is dyed scrim embellished on to felt, stitched and then pieces cut out and rearranged.

 

 

Step 3, In an attempt to cover up the holes left by my inexpert cutting I embellished some scraps of silk and metallic organza on, definitely not an improvement.

 

So – step 4 - I added some glitzy fibres  - which I think cover up some of the sins.

It was so nice before I started mucking about with it …

And here is the final brown image – and probably the final colour image as I've run out of colours.

An image from the Watts Chapel near Guildford. No floor tiles [that i remember, I may be wrong] but lots and lots and lots of inspiration.

One thing leads to anther …

As I mentioned, I spent some time yesterday playing with PSP – but couldn’t get any images onto the blog because I'd saved then as PSP thingies not JPEG thingies …

So after a bit of head scratching – here’s one I made earlier.

Bet you’re glad its not brown – I know I am.

 

 

 

And that inspired me to get the embellisher out and do this.

See the connection?

It’s a fleur de lis because it was easier to cut freehand.

The background is an old dyeing experiment – a piece of wadding. It was narrow so I had to piece it. The black felt is beginning to break up a bit which I like.

And I finished this. Mmm – I’m more excited by the one above … But doing this in cream got me away from feeling it all had to be brown – so that’s a good thing.

 

 

 

Today’s brown image is another beach scene -  taken on a sunny day. Do you remember when we used to have those?

If in doubt -

procrastinate.

What I should have been doing was carrying on experimenting with my embroidery machine - but although I tamed it at last on Thursday I wasn't feeling strong enough yesterday to resume the fight.

So I drew on some buttons. [Tutorial found on Craftstylish.]

The flash makes it a little difficult to see but it worked well within the limitations of my drawing skills. I wouldn't use these buttons on anything that was going to be washed regularly but if you have a lot of boring buttons, as I have, it is a way to make them more interesting.

I only tried permanent markers, not the other suggestions in the tutorial, but I may get round to the nail varnish when I can find it ...

Then I made a book. Looks a bit boring doesn't it?




As the pages were rather thick, I did a 2-section pamphlet stitch binding, sometimes known as 'two bound as one'.


The pages were some old design work, ripped up. Unfortunately as it has been rolled up for about 12 months, the paper is reluctant to lie flat, even after a night under my old Singer. So it went back under there after it had its photo taken. I have lots of ideas about tile embroideries in my head so I think this will become a design book for those - it's about the right size and roughly square.



I haven't forgotten my salt pan theme , though - this, below, is based on the first very simple ideas I had. It is discharged with bleach. When I finished discharging the patches were a lovely golden brown but with neutralising and washing it seems to have lost that colour so I may overdye it golden yellow. I intend to quilt it and then - lots of embroidery.

And the final yellow picture - some celandines, also from the Hillier Gardens.

Tomorrow I shall go green.

A thank you, some experiments, and a flower

First - a thank you to Lisette, for nominating me for an award.

I am always proud to be nominated but like Lisette I have found not everyone likes it - so instead of passing the award on, I'll take it as an opportunity to point you towards some blogs I enjoy - and which I would have nominated if I did - if you see what I mean ...

The first is Lisette's own blog - textiles, food and cats! What more could you ask? And look at her list of influences. Clearly a woman after my own heart!

Of course. if you prefer just food, you could try her other blog. Eat your way up the High Street? I'd be waddling even more than usual by the time I got to the end - although here it would be eat your way from the station to Barclays, the High St restaurants being less - er - let's say - less individualistic. ...

Another blog I enjoy, although it's not a textile one, is Martha Marshall's 'An Artist's Journal'. Just look what she did with some of her luscious papers and Photoshop. Pity I've got Paint Shop Pro ...

Finally - if you like artist's books this blog will save you the bother of making your own. They have a generous give away of books which you can print out, as well as all sorts of other interesting stuff.


And now for something completely different. This is finished.

That rather undisciplined tassel was even more ill disciplined until I steamed it - the result of using rayon thread that had been wound on its card for at least 15 years [i.e. since I inherited it from my aunt] and probably even longer [i.e. since she frugally recycled it from somewhere else since one lot was all yard long pieces knotted together]. [It's being half Yorkshire, I think.]

We looked at the original tiles again while we were in the Cathedral yesterday and it was interesting that the circle, which comes out clearly in the embroidery [to me, anyway!] is much less obvious when you see the tiles en masse.

The experimental pieces are dyed, washed, and pressed - and in one case, zapped with a heat gun as well.

These are in the same order as the last time I showed them to you - wadding, flannel and felt backing. They all shrank a bit more with a second washing, and the felt is now pretty well square again - albeit 1.5 inches smaller all round = which my trusty calculator makes a 12% shrinkage rate.

This is the pieces from the back, in the same order. I was surprised how well the felt took the dye, until I remembered that it is wool/viscose, and viscose takes Procion dye, being a cellulose fibre.

The white stripe across them is a strip of poly organza set into the seam - and this is one after zapping.

Below is what I thought was black poly organza with a scoobydoo as a piping. However the black was very reluctant to melt, suggesting it wasn't a man-made fibre. The cotton was beginning to singe before the sheer reluctantly went into tiny holes and then went shiny and hard.




Not sure why Blogger has put it vertical when the original is horizontal - but I can live with it.

The next one was a layer of sparkle organza over cotton. As you can see the dye went through the organza and dyed the under layer successfully - which is what I hoped.

And finally - yet more yellow - Christmas Roses at the Hillier Gardens. I love this pale yellowy green, it is such a bizarre colour for a flower! This was taken last January - notice the misguided bee.

I apologise for such a long post - not sure how I had the energy after wrestling with my embroidery unit which did not want to behave since the chief techie wasn't here - and dealing with the aftermath of Wensleydale's attempt to flood the house. All OK now but the kitchen floor is much cleaner than it was ... I told you we lived exciting lives.

Calling all Hampshire textile artists!

You might want to know about this - if you don't already.

http://www.hants.gov.uk/rh/news/cta.html

See you there - but I don't think I will be entering these, much as I like them.

These are the three experimental pieces after washing. They all shrank a bit - and they all distorted - which may be due to the repeated diagonal foundation piecing as much as the washing.

From left to right - the piece on cotton wadding, the piece on cotton flannel, and the piece on felt - which definitely shrank the most. However the flannel had been washed once already, so might have shrunk more if it had been loomstate.

They are all now in a dye bath. Yellow, as it happens.

Today's yellow picture continues the floral theme. In Part 1 of C&G we had to select an artist to study and produce some 3d pieces [anything but fabric], inspired by his or her work.

I chose Andy Goldsworthy - in particular this image.

And this is my tribute - in crepe paper. It doesn't quite have the magic of the original - but it was fun to do.

Once again, Blogger doesn't approve of my para breaks so isn't including them. I feel like giving it a lesson on improving legibility!

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze ...

although 'wind' would be more accurate.

When I was going through my photographs looking for yellow ones I realised that although I have a lot of pictures of yellow flowers - I didn't have any of my favourite flower.

So this morning I rushed outside and took one.


Unfortunately it was quite windy so they were difficult to photograph.

And although I have been trying not to post any more pictures of the cherry tree - I couldn't resist. Aren't they beautiful? I love the little circle of darker pink dots formed by the stamens. I understand why the Japanese so love cherry trees.




And finally - another experiment. These are three explorations of adding black stripes to neutral, dyeable, fabric - or, in a couple of cases, polyester which won't dye. Some of the black stripes are piped.

They look pretty similar [if my sewing was more accurate they would have been identical] but one has felt underneath, one has cotton wadding, and one has cotton flannel.

Since I took the photo they have been through a hot wash to see how much they shrink. When I took them out they looked as if they had shrunk about the same amount, but I'll measure them when they are dry.

They will be dyed some time this week - I hope. In two places I layered sheers over a base fabric - in one case cotton organdy over poly, in the other sparkle organza over cotton - to see what happens in the dye bath.

Watch this space.