Where was I?

As I remember, bracing myself for the invasion of the little guys. But before that, I went to another session of the Contemporary Textiles Workshop, which was not what quite what I was expecting. We had been told to bring sticks and wire, so I was anticipating 3D constructions of a type I've done before. 

We started with a communal mark making activity on paper, similar to those we've done at Visual Marks. We picked a mark and made it repeatedly on each sheet of paper, using a variety of media. The papers were torn up, and we all got 4 pieces to inspire us in working on a series ('a series is more than two') of 3D pieces. Which had to fit into a cup.

The marks included circles, spirals, leaf and tree like marks, and my split circle with a line through it which has developed from my initials. The difficulty was, of course, moving from 2D to 3D, but in my bedtime reading I'd come across some designs made with what I can only describe as overgrown quilling, in circular frames. Inspired by the circle and spirals I decided to use torn paper strips to make short tubes (now what does that remind me of?), but in a square frame because it was easier to do. I measured the tutor's rather large cup to make sure it would fit. It will, provided I don't get too enthusiastic about making it reach the bottom. Or much beyond the lip, really...

One thing led to another and before long I had two frames. The contents of the second were made from some mono-printed fabric with spirals on it, although as I gathered it you can't see them. However the graininess of the print resembles some of the marks.

I have since made another frame, with added buttons. Circles again. The colour scheme is pretty repetitive for me, too. I have a mad ambition to make 9 in total, and fit them in an outer frame, hence the pile of recycled and painted sushi chopsticks, (which were not the sticks I'd taken and which are now not going to become another piano hinge book). I think things may drift a little from the original inspiration, however...

Everything went onto the back burner, of course, while the little guys were here. The new sleeping arrangements were given their seal of approval - to the extent that we had to go upstairs every couple of hours to look at 'my new Thomas bed'. It was the first thing mummy and daddy were shown when they came to collect the pair. Babybel assured me that the horse blanket was exactly what she had wanted when she asked me to make her one, so that was a success too.

Since Sunday, however, things have not been so successful. The latest pair of socks has been frogged as I realised that there was just not enough wool to make two. I started a pair of mittens/hand warmers (depending on wool consumption) but the first one has also been frogged because I realised that my stitch count was off, and I needed a bigger size.

And my plans to make another 6 framed 3D constructions were put on one side when I got caught up in a major workroom re-organisation. Since last autumn I have been slowly working through all the books in my workroom, deciding which ones to keep, and which to get rid of. (Local charity shops will be receiving several bags of books.)

I wasn't intending to tackle the shelf full of sketchbooks after I had finished all the proper books*and I can't remember now how I got started, but once I had, I had to finish. Most of what I used to call 'sketchbooks' pre C&G, were just scrapbooks, and my tastes have clearly changed since then, so the majority of those have gone in the recycling. (One of the few advantages of having used glue stick is that it was very easy to remove the few images I did want to keep.)

I have preserved almost all of the proper 'sketchbooks' - not that there are many 'sketches' in them, mostly cut paper, prints etc. I was pleased by how interesting I found the pre- and post-degree ones - and surprised by how uninspiring the degree ones were - perhaps a reflection of my lack of confidence about what I was doing? 

After I'd sorted the sketchbooks, I had to rearrange all the other books. Good exercise with floor to ceiling shelves. But I now have much less junk on the work surface - all my works in progress in their cat litter trays are neatly stacked on some of the emptied shelves. It won't stay neat for long - and 'neat' is, of course, a relative term...

Apart from the sorting and unknitting, not much creative has happened, although I did find time one insomniac night to make a series of books of the week, using the inspirational papers from CTW. 

And we managed some gallery visits. We had a day off from grandchild minding on Monday, so went down to Walford Mill to see the Cabinets of Curiosities exhibition - some good stuff. And on Wednesday between Wensleydale's haircut and my birthday lunch, we went to the Discovery Centre to see 'Hidden' - massive photographs of people like Hilda of Whitby and Tom Paine, and events like the Peasants' Revolt and the Swing Riots. No, photography wasn't invented then, but Red Saunders has recreated them on a large and dramatic scale. The accompanying video was well worth looking at, too.

Now I've written all that lot, I wonder why I feel I haven't done much?

*well, those in the workroom - there are a few more in the spare bedroom, which will get the treatment soon. 

Finished!

Or maybe not...

This is the repetitous Contemporary Textile Workshop piece. I wasn't sure about adding machine stitch, as instructed, but it worked quite well in the end, introducing a new texture and bringing out some of the details. I also used the machine stitch to attach the canvas work to a very blingy bit of lamé fabric, which is just visible through the holes in the canvas, but also provided the means to attach the embroidery to the box canvas. However my stretching of the fabric over the box canvas left a little to be desired, so tomorrow the staples are coming out and it will be reattached.

Unfortunately the Chairman's Challenge, a.k.a. the star spangled sampler is going to need a bit more work. The edges need top stitching, the top needs adjusting, and I think it might benefit from a bit of weight at the bottom to make it hang better - I'm thinking beaded tassels.

Apart from that, they are both finished!

The Traveller's Blanket has been languishing, due to this frenzy of finishing - I'm hoping to get round to assembling the layers tomorrow and then beginning to think about how to use the African fabrics.

'Visual Marks" came around again for this month. We shared our Chairman's Challenges, finished and unfinished  - amazing the variety of things we came up with, from my banner to panels, a bag, Christmas cards and a cracker! 

Then we enjoyed some 'machine networking' - work some machining on a piece of felt, pass it to your neighbour, and repeat until your own piece comes back to you - assuming you recognise it when it does! 

We were going to try both automatic stitches and free motion, but ran out of time. 

Initially I wasn't very inspired, but the ideas are beginning to flow now - inlaid appliqué? Book covers? 

And of course I played around with some apps - Flipomatic, Mirrorgram, and, surprise surprise, iColorama.

So, plenty to keep me busy. And if I run out of things to do, there are always socks...

Bag and Baggage.

This is the bag. The VHC has taken to a little Christmas bag I made for his sister, and it has proved quite useful for carrying the things hè likes to take around with him. Like juice, and Thomas books, and other essentials. This was going to be a Christmas present, but I think he may get it early because it makes granny and granddad's life easier. The handle is like that because it is adjustable as one grows. I made it fairly quickly yesterday morning, with bits and bobs from the stadh.

The baggage, on the other hand, was not quickly made.

I could go on at great length about everything that went wrong, but I won't, because almost everything that could go wrong did. And if it did go right, I changed my mind about it...

It is some of the velvet which I roller-printed after the last CTW session. It was going to be a Dorothy bag, but after I found Alysn Midgelow-Marsden's instructions here for 'spice bags' it became this, although the techniques are different to hers. 

Much easier to construct, I thought, no setting in of bases or channels for pull cords. And the instructions were clear and it was indeed easier to construct - if I hadn't had to deconstruct it several times...

Still, I like the result. Totally useless of course, but a good way to show off a bit of stitching.

The other thing I finished this weekend was a third and final (?) blanket. I forgot to photograph it before I washed it and as I'm unwilling to wrestle it off the drier to repair the omission, you will just have to imagine a large, dark blue, square woolly thing. As I finished it half way through the last episode ever of 'Borgen', (sob, sob, weep, weep) I had to find some more subtitle-reading knitting, so I started something very slightly smaller.

Socks. I have too much sock wool, although not as much too much as I had Shetland, so Saturday nights,  for the foreseeable future until I get bored, will be sock knitting nights. Assuming there are subtitles to read, although 'The Bridge' seems to be returning in the New Year. Worth watching if you missed it the first time, and even if you didn't.

This afternoon has been spent wrestling with a Christmas tree (him) and with present wrapping and card writing (me). Soon to be followed, I hope, by a cup of tea and a mince pie. I am generally of the Scrooge persuasion at Christmas, but some things I like - mince pies, trees, and school Christmas concerts. We went to one of those last week, and have another at nursery this week. Can't wait!

Where did the last two weeks go?

I won't bore you by telling you, but we have been a little busy. 

'Visual Marks' was all about drawing. We all brought items which, for us, symbolised 'connections', which were used to assemble a still life. We then drew it from different positions. Now, as you may have gathered, I am not a confident drawer, and it took me quite a while to settle in to this exercise, so my efforts will not receive widespread publicity. However, inspired by some of the things our chair, E had done with the previous session's group graffiti, I did play around with them in a couple of apps.

These were produced using Mirrorgram, Flipomatic and Kaleidoscope apps for the iPad. (It was Mirrogram which produced all the helmeted warriors!) I learned that the effects work best if you zoom in to very small details.

I also tried the low tech approach of using tracing paper and picking out interesting shapes from two blind contour drawings, one in chalk, one in oil pastel, on top of each other.

More little figures emerged.

I'm not sure how these will develop into stitch, if at all, as I have ideas for a couple of the drawings I did direct onto cloth, and which have been ripped up to be reassembled in a new improved format. Maybe.

You have no workshops for a while and then two come along at once. Last  Friday was Contemporary Textile Workshop day. We took in images of 'landmarks' - in my case, photos of organic and inorganic things on the ground, like twigs, leaves, puddles and gratings - which we used to inspire hand made stamps.

Like these - a mixture of eraser and fun foam stamps, plus a new idea I found here. I modified the idea slightly, because I forgot the suggestion to use a paint roller to hold the pipe insulation, until now... 

I made a miniature rolling pin by inserting a smaller tube into the pipe lagging - in this case, the inner tube from some ready rolled icing. (Or it may have been marzipan - in either case, I knew it would come in useful one day.) The inner tube was slightly too small, but wrapping it in duck tape solved that problem.

I used a Fiskars craft knife to slice and dig the foam out - the sharper the better! And as my friend A. suggested, instead of cutting away, you could apply or wrap things on the surface of the foam, like string, lace, rubber bands, self adhesive fun foam etc. 

The gold and turquoise sections above were done at home, printing on to black fabric, including stretch velvet. My current plan is to make a bag with it, once I've finished the plant images for VM - three down, one to go.

This week should be a bit quieter than last, so I hope to have the time and the energy to pick uo a needle!

Things can only get better?

A slightly more cheerful week this week, although my insomnia has been particularly bad. But I slept well last night, the sun was shining when I woke up, and we had already planned a Sunday saunter. It was the last day of the Kathakali exhibition at the Discovery Centre, so, unusually for us, we ventured out at the weekend.

We thought the Discovery Centre opened at 10 at weekends, so we postponed our morning coffee till we got there. Bummer. It doesn't. And the Theatre Royal, which is our fallback coffee bar for such occasions, was closed too. As was the cafe across the road we've never been in.

But the new icecream parlour on the corner, which I have walked past and drooled at, was open. We resisted the icecream, but had lovely coffee (locally roasted), even nicer cheesecake, friendly and helpful service. And the reflections on the base of the table were fascinating.

I think the library cafe may have lost some customers. 

At 11, when the DC does open, we drifted along to find it was open but the Kathakali exhibition wasn't, yet. Bummer 2. So we went upstairs to watch 'Close Protection' by Graham Gussin again. 

We found it was well worth seeing twice - new ideas came out on a second viewing. (If you visit that link and read the description, although it seems like pure art speak, having seen the videos, it makes sense!)

When we went downstairs the Kathakali exhibition had opened, so we did manage to get a look at that. Wonderful vivid costumes with lots of bling, as well as more everyday dress. It made me want to visit Kerala, and see some Kathakali dance.

That was actually our second textiley trip of the week. Now the VHC is in nursery full-time, we have a little more time to ourselves in the middle of child minding days, and there is only so much shopping you can do. So we have been looking for places that are near enough for us to get there and back in time for the school/nursery pick up. This led to a second visit to the National Needlework Archive. (Only taken 4 years!) The main exhibition was of panels from the Quaker Tapestries. As I have made clear before, I'm not always a fan of representational embroidery, but this was different. Of course it's essential, given the nature of the subject matter, but the panels are beautifully designed and made, and the story they tell is fascinating. And there is an additional poignancy in seeing such a celebration of peace in the spiritual heart of the former Greenham Common Air Base. The women of peace got in in the end!

We also looked at the Country Wife, which who is under conservation there. When we went 4 years ago she was wrapped in bubblewrap and being saturated with nitrogen to debug her, but she is now lying down, being prepared for conservation. If you pay £2 extra admission, you get to see her and hear a talk about the conservation process - which is how I know why she was all wrapped up 4 years ago!

That was Thursday - Friday was the first session of this year's Contemporary Textiles Workshop, for which I have been repeating myself all summer. This session was about pattern - we had a Powerpoint talk (that's a first!) before trying a little pattern making - 

geometric collages

and geometrically based drawings.  In case you can't tell, this are my inept attempts at Escher-ish tesselations. (Actually I'm quite  pleased with them, and I'm thinking of trying one of them out with some transfer dye and a bit of poly satin...

I thought the collages looked like canvas work, so I set out to translate the green and purple one into stitch. I spent a lot of time faffing around with different threads and sizes, then got going with this.

Er - can you spot the deliberate mistake? Bummer 3.

I'm not going to unpick it now, I haven't got enough of that wool to start again, but I may try to do it properly at a later date. 

Living in interesting times.

It's been a bad news/good news couple of weeks. We had some worrying news at the start - the sort of sitation in which, because it involves other people, all we can do is offer support and hope for the best.

For some reason, my frustration led, not to embroidery, but to patchwork - just throwing together scraps of the colours which reflected how I felt. Then I found myself squaring off the resulting polygon - perhaps habit, perhaps my need to try to control what was happening. That was followed by scraped-on paint and some very undisciplined machine quilting. It is stalled now, partly because I need a break from it, but more because, unusually for me, I have plans for more machine work on it and I can't machine sew and watch cycling at the same time.

Fortunately, a few days later we got some excellent news. Let's just say that Babybel, to her delight, will be a bridesmaid some time next year. I'm not sure she knows what a bridesmaid is, but she knows there will be a pretty dress and an important role for her!

What with cycling and stress, not much embroidery has taken place, but there has been a lot of knitting. The second using-up-the-leftovers blanket has made quite a lot of progress. 

Before all the excitement, I decided I could improve this.

Definitely better - amazing what a little paint can do. The paint has also stiffened it up, so much that I don't think it would take stitch now.

These are my other papier mâché experiments. Abaca tissue and muslin on the left, brown paper and muslin on the right. And yes, it. is wonky!

I'm pleased with the contrast between these, but I'm not sure what stitch to try, so I'm putting papier mâché on the back burner for a while. (Sounds a bit inflammatory.)

Over the last couple of days, I have done something other than knit and worry.

A bit of hand quilting - transfer dyes on polyester satin, left over from my initial explorations of  repetition.

And some more experimental stitching on metal mesh - which is difficult to photograph with all the reflections.

Mmm - I seem to have developed a taste for bling!

Circuits and Bumps

All circuits now complete, I'm glad to say. I've had enough of circles.  These are all the circle pages.

They are even bound, and labelled. 

Although I've been thinking that it's time to stop repeating myself, it hasn't quite happened yet. I made these Kandinsky-inspired shrink plastic 'bumps' when I was doing City & Guilds, but never used them. I came across them when I was looking for something else (story of my life really) and decided their repetitious time had come.

This was inspired by some bedtime reading. In Moyra McNeill's book on drawn thread embroidery, she suggests màking slits in non-fraying fabrics like felt or Vilene, and working drawn thread stitches through the slits. It sounded repetitious to me, so here is an apped photo of the wrong side of a stained glass window at Salisbury Cathedral, printed on Tyvek. I cut it and worked twisted border stitch using lace instead of thread - photos before and after ironing. I've got some Evolon, felt and PVC lined up for similar treatment, though probably without the ironing.

However, I have moved on from repetitions. During another bit of bedtime reading, Fibrefusion's 'Beyond Boundaries', I came across a recipe for papier mâché you can stitch into, using muslin and abaca paper. Ah, paper tubes! (Maybe I am being repetitious?)

This is my first attempt. The odd colour is because I was using up some brown abaca. The bandaged appearance is because I got bored with wrestling with wallpaper paste and little scraps of musin and resorted to strips. I didn't take a 'before' picture but Wensleydale said it looked like a bleeding stump.

As you can see, you can stitch into it, although it helps if you make the cylinder big enough to get your hand into. The odd pattern is because I ran the couching along the edges of the bandage muslin.

Today I got a bit carried away. The one on the left is abaca and muslin, the one on the right is brown paper and muslin. Now I have to wait about 24 hours for them to be dry enough to bring into the house, and another 24 for them to dry out properly. Good job I've got some undrawn thread work to do.

Obviously I haven't given up repeating myself at all!

Four more pages finished.

Though not without some anxious moments. The top left page has drawing pin stitched circles - OK apart from the appliqued fabric not lying flat - and the smaller flower stitcher circles. First I had to remember how to use the flower stitcher, the instructions not being completely clear. And then I realised that the machine wasn't stitching out the patterns I had selected. They were interesting variations on zig zags, but bore even less resemblance to the diagram on the machine than they usually do.

Quiet panic set in - was I going to need a new motherboard? I have just had a welcome tax refund, but nowhere near enough to pay for a new Bernina motherboard!

Then it dawned on me that you drop the feeddogs to use the flower stitcher, so - I think - the machine was stitching out the sideways movement, the flower stitcher was doing the forwards movement, but any backwards stitches were not happening.

At least I think that's what it was - it stitched OK as soon as I tried it without the flower stitcher.

On the positive side, I had an idea what to do with the very boring bit of hand quilting below the flower stitched piece. It was coloured with Markals but it seems to get paler every time I look at it, so it definitely needed a lift.

The answer was elephants. 

I bought them ages ago and never found a use for them. I had to glue them down - no stitching holes - but they definitely improve the page.

The other two pages are pretty ordinary but, to tell the truth, I'm getting circled out.

Just two more to go. Some more boring quilting, machine this time, which is going to get some couching over the top. It was coloured with spray paints which are also doing a vanishing trick.

The other one is the sunprinting, which I didn't expect to work, but which was very successful. More couching for the larger circles - I'm pondering on what to with the smaller ones. Buttonhole rings come to mind...

Then a quick Japanese style binding and no more circles! Probably.

And finally - an apped-about photo from our Wednesday wander. We went to Salisbury to see the Rex Whistler exhibition at the Salisbury Museum, which is recommended, and I took a few photos of the cathedral, to play around with. I'm rather pleased with this one. Apps were XNSketch, Popsicle and iColorama, to blend the other two together.

Going round in circles.

I can't remember if I mentioned that a few weeks ago we went down to Walford Mill to see their 'Going Full Circle' exhibition, but we did, and we enjoyed it very much, especially Jin Eui Kim's  ceramics. (And the salmon salad in the cafe.)

In my my bedtime reading I came across a brief mention of the old technique of sewing circles by fastening a drawing pin to the bed of the sewing machine with masking tape and pinning the fabric to it. So circles became my next repetition - concentric ones, that is.

I have played with the idea before, so on Friday I plunged in without much forethought. Big mistake, as you can see. Another opportunity for learning.

On the right, what happens when the drawing pin moves slightly. If life gives you non-circular circles, make spirals. I abandoned the drawing pin and sewed a presser foot's width away from the previous stitching, more or less. I had intended to change the stitch pattern on each circle, but obviously that wasn't going to happen, so it ended up a bit boring. I tried whipping the stitches, and adding a few beads -  O.K., it's still boring, but slightly less so.

On the left, what happens if you work wide satin stitch without a hoop or a stabiliser. You get distortion - interestingly, there's more on the straight of grain than on the bias. I quite like it, and it has possibilities - W. suggested a floppy hat brim. The centre is too wide, and I went a bit OTT with the beads.

So yesterday, with the benefit of hindsight, industrial quantities of stitch and tear, temporary spray adhesive and a walking foot, I started again.

First the silly ones. (There are always silly ones.) The one on the left was inspired by the bit of zapped Tyvek left over from something else. You may not be able to tell from the photo, but those two rings of embroidery meet up perfectly. (I'd like to say it was skill, but it wouldn't be true.) It looked like a rosette so I wanted to add ribbons, but the only ribbon I had was too wide, so it turned into prairie points.

The second one is several layers of metallic organza scraps. It was a response to wondering why fake chenille is always in straight(ish) lines. The answer is that the concave side of circular ones is reluctant to fluff up. However a bit of rough handling worked wonders.

Then on to some bigger ones. I love the one on the left -  it makes me think of wedding dresses, maybe because it is made of polyester satin. I used a twin needle for most of the circles, with some gold embroidery on the central disc of gold mesh, and in the too wide gap. (At that stage I hadn't worked out the solution to accurate positioning of the drawing pin. Tiger tape, if you want to know, attached to the machine bed in line with the needle.)  The star shell in the centre is because I'd marked the centre with washout pen and it didn't. (Yes, I know, always try it out first...)

Centres are a bit of a problem: the drawing pin can leave a hole and the inner circles end up relatively big because you can't get the drawing pin very close to the needle, especially using the walking foot. Hence the button in the middle of the brown one, which is gold thread on brown velvet.

Today, flushed with success, I got a bit over-confident. As part of my 'using up stuff I've bought and never used' initiative I tried Trapunto with soluble thread. Which was not as easy as the beautiful examples here might make it appear. Getting the positions of the soluble thread (on the wrong side) and the stabiliser (on the right side) was easy to get wrong, and removing the stabiliser, becasue it wasn't where it should be, removed some of the thread as well. So I had to reapply the stabiliser to repeat the stitching. Then I tried to add some machine embroidery to one but gave up when the thread starting breaking repeatedly. I can't show you these because they are drying after I washed out the soluble thread: that bit seems to have worked. Idon"t think I shall be repeating this any time soon - does anyone know any other use for soluble thread?

The best thing today was this. It finally dawned on me that the circles didn't have to be concentric. Working out how to do it was a little more difficult, A-level Maths or no (it was a long time ago!). I could draw what I wanted with a compass, but translating that to the drawing pin system took two goes. Fortunately I have a lot of plastic pockets and of these bits of bling. Yes, that's a plastic pocket - and it took maths to make sure the final circle wasn't bigger than the pocket.

Tomorrow it's grilon thread to be used up, so shrunk circles, concentric or tangential, or other arrangements yet to be decided.

No more metal!

For a while, at least. I do have some bits of metal left, but no more of the nasty craft vilene I used for the pages, so it's time to move on, and find something else to do obsessively repetitively.

This is the front cover - the name plate was the first thing I did when I started playing around with metal, sewing it on the cover was the last thing.

The cover is layered felt, wire form and lace, with boring repetitious machine embroidery all over it. The tape is recycled - it says 'Montezuma's' on the other side.

The binding is from Keith Smith's 'Smith's Sewing Single Sheets', which I chose because all the books told me to bed the metal on nasty Vilene,which was too thick to fold. Smith says that a binding over tapes swells at the spine, and it does, although it doesn't look like it here - but not quite enough to accommodate all that lumpy metal. Still, I like a book whose contents are bursting out of the covers.

The instructions were to punch the holes for the binding half an inch in, but after I'd done so it dawned on me that, as the pages aren't paper, half that would have done. And I could have tried harder to get the stitches straight. The metallic thread wasn't really a sensible choice, but it looks good with the cover.

After all this experimentation, I've come to the conclusion that I like setting fire to annealing the copper or bronze to colour it, but I am not interested in painting or embossing it, as recommended by well known authors. (And aluminium melts... Ask me how I know.) 

And if I am going to use metal again, it will be wire mesh which I can stitch into or bead, I really enjoyed that, even if the edges were a bit scratchy. I liked the silly ones too, but the idea of lots of free machining round the edges of stamped or embossed bits had no appeal at all - now there's a surprise.

What next? Not sure. I've got several ideas, and a quiet day tomorrow, as Wensleydale has chauffering responsibilities. Watch this space.

Two more pages

and probably the last of my repetitive metalwork.

On the left, an experiment to find out if you can foil wire mesh with Bondaweb. Answer, yes you can, but it's patchy and it doesn't look like it would stand up to wear. On top of that is some beading, inspired by Sandy - although I didn't hang mine on a spring. (Good idea though, and I have got some springs...)

On the right, samples from some of my attempts to patinate copper and brass metal cloth, involving vinegar, heat and patinating fluid, but not all on the same piece. That might have been too exciting. 

I'm not completely sure which was which - the one at the top was definitely patinating fluid, and I think bottom left and the two in the centre were the gas cooker, which means the others were vinegar. Balsamic or malt didn't seem to make a difference, and the results were - let's say 'subtle'.

All I need to do now is make the cover. I have some ideas for that but this weekend is mostly devoted to a VI Birthday Party tomorrow, for which I have made 4 dozen muffins today, and will be making some sarnies tomorrow. Yes, the VHC is two!  

Reaching the finish...

and starting afresh.

I've finished one small repetitious object - another 'metal' page, consisting of several tarnished curtain rings, some lurex thread and some foil, on my last bit of rather nice fake suede.

And one rather larger one - the subtitle-reading-knitting blanket, which ended up not quite big enough to cover me from head to toe, but close. The two cones are all the wool I had left over from the several cones and odd balls I started with. 

Wensleydale said if we had two, we wouldn't need to turn the heating on in the winter. (You can tell he's a Yorkshireman, can't you?)

However I do happen to have a few cones of green, and BBC4 is still showing Scandidrama - although rumour has it they have something Flemish lined up for us next. 

Why has this woman got some much Shetland wool? I hear you ask. Well, I used to have a knitting machine or three, but when I got rid of them I kept the wool, on the foolish assumption that I would hand knit some sweaters. In 4ply. Yeh, right. Using it four strands at a time, even to make blankets, is more my thing these days - and when it gets big enough it keeps you warm while you knit!

Moving on...

in the quest to use up - or at least try out - stuff I've bought and never used. This time I've moved from Evolon to metal.

My first, uninspiring attempt. The copper shim was coloured by a 48 hour soak in balsamic vinegar, but unfortunately the lovely blueish colouration washed off when I rinsed it. The shim tore when I tried to emboss it, and my carefully worked out design lined up in the planning stage but not when I sewed it down. (The space at the left is deliberate, as all these samples are going to be bound into a book.)

I did manage to emboss it in the end, by putting an Indian printing block on it and hitting the block with a hammer. Very satisfying after the previous frustration.

Number two is layers of mesh, white metal shim coloured with gold paint, and sheers, free machined with some difficulty and swearing, then cut back. I think the right edge of the mesh needs a trim...

I don't like it (the arrangement of the shim shapes doesn't fit in with the lines of the embroidery and I don't like the gold paint) but Wensleydale does. He suggested cutting through from the back under the mesh, which I would do if I hadn't written notes on the Vilene backing.

(Work in progress - it needs stitching down.) This one involved even more swearing, out of all proportion to its apparent simplicity. To return to a previous theme, I learned to use thickish wire, keep the weft and warp well spread out, and add the beads as you go along.

The background is deliberately crumpled to bring out the shadows.

This also needs stitching down. It was inspired by a one-line comment in Janet Edmonds' book 'Three Dimensional Embroidery', that you could do canvaswork stitches on wire mesh. Well, you can, but there is one difference between canvas and wire mesh - canvas has a square grid and mesh doesn't. I had intended to use the leaf stitch I used here but that has diagonal stitches and sorting out how to make them work on a diagonal grid was more effort than I was prepared to put in. 

I resorted to straight stitches, but then I had to decide whether to make them run this way, which makes for long, closely packed stitches, or at right angles (short and more spread out). 

However I like the result, and I can see myself going back to this idea later.

And the final, (also unfinished) and maddest piece. 'Metal' here is very loosely defined. Under all that hair is a charity shop bangle in a reddish metally sort of substance, there is yellowish metallly sort of stuff wrapped round the Indian thread - and there is a little bit of foil in the background. It was going to be copper, but the copper layer was patchy, so I added some blue, which adhered itself rather more heavily than I had intended. But I have read advice on 'how to knock back the shine' of foil once too often, and decided that the piece was going to be shiny, as well as hairy. 

I can't say I am likely to repeat this - for one thing I don't have any more bangles - but it's fun!