Note to the weatherman …

 

Christmas is next week.  Someone was not amused.

 

 

 

I stayed in and experimented – after I’d iced the Christmas cake.

According to Kim Thittichai, some packaging foils do interesting things if you iron them.

So I ironed some foils. I tried:

• foils from Green and Black’s choccies [thanks, Mrs C.]. Nothing happened to the foil but the paper backing came off much more easily afterwards.
• foils from Sainsbury’s free trade dark chocolate – see above
• foils from some toffees from last Christmas. [The toffees are long gone, I kept the wrappers]. These looked as if they were going to do something and then didn’t. They just smelled – and not of toffees.
• foil from inside a wine box, which just rolled up – great if you want rolled up foil.
• Cellufoil I bought from Kim. Yes, this is a doctored photo – my camera reads all purples as blue and this is much closer to the real colour.

 

 

According to Kim, tea packet lining [must keep it the next time we start a new box], crisp packets and Magnum wrappers [don’t eat either] all work.

While I was at it I tried some cellophane – the brightly coloured stuff I got somewhere else didn’t work, the stuff I got from Kim did.  I see a pattern emerging here…

This is clear cellophane – which you can’t see through the baking parchment when you are ironing it, so if you are not careful it nearly disappears – like the top bit.

When you try hard to keep an eye on it, it doesn’t seem quite as interesting – bottled out too soon, maybe?

Then I made a sandwich – painted Tyvek, cellophane, polyester organza, and more Tyvek. And lots and lots and lots of FME, with a lovely looking Indian metallic thread which was evil. And ironed it. And foiled it.And then attached it  to a piece of coloured Vilene, also from Kim.

Mmm – I’m increasingly underwhelmed. The cellophane just went into holes, the organza nearly disappeared, it’s too turquoise-and-silver and I’m not sure how to knock it back. Apart from copious quantities of emulsion paint.

I shall leave it for a while and try some hand stitch. It is intended to be a cover for a book of samples from Kim's class so I shall recite the mantra ‘it’s only a sample’.

While I had the foil out I went for the full bling effect a la Kim. She showed us  a sample on which she had used the leftovers from sheets of iron-on foil. This is the Pelmet Vilene Plus she sells – the Plus being a coat of heat-activated glue on one side of very stiff Vilene. It was already coloured with Procion when she gave  it to us, I just added the foil – and the stars.

This is a little more restrained. It continues the C&G theme of making your own background ‘fabric’. In this case it is hand made paper – backed with iron-on interfacing, as otherwise it fell apart when I stitched it. And with a few extras. The image on the left is the Picasso collage which inspired my piece - and the squiggles on the right  are where I cut the edge of the page away.

 

Alongside the shopping and cooking and drawing …

I managed a little needlework today - some embellishing and, after this photo was taken, a bit of FME.

 

 

It’s a cover for this bit of Contemporary Textiles silliness – although it has morphed since I took the photo, losing its edges and gaining some folds, some stitch and some holes. [Do you gain a hole or do you lose it?] I thought I’d taken a photo but can’t find it so I’ll try to remember to take one tomorrow.

Speaking of strange bits of paper – this is the end product of class on Wednesday. With  its edges straightened, its bits stuck down and a neat white border. She’s strict, that Terrie.

‘What the heck is it?’ I hear you ask. Good question. We were each given a paper bag with two mystery objects in it and told to make a collage inspired by the objects. What objects? Inspirational images? Exquisite bits of textiles? Beautiful flowers?

Nah. I neglected to take photos of mine, but there was one of these and one of these. Inspiring, no?

Actually, I loved the shape of the jar opener – made a quick sketch to sort out the structure, and started tearing paper. [No scissors allowed – told you she was strict.] Then I decided to use the remnants for a counterchange pattern, with the paper bag underneath it all to break up the brown paper.

The tissue paper blobs are the door knob. Obviously. [Have you ever tried to tear a circle?]

Initially i loathed it, but bits of it grow on me. The shape reminds me of this, and I like the counterchange idea. In fact I  lay in bed at 4 a.m. thinking of ideas to try. But using scissors. And possibly a fun foam stamp, or two. [Ideas are a bad thing for an insomniac.]

 

You get 2 C&G images today, to make up for lost time.

 

This is what is hidden on the right hand side of the spread, under the photo of the bag which it all led to. Bonded tissue paper and [squashed] dimensional paint. That’s the blobby painting, not the bag.

The bag was knitted. As one does on an embroidery course. We had to make our own fabrics to embroider into, so I knitted it and wove threads and ribbons through. All inspired by the Robert [?] Delaunay image on the left.

The photo on the left is a book cover made from the same colour palette, which holds the deathless prose on three British embroiderers I had to write for C&G.

For the degree we have to do a group presentation on an artist of our choice, and one of my group, with no encouragement from me, just happened to suggest one of my three choices for C&G. Convenient or what? I haven’t mentioned this to the staff …

Not saying who the artist is but she lives in Winchester …

I haven’t fallen off the planet

Just not yet recovered from the miniature tornado followed by a full day at college. Hope to post tomorrow when I’m more capable of making sense ….

Our Christmas card list may be a little short this year …

because I can’t find our address book. I have a nasty feeling that, when we sorted out the desk drawers earlier in the year, it was either:

1. put in a safe place – or
2. thrown away because I thought I’d transferred the addresses to the funny pop-up address book we keep by the phone. Except I hadn’t.

It’s not  a very long list,  but some of our aged relatives may be a little upset not to get cards …

I’ll have a thorough search later, after the miniature tornado heading our way has gone home.

We managed to get the Freecycled doll’s bed repainted, and bedding made, in time for the tornado’s arrival. This isn’t a Christmas present, as we keep a few – er – several – er – quite a lot of toys here for when she visits. Her daddy said how much he had enjoyed having different toys to play with, when he was little, and we visited my parents – so the Freecycled/charity shop stuff stays here and most of the new stuff goes home with them. Apart from things like books and jigsaws and books and oh – some books.

Those twin dolls came from a charity shop, with all this lot, which are more-or-less in scale with the dollies.  Never having had a daughter I missed out on all this cuteness – although I do draw the line at Barbie and My Little Pony. There is only so much pastel coloured plastic a woman  can take.

These prints from my C&G sketchbook were made with the polystyrene print making material you can use if you are not a cheapskate like me and use pizza plates. [It is better, actually, although it’s name escapes me at the moment.] I made them on a course at Southampton Art Gallery, and they were inspired by a Ben Nicholson picture  in the Gallery.

I can’t find it on their site but this one is similar.

Going through my old sketchbook like this is good because it remind me that in those days I had a lot of ideas!

On Wednesday Kim Thittichai commented that a lot of embroiderers ‘collect techniques’ but rarely do anything with them. I think she’s right – much as I enjoy workshops, I always feel I’ve ended up  making pale imitations of the workshop tutor’s work, when what I need to do is adapt the technique to my own work. Or decide it’s not for me.

So I have spent odd times during the day [and night, unfortunately] pondering on how [or whether] I can make Kim’s techniques work for me. I really need to get into the workroom and try some ideas out but that will have to wait for a few days!

As promised …

here are some of my photos from the Kim Thittichai workshop at college yesterday.

We started with painted Bondaweb. Not new to most creative embroiderers, but as several of my fellow students have backgrounds in other forms of needlework, those of us who had done it before were in the minority. But I think it is always good to revisit an old technique.

Kim uses Colourcraft Aztec paints,  amongst other colouring agents – and when I saw the result I decided I needed to get mine out more often.  [Zone Alarm has a pop up which warns me if it doesn’t like a particular website – but it doesn’t warn me about websites where I could end up spending an inordinate amount of money. Like Colourcraft …]

So this is Bondaweb [or ‘bondage’, as the spell-check would have it] painted with Aztec paints, ironed onto cotton, with added glitter, sequins or feathers. [I don’t think teacher approved of the feathers, but I like them, although I can’t see myself ever doing anything with them!]

Then there was Tyvek – fun to play with, but not something I’m very fond of. Better when it’s foiled – especially very well foiled. [The pieces on the right are much smaller than they appear relative to the others, due to the magic of Picasa. The smallest is about the size of a finger nail.]

And finally – and best of all – Lutradur – which is one of those things I’ve bought and never used.  Kim paints it with Procion dye, although as it’s not a natural fibre, the colour dries very subtle. The piece on the left was cut with a heat gun, on the right with a soldering iron.

A fun day – but tiring - I slept much better than normal last night!

Here are the next two pages from the C&G sketchbook. On the right is a colour matching exercise using paint [on the right] and coloured paper] on the left.

The left hand page shows the Kandinsky flowers from yesterday, through the holes. JP asked how I made them – so here’s a close up. Of course when I took the photo I remembered that only one of them is felt – the top one  - all the others are magazine pages. Just circles with slices cut out, layered.

I may not post tomorrow – or over the weekend - as we have visitors. Babybel is coming to help her granddad celebrate his birthday. I just hope he’s up to it …

Just passing through …

on the way between a good, but exhausting, day at college and a night on the sofa, watching Andrew Graham Dixon on Russia art..

At college we had a workshop with Kim Thittichai - and she worked us hard! All good stuff but I’m knackered – and I forgot to take photos of my own stuff, so I'll post those tomorrow.

Then we had a pleasant visit from Mr and Mrs Cheddar and Ronaldog, during which my first mince pies of the year were consumed- so bang went the diet …

Here we have yet more Kandinsky – the versions on the left are made of felt. On the right is a monoprint - not really connected to Mr K. – with holes cut in it, because I was in a hole -cutting mood at the time. Still am really.

I misspoke …

when I said that the average number of presents per two year old on my Christmas list was 6.

It is now 7. Although I’ve bottled out of wrapping up this one and just put into a big purple gift bag.

Pink, isn’t it? Top and tights from Sainsbury's dyed with Dylon Flamingo Pink in the washing machine, and stamped with daisies, as it’s a sort of Upsy Daisy outfit. Then  I wrestled 3 metres of net into a mock tutu.

I sort of followed the tutorial here, except that I used half the amount of net [and you can see how full it is] and rather than knotting it onto elastic I sewed channels in the folded net and threaded the elastic though.

Knotting would be much quicker.

And if Babybel’s mummy is reading this – it was your mum’s idea – I just made it!

This is a little more restrained. The image on the right is the square Kandinsky circles from the previous spread, scanned in black and white. The folded thing leaping out of the page is a photocopy painted with something – probably Koh-i-Noor – there's another one lurking under the blue monoprint on the left. And the small photo is of a sort-of-stump work C&G piece I developed from the scan. I painted Bondaweb with silver paint in rough squares, ironed it onto black velvet – and then added some couching, needle lace leaves and some raised lumps for buds. [Can you tell I’m not a fan of stumpwork?]