Fibre Art

fabric paper and friends

2012-03-07T23:57:00.000+11:00

OK today's ATc has fabric paper as it's base. It was a failed paper as the paper colours bled, but the back looked lovely, so it used that. Then I put some strange non woven green robbon across the top and two different pieces of painted face wipes, sewed it down in places, stamped my homemade spiral (using real ink, today) then decided a little more was needed, so I ironed on a piece of painted fusible, which had gold and black streaks

That's all for today as I have been working mostly on my TT challenge piece.

Happy stitching

An ATC on a box

2012-03-06T23:32:00.002+11:00

I am a bit of a paper folding fan and actually have a folded fabric quilt in my
ufos, so

Today's ATC is made from fabric papers and is blanket stitched around, then tied with a ribbon, because......

Yuo untie the ribbon......

And when you pull the two halves apart, it becomes a box with a treasure inside!

This is a side view of it open.
It is a modification of an idea I saw on you tube, but the fold involved has been around for hundreds of years in origami.

oranges and lemons

2012-03-05T20:24:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC was another experiment.

I was trying out a little bead tray that came with some beads as a stamp. I thought it looked like cut oranges and tried it out on a piece of heavy watercolour paper. It worked really nicely, even leaving a bit of texture from the paper.
But here's the difference - I didn't use a stamp pad. I didn't use a brush with any kind of paint.
I used a liquid shoe polisher, the type that is in a bottle with a sponge on the end. It made a great stamp and tended to resist the watercolour I added next (if it was thick enough and the lines were continuous enough)
I coloured the orange and lemon with water colour, dried that, then added a few lines in coloured markers. On the orange, I went over this with a metallic orange oil pastel.
I finished with a little yellow brad in each centre - oh and the background was a bit of watercolour, too.

I have been finding lots of great quotes on Pinterest and here is one I love.

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
Author: Lao Tzu

Well some of these apply to me!

computer art

2012-03-04T22:41:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is mostly recycled from an old laptop.

Sorry a very dark photo, taken after dark.
base is a playing card, with thick foil from the inside of a laptop screen folded around it.
The main green bit with the silver circle on top is the mother board from a floppy drive. I used tiny weeny screwsto screw it down.
The petals are cut flat from ribbon cable which joins the various parts of the laptop workings.
The flower centre is a cog from an old printer
The letters are stickers.
This one is very heavy and decidedly mixed media, lol
By the way, the flowre spins, which I why I added the word.

For today's quote, I am sending you here.
as it is not my work to put up, but worth a look

butterfly

2012-03-03T23:05:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is a quick one.

Red fabric paper with foil papers, painted nappy liner. Metal butterfly charm. (I got these at a cheap shop for $2 in a pack of six - bargain!)

Even when things are trying, being a little creative each day can make an huge positive difference - so just do it!

out at sea

2012-03-02T20:06:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is made from an old sample, I pulled out of one of my folders.

Strip pieced fabric, randomly pleated, layered with tulle and free motion embroidered. The bird is cut from stiffened satin I had made up for some silk flowers. The edge is just blanket stitch.

I am not sure if I have shown this sketch before, but anyway, this is one I did at painting class, it is a coloured pencil still life.

I did go over it with an orange marker for the dotty bits on the orange skin and some white watercolour for the white highlights.

Have a creative weekend!

a bit of plastic and some washers...

2012-03-01T20:34:00.000+11:00

This was made on a felt foundation. I used scraps of supermarket bags, layered, with holes burnt with a circle tip on the soldering iron and added some washers as well. A bit of an experiment.
I have actually been to painting today, and worked on a few things, but since most are to do with my Tangled textiles challenge, I'll have to leave them for a later date.

Above all, create.

Third tile and a fibre experiment.

2012-02-29T23:22:00.000+11:00

OK, today's ATC is the third in the tile adhesive series.

On this one, I laid on some plastic netting from a fruit bag while the tile adhesive was still wet. Then I dripped the watercolours and gold acrylic, and liked the way the spreading was contained by the netting. I stamped with a clear stamp and added some embossing powder when it was really dry, however the surface was too rough for the stamp, although you can see it in places. When I heated the embossing powder, the fruit bag netting started to shrivel up and as it did, I saw these great grid lines left behind, so I took it away and continuedheating. I like the textures in this one.

Now, yesterday, I said I was going to try to create the digital ATC I showed. I forgot to say that it was made from the natural breeze collection from digidesignresort.

So here is the digital design.
to make the real one, I started with a piece of thick interfacing and a piece of muslin.

I used a little bit of black and white acrylic pain and a straw, to make the background, because that's what it looked like to me.

On the right above you can see that I had a bit of trouble when opening the tube of black, lol

I used the straw to make little circles all over the fabric in grey, but it looked a bit too stark, so I blurred it a bit with my fingers and a bit of water.

The next layer I decided looked a bit like some sequin waste, so I cut two pieces, however, I toned the shine down with a brush over of white paint (or I could have used gesso)

Next were the leaves. I decided to uses some velvety artificial leaves I had had lying around for ever and cut them down out of that.

I arranged the leaves where I thought thet should go. I left the stems out.

I cut a little tag out of cream card and roughed up the edges. I had a few gos at this and a few pictures did not get taken, but I went around the edges with a sepia marker and added some sepia smudges and pretend writing. I added a small suare of brown card and threaded through some twine coloured crochet cotton and loosely draped it, then stapled it.

I found some pieces of silk carnations I had had out a few days ago and cut them down to the size and shape I needed, which was quite a bit, if you count the grid squares in both pics. It is the same board.

I coloured the flowers with a bay blue marker (water soluble, not permanent), then went over this with a darker blue (not shown here) at the edges. It looked a bit harsh, so since the markers were water soluble, I just wet them to let the colours bleed a little and scrunched them at the same time to give them more shape.

I placed the flowers and thought about the centre. It looked like wax to me.

So I got out a cheap brown crayon and my soldering iron and got a piece of loosely knotted thread ready.

I melted bits of the wax crayon into the centre and pushed the knot into it. Voila!
For the little glittery embellishment, I put a piece of acetate under the flower etc and wrote on it with a blue marker. I tried a glitter glue pen, but it just ended up a gluey mess.
I am not happy with this part and intend to change it, as;

I remembered I have some glittery blue madeira metallic thread that I had out yesterday to embroider some fireworks.
The sequin waste is still too bright and I realized a layer of organza would fix that and also provide a better base for the glittery embellishment
the brown wax needs a bit of gold shine

and then it would work out perfectly, but much as I want to reassemble it now, it is 11pm, and I won't be doing it tonight or my hubby will not be pleased with me!.

Here they are together. My picture is a bit dull, due to being under fluorescent lights at night. Not quite right yet, I think. I will repost when I have made the changes I thought of.

It was fun having a go - and that's what art should be about, what you love and enjoy doing. If you are not enjoying it, then you will find it hard to create beauty.

a spiral and a gift

2012-02-28T23:29:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is one of the ones I made yesterday with the tile adhesive. You know me, I always use what ever is about.

On this one I added some texture with the spatula while the tile adhesive was still wet, then after it had hardened alittle, added some drops of watercolour and gold acrylic, glitter and a home made stamp. I like the colour and texture in this one.

I have been working on a birthday present for a friend who lives nearby and is a devoted mother and artist.
I saw a challenge on club creating keepsakes (Club CK, a scrapbooking site) and the inspiration photo hit me like a truck here.
I don't know if what I created is quite what they were looking for, because there is no scrapbooking in it.

I got a piece of mattboard that had marks on it and wasn't going to be used and covered it with tile adhesive with a scraper.

Then I used various things, like a skewer to draw lines in it to look like old distressed boards.
Below, you can see the lines more easily

Then I got two small precut matt boards, from a box full that I bought at a market really cheap.

I painted them with a thick layer of acrylic paint.

It is a bit fiddly, as the frames can slide around, but sas you can see, at the top right, I am using a skewer to hold the frame as I paint. It hardly leaves a mark.

Here's one painted. I let them dry totally, which took ages, because after the extremely hot weekend, we have had two days of rain - go figure.

Here I have added a very thick layer of PVA/white glue. Up at the top, you can see some shapes I cut from plastic lids. A train, a car and a dinosaur. You'll see what I did with them later.

This time I added the top coat a little earlier, and it didn't crack as well, but streaked nicely. I am learning. I needs to be not quite tacky, but not really liquid.

Here's a close up. As you can see, it didn't crack as well as yesterday's post.

Meanwhile, I painted the ackground with a creamy yellow acrylic, very watered down.
Then, when everything was ready (but not quite dry, because I couldn't wait and the weather was so wet), I put the layout together.

I added the frames, then used pinboard pins in red green and blue to pin them down as well as a piece of twine. I used tiny little mini pegs I found at a 2 dollar store to clip photos, each in a little acetate leaflet for protection, in place (Obviously, these are not the photos I used, I have digitally altered them since they were not my children in the photos). The children concerned are mad about trains, cars and dinosaurs, so I added the platic cut outs, then I added some coloured dots with bingo markers. Last, I actually scratched into the background, some stick figures and words, as if the kids had done it.

It still needs to be framed, but my friend likes it, and that is all that matters, isn't it.

Just a last little peek at something.

Here's another Digital ATC I made. I thought tomorrow, I might have a go at putting this one together in two different ways. That is- make a real one! I think I can just about manage this one.

Have fun creating!

Growing and cracking

2012-02-27T21:50:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is part of an experiment I did in my laboratory, lol.

You won't believe the ingredients I used.
Mattboard, Tile adhesive, smoothed with a spatula, pigment solution (like liquid watercolour) and diluted gold acrylic dropped with a dropper while the tile adhesve was still damp, glitter, distress ink, rub on word, white gel pen.
The white gel pen was an afterthought, when the rub on 'R' didn't adhere properly, so I made it into a feature instead!

The other day, I finally got around to doing some experimentation with making PVA/white glue crackle (only because I had a project I needed to finished, which also needed it!) I had watched lots of videos and looked at lots of blogs and decided to just to do it.

This is one of my altered books, which I often use to try out new ideas in. I have painted both sides of a spread with blue acrylic paint (You might recognise that there are two ATCs included in the photo and one of these - the dud, became the fishy business ATC)

I treated the two pages separately. Here I have covered the left one with a thick layer of PVA. I didn't wait wery long before the next step, no more than five minutes and it was still wet.
I forgot to photograph this step, but on the top half of the page, I used watered down lumiere gold and on the bottom watered down white acrylic. I used my heat gun to hasten the process a bit, but if you hold it too long or too close, the PVA will bubble and this is not really what we want.

The lumiere did not crack at all in this experiment, but what I did here was brush over the dry surface and move some of the top skin of dried paint around. It made an interesting textural effect. Perhaps I just didn't wait long enough, but even now, days later after the page has been turned and flexed, there are no cracks.

The watered down white acrylic, however made gorgeous cracks!

On the right hand page, instead of PVA, I used Paste. In Australia, we call it Clag, but it's really just a cooked cornflour paste, like we used as kids. I often make my own, but had a jar on the shelf which had been given to me, so used that. I thought this would work well, and still think I can make it work, because when this stuff dries, it tends to crack anyway. I used the Lumiere, which was probably a bad move - so two wrongs don't make a right in this case.

Here are the two ATC backgrounds. The one on the left is the same as the blue and white sample - neat PVA and watered down acrylic, and it cracked really well. In the one on the right (which became this ATC), used watered down PVA and this just did not work. You need lots of gooey stuff, so when It dries it will cause the cracking.

Being an artist is a process of continually making something out of nothing.
(me)

No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences - so-called trauma - but we make out of them just what suits our purposes.
Alfred Adler

only a card, she says.....

2012-02-26T22:07:00.000+11:00

Today, I only have an atc to post, mainly because it took quite a while to construct it.

Here is the front, it is mattboard, painted with acrylic. The butterflies are die cut from melted wax on paper, and acrylic painted paper.

Here is the back. More of the same.

As you can see here, it can stand up on it's own.

when it is standing up, you can peek inside.

And outside.
I'ts a 3-D atc!
It is based on a design I saw on youtube.

I also looked on the author's blog, but the instructions were a bit scanty. You will find it in the archives under december 2010.

So I made most of it up myself. Of course, now I know all the pitfalls, I can make one which is a bit nicer!

It has been really hot again, here and I am not taking it well, since being sick (do I ever?), so mostly this weekend I have been researching folded embellishments and mini books on youtube.
Here is my lap pad with a few of the thinks I have played with.

It was a lovely way to spend a few hot days, but deadlines are loooooooming again.

I think a bit of sewing is going to have to happen!

Be creative!

fishy business and more mess

2012-02-25T23:38:00.000+11:00

This card backgound was one I made in a crackle experiment. This particular card did not turn out as expected, so I played a bit with it. The background was yellow and white over green. I happened to see a fish stencil just lying there, so I used it to make the fish. I used a failed batch of gold wax (like rubnbuff) and it caught up around the edges of the fish, making a raised outline, with a little bit of gold in the centre. Next, I dribbled a bit of blue watercolour over the top. I finished up with a few bubbles I stamped using white acrylic and the end of a straw.

I have started working on a project I was supposed to start on the 15th, but as you all know, I was ill, and then very busy.
So, today, I started getting out things I might use for this project. It is a fabric page for a swap. The theme is vintage.

Here is a selection of elements I might use. I find sometimes, it is easier to start with these than the background. So what have I got here?

A vintage piece of eyelet tape.

A variety of ribbon tape laces. Anyone who knows me knows I have lots of ribbons!

A few narrow laces. I have more, but we must draw the line somewhere, lol.

'Silk' flower parts. It is actually quite east to make these flowers, using polyester satin and watered down PVA, some small plastic containers and templates which you can either get by tracing a real one, or by looking for flower templates on google.

Commercial lace motofs and appliques.

A variety of doilies and linens, some old, some new.

Small crochet and needle lace motifs which i made my ownty downty self.

Lots of fine bobbin lace samples, from when I was learning years ago.

and finally a few vintage notions.

And this is only the embellishments. I need to decide on a focus picture and some luxurious backround fabrics next, won't that be fun?

Being creative doesn't neccesarily mean creating something in a moment of inspiration. Sometimes it takes a while and involves thinking, playing or drawing or most times all three.

A special heart and paper bags

2012-02-24T21:02:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC has just been received by my swap partner in holland, so I can show you it now.

The background was simply felt with crumpled organza held by beads. The heart was free machine embroidery on water soluble stabiliser, which was washed away after. I used rayon and metallic threads. The heart is double sided and was inspired by a Design Matters TV episode, although the design was my own. I attatched a ring finding to the top and tied a ribbon on.
The reason I did this was...

Then the heart can be removed from the hook I sewed in and worn as a pendant or brooch or simply as a dangly. I hope my partner enjoys it.

Also, Thought I'd show you a little book I am in the process of constructing.
I used paper bags to construct this book.

Nothing fancy, just thin el cheapo bags I had for putting people's purchases in when I did markets.
I can't say whose youtube video actually inspired this book, because I watched quite a few of them. Just type in 'paper bag book' and you'll see what I mean, there are tons- and in any case, I bound it my own way in the end.

I have the top of the bag on the left and have folded it to the right over my ruler. I used the ruler over the bottom of the bag to make sure they were all folded the same.

I did this, on about six bags. You could use more, it's up to you - and to the thickness of your bags.

On my ironing board, I placed two folded pages about 1/8 inch apart (the one on the left is going to be the first page, so the folded bottom is underneath and will be on the outside of the book)

Instead of paper tip-ins and glue, I decided to use strips of fusible interfacing, which I ironed on. I think this will give a much more flexible and durable binding.
After fusing, I turned the right page onto the left (as if I was reading) and added another page on the right spaced at 1/8 inch as before and then fused that. I kept going until I had all the pages fused together.

When all the pages are bound, they will look like this. There will be a bag bottom, or narrow flap on both the front and back of the book.

The nexy thing I did was to glue the covers on. I cut two pieces of scrap card, which as you can see are about 1/4 inch larger on the top, bottom and non spine side, and glued them down.

Of course and empty book is a bit boring, so here is my first two page spread background, which was collaged from printouts of vintage (copyright free) text. Most of these I got from the Graphics Fairy.

As you might have noticed, this is a book with a difference, as it will have pockets where the tops of the paper bags are and narrow, tab like pages where the bottoms of the bags are and you can arrange these ant way you like, with the exception of the first and last (which must have the bottoms of the bags to the outside of the book to take the covers.

Obviously, I still have a long way to go with this book, and I will keep you updated as I progress.
Oh, I forgot, I did a light wash with strong tea over the collaged page to knock back the whiteness of some of the printed pages.

Doesn't matter what you create - just create it.

Hydrangeas and some time - finally.

2012-02-23T21:40:00.002+11:00

Today's ATC is back to the traditional fabric ATC format.

Well, I suppose what I call traditional. Dark green batic cotton, cotton batting and backing, metallic hand stitching. Origami Hydrangeas (That's what I call them because the remind me of the tiny little flowers in a hydrangea spray, sequins and beads. Ribbon square bound edge. This one I just made up as I went along, after tea. I don't think you can see it in the photo, but the little origamis are very dimensional.

Now what was that about time? I have been very busy with friends setting up a community art studio, where we will run workshops on fine art as well as popular crafts, I have been organising our supplies and today, we had our first session with the painting group and we all really enjoyed it. I have not really done any serious painting for a long time, but I did do some work in my sketchbook. I hope we will cater for everyone, from totally petrified beginners, to the advanced, and all the different styles, from watercolour, oil and acrylic, to decorative painting and abstract, landscape, portrait etc if you get my drift. We will also cater for children's and adult's craft work, for example life drawing, making cartoons, woodwork, dream catchers, altered books, cards and scrapbooking as well as beading.

Wow! I hope we don't do all of that too soon, or I'll have no time to blog, lol
So back to the time. I now have a full five days free to work on a million projects, most of which need to be finished by mid march, some a little sooner, like the Flowerdale art and craft show, on the second weekend of March and some slightly later(like a few days, lol), like my Tangled Textiles challenge which is the 15th.

so, hopefully, I will have lots to show you over the next few weeks.
I appreciate all your messages and love to be able to share with you.

Be Creative

a circle of hearts and a mystery solved

2012-02-22T22:29:00.003+11:00

Back to my normal ATCs today.

This atc is just a piece of black felt, covered with seed stitches in gold metallic thread, and a circle of hearts, cut paper doll/snowflake style from some painted lutradur then blanket stitched on with gold thread. Not many layers in this one.

Now to yesterday's post. It was a bit cheeky of me, but this was a digital ATC. It, at present only exists as a picture on my computer.
Whilst I have been under the weather, I have been doing a bit of scrapbooking exploring, including digital scrapbooking, which is quite a new thing, but is catching on. Although I like paper and often use it in textile work, I don't think I will be shifting to scrapbooking very soon. Ditto for digital work. They are interesting, and they can be great to incorporate in work, but I like the texture of textiles and stitch, and this is not likely to change.

Anyhow, I was looking at digital scrapbooking, and "what if" came up. What if I used it to make an ATC? So I did.
I used a free kit called Lavender Designs - Steampunked which I got from here.
I will show you the layers I used- there were several, but only in low res, since they are not mine.

I used GIMP, which is a free editing program, very similar to PS (photoshop). I have had a lot of trouble with PS on windows 7 and running 64 bit, and GIMP is used by many in the digital industry. If you can use PS or PS elements, you'll be able to use it.
OK, so I chose a background and an overlay that was like cracks.

I added two more overlays, some lace and butterflies and a petal with text all over it (I think it's from the UD declaration of independence).
Digital overlays are usually PNG files, because they have a transparent background, and JPG don't have this.

Next, I added the butterfly overlay, and then a frame, which was rough white brush strokes from another kit I got at cottagearts.net here. It was called Cottage Arts Painted Scrap Edges Sampler.
I was pretty happy with this, but decided I needed some text.

The font I used was CKVenezia which I got from Club CK here. I then copied the text and pasted/enlarged it to create more of an effect. I chose red because I felt the grunge needed a bit of a lift. ( By the way. The font I used was one I actually downloaded and added to C:/windows/fonts.)

So there you have it in a nutshell. I think that this sort of play is really useful for me to learn about layering in real pieces, and truly, you could create this piece in textiles by using a fabric printout for the background, and printing on fusible web and organza for the layers. I think I would have to make the butterfly, or perhaps create a stamp of it and heat emboss, or for that matter make a mold and do a tissue cast or a PVA/ satin cast. If you wanted to make it as a paper or card version, you would need only to print on transparencies, or I wonder if clear cellophane would work? (only of it was cellophane not the plastic stuff sometimes sold as cellophane).

OK enough blah.
All of yesterday's commenters, Wendy, Caroline, Linda and Brigitte can choose an ATC if you want. (Hopefully, you won't all choose the same one, lol) Contact me via my profile to tell me which one and an address-I have yours Brigitte, no probs.
There is a smilebox slideshow on the ATCs 2012 page on the right side bar.
Linda, I'll send you something special as well, since you actually guessed!

It just goes to show that even when you cant paint, or sew or make 'stuff', you can still create!

An ATC of an entirely different flavour

2012-02-21T23:42:00.000+11:00

Mmmm, Today's ATC is very different. I wonder if you can work out what is different about it?

It's not the style, which is a bit steampunk/grunge. It's not whether it's paper or textile or both, it's something else entirely. It has lots of layers, which is new for me, but that's not it.
I like this ATC very much and I have used some new materials. very different from anything I have used before. If you can guess, then I suppose I'll have to give you a prize, won't I?
You can pick any one of the last two month's ATCs and I will sent it to you.
Here's a hint. I haven't been able to do much whilst I have been sick, and this was easy to do whilst sitting quietly. Hmmm....
I will put a slideshow on the side bar for you. Anyway, it is now 20 minutes to midnight, so I have to post, or I will turn in to a pumpkin.

PS if no one guesses, I'll just choose a random comment.

happy creating

Sequin waste

2012-02-20T23:04:00.001+11:00

OK, back to hearts again! This one is made on felt, with a crimson velvet heart and a little one cut fron sequin waste. This week at TAST, it is detatched chain stitch, so I did some lazy daisied, using the sequind waste holes as a guide, the started to do detached chainn stitches on the background, and I thought, what if I put two together, it might look like a little heart, and it did! I also did a chain stitch around the edge in god thread, threading a red bead throught the loop and it looked quite cute. finished off with some beading and voila!

But still not up to posting stuff, although I am feeling much better today.

We'll see, thanks for the good wishes.

a bit of wax

2012-02-19T18:00:00.001+11:00

Thought we'd have a bit of a change from hearts for today. This one is totally a paper one. Background is embossed paper (dry embossed not heat - ie it had a texture pressed into it) with melted wax crayon applied with a soldering iron. The stamp used permanent ink and the lace is adhesive paper lace painted with a gold leaf pen (I actually placed the stamp too far to the right, so I added the lace to make it look as if it was supposed to be where it is).
The quote says:

Use what talents
you possess
The woods would
be very silent
if no birds sang
except those that
sang best
Henry Van Dyke

Excellent advice, I would say.

Unfortunately, I am still under the weather, (which at this present time is starting to thunder again. I thought it was SUMMER!), so not much to show, but hopefully I am getting better. Today was a tiny bit better, so maybe tomorrow will be too. I am starting to get withdrawal symptoms from being away from my sewing machine!
I have been doing a bit of papery stuff - in other words, stuff that doesn't involve any dangerous machines, so hopefully, I'll show some of that tomorrow.
Still no email, so sorry if you have written me.

2012-02-18T19:58:00.001+11:00

Today's heart ATC is a lace one

Painted lutradur (red and gold) piece cut out of a larger commercial beaded lace
I had intended to bead this one with gold seeds in the background, but my head is still not too good. Obviously not a migraine, but some sort of bug.

A friend posted a photo of her "messy" studio recently and I thought you might like to see what I am like when I am mucking about.

Now THAT is a mess.
I did tidy a bit and put things away in between bouts of feeling ill today
Hopefully tomorrow will be better
By the way, bigpond is experiencing difficulties, and my email is not arriving, so if you need to contact me, do it here and I'll get back to you

Be creative!

Triple heart

2012-02-17T19:47:00.001+11:00

Here is today's ATC

This is another one on felt, with two burgundy organza hearts and a paler pink organza over some pink hand dyed cotton in the centre. A bit easy peasy. I have been working on a very complicated one, but can't show you until the mail arrives in Holland for my swap partner.

Our storm raged all night and has left me with a bit of a migraine, so nothing to show and very difficult to look at the computer screen at the moment.
I'm sure I will be better after a good sleep and have something for you tomorrow.

Even if your creative oasis is only in your mind, visit it often

flower hear and I got mail!

2012-02-16T16:56:00.001+11:00

Just a quick one today as a big thunderstorm is coming

This one was made on a felt piece from a piece of braid that had little flowers, I cut them apart and sewed them down in a heart shape. I did cros stitch around the edge with the green and yellow from the flowers and some french knots.

Also today, I got an ATC in a swap from a friend in US. This is her first ATC and I think she must just be a natural at it.
See for yourself.

Must go as it is getting a bit wild outside.
Don't forget to create!

some charms and fantastic plastic

2012-02-15T17:11:00.002+11:00

This atc has a felt bacground, some textured organza ribbon, heart charms and free motion stitching. The edges are glued and gold leafed and it is backed with a playing card.

This afternoon, I had a play with embossing powder and plastics. I have seen a video where plastic was embossed with an embosser like a cuttle bug here . This doesn't require heat. and although I will try it, it wasn't what I wanted.

I tried quite a few different types of plastics. (This table here is an overwiew of recyclable plastics.) The first plastic I tried was a number 5 or poly propylene (PP) . It is not completely clear and is more soft rather than brittle. Generally it is from take away or thin microwaveable plastic containers - like the ones you can get in packs of six at the supermarket.

the plastic puckered a tiny bit, but it can be flattened while still warm after using the heat gun. i found it best to hold the gun high up, at least 8 inches and wait a bit longer as there was less puckering this way.
Buoyed on by this success, I tried a few more types of plastic.

Acetate, or transparency did not work as it buckled up straight away and never got anywhere near melting the embossing powder.

This one is PET or number 1 plastic. This is generally what soda/fizzy drink bottles are made of or frozen meals, but I got it from a non-food packaging. It didn't work either, buckling under the least heat.

This one didn't have a label, but was from a chinese take away type container and it felt the same as the PP (5) above. It worked the same as the poly propylene.
The last two plastics I tried are a bit different. They both came out of an LCD computer screen when hubby pulled it apart. The first one is slightly frosted and looks just like quilting stencil plastic.

I have put it on a coloured surface so you could see what I mean. It worked really well. I also tried a piece of stencil plastic, to put my mind at rest (not shown) and it worked as well.

This last one is the one I liked the best of all. It is a reflective clear plastic that I have been collecting from computer sreen demolitions, because it is lovely and shiny like a pearl or a mirror. It worked very well.

Here is a shot of this reflective plastic so you can sort of see what I mean. When the light shines through it, it makes rainbows, I must be a bit of a Pollyanna, I suppose.
The reason this one appealed to me so much is that a friend is going to run a dream catcher workshop at our community house, and I thought that if these were suspended at the bottom, they would just top it off.
I am sure you will be seeing this technique in my ATCs (when I get all the hearts out of my system, lol)

Make sure you play every day.

Angelina and an ATC album

2012-02-14T19:41:00.000+11:00

Today's ATc is an angelina heart. The fused angelina was ironed to fusible web and cut out then fused to the fabric. Small stipple quiilting in the background, with a glue and gold leaf edge.

I have been collecting...

Toilet paper rolls in my recycling stash for mixed media work. A few months ago, I thought "what if" I flatten them to make little album pages. So I did.

Here is a batch that were pressed under a brick for a week or so.
Imagine my surprise, when I was looking at youtube videos the other day, that a video about "Toilet paper roll mini albums" was on the sidebar.
When I searched for "Toilet paper roll mini albums", there were lots and lots of videos by scrapbookers.
Just goes to show there is nothing new under the sun.

One thing I have found, though, is that these little pages are the perfect size for an ATC (so long as it is not too dimensional) So, if, unlike me you have a small number of ATCs or a set from a group, these albums are the perfect low cost way of storing them and playing with embellishments at the same time.

Basically, you just cover each flattened roll (these ones are covered with scrapbooking paper, but you could use anything you want)

Punch holes and set eyelets for a ribbon binding, or you could use strips of fabric to join pairs and bind them like a book.

One thing to watch out for is that some brands have different sized rolls. It's probably easier not to mix sizes.

This two page sample above was made from the thinner rolls, and only a very flat ATC fits.

This is my finished sample. As you can see, the ATC fits very neatly, in fact so neatly, that it is important to remember to add a piece of cord or ribbon as a pull in order to get it out.

Some ideas I have come up with are

use one page as a mailer for fragile atcs
decorate an atc and both sides to make a three sided atc
bind a set of atc holders for a series of atcs on a theme

I'm sure there are a lot more ways to use these and I know there are as many ways to decorate them as people in the world multiplied by the number of ideas they can come up with. Every one would be individual, just like ATCs.

Perhaps the main difference between artists and those who don't consider themselves artists, is that artists make things just for their beauty and don't neccesarily need them to be useful.
A friend asked me today what I was going to DO with 365 ATCs and I think that above is my answer.
If art had to be useful (other than in lifting our spirits), then this would be a serious limit to creativity.

A favourite fabric and doodling

2012-02-13T15:42:00.000+11:00

Today's atc is made from a scrap of fabric I have hoarded because I only had a tiny bit and I loved it.

Because I love it, I didn't cover it up with anything, just free machined around a heart shape in gold thread. I loved how the heart puffed up. Edged with glue and gold leaf.

You might remember this piece, which I was working on here. I was based on a page in one of my artbooks.

Well, I have finally finished the doodling!

I tried to used a different pattern in every section, and there is a lot of thread build up in areas, but since it was just playing, I'm not fussed, in fact I'm quite happy with it. I still have to stitch the sky, but it will just be wery subtle so as not to detract from the bird.
This idea could work with just about any shape that can be broken up into sections, even a rectangle, as I often fill a whole page in the space of a half a dozen phone calls, lol and this is basically doodling except it is a little hard to fill in solid areas when free machining. Of course it can be done, but it is not really something I would call playing, it's more of a chore.

So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.
Brenda Ueland

And don't forget to check out the twelve by twelve groups's reveal of metamorphosis!
(it was yesterday, but the quilts are absolutely stunning)

Frayed heart and another TAST

2012-02-12T19:47:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is very simple.

I like frayed edges, so I made a heart with frayed edges, put it on a 21/2 inch charm square, then added another charm cut in half and frayed to the sides. I stitched everything down with running stitch and added some lazy daisies and beads. To finish the top and bottom edges, I sealed them with clear nail polish then blanket stitched over it. It is backed with a playing card.

As I said the other day, I am participating in a challenge called TAST2012 along with hundreds of others. It is Take a stitch Tuesday and our challenge is to use the hand stitch put up each week on Pintangle. I have been a bit behind, but I did a bit of work and am now up to date.
This week's stitch is chevron stitch

Here are some of my ideas for this stitch, in my sketchbook.

and here are some shapes I did with it. On the right is a close up. If you click and enlarge, you will see that this is not what I intended to do, because my guide marks are still visible. I did a shell shape and then I didn't like it, so I unpicked it and did something else. I must say, my stitches got so small in the centre of the spiral and the top and bottom of the oval, that I really couldn't see quite what I was doing, but it turned out well anyway.

He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.

St Francis of Assisi

Working with your hands

a love-ly quote and some sketching

2012-02-11T13:56:00.000+11:00

The quote on this ATC is,
"Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul."
St Augustine

Painted fabric, raffia, felt hearts, coffee beans, sharpie marker. Remind me next time to do the writing BEFORE attaching the fabric to the batting and backing, lol.

Also, here are a few sketches I have been working on for my Tangled textiles "Balance" challenge (don't worry no decisions made yet, so I'm not giving anything away)

Some ruins in Syria, which I have simplified a bit.

A gymnast on a balance beam. I like this except for the fact that my faces are awful.

Some rocks and a shell balancing.

all of these are just ideas at present and I am still fleshing out the how of making each one, as each will entail wery different techniques, but I still have a lot of other ideas that haven't even got this far. I find this the hardest part of challenges - choosing what to do

Remember to do something creative every day - it keeps the stress away!

Valentine 3 and some logs

2012-02-10T19:57:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is using free machine embroidery on red lutradur with a crimson cotton backing. I did some seed stitch on the background to serve as quilting and faced it to the back. I originally was going to heat distress the lutradur after the free machine stitching, but decided I liked it better the way it is.

I suppose everyone would be shocked if I said I was working on some piecing. This is background I am working on for one of my tangled textiles ideas. (I have a few different ideas, so this might not be the one I end up posting)

This an electric quilt layout of what I am aiming for. It is log cabin in a sunshine and shadows layout with the colours going from black to mid brown.

Above are the outline layout of the quilt and the block foundation. (I am going to paper piece it!)
Of course, the next job is to dye the fabric, which I will do using the dilution method and two stages.
That means I will dilute out my brown stock five times and use these to dye six pieces, then I will dilute out the black the same way and add it in reverse (ie lowest dilution of brown with highest black and so on)
Hopefully, I will show you what I mean in the next week and my results. I want the fabrics to have lots of texture, so we will see how I go. I am no expert!

Just a short one today as the power has been on and off due to thunderstorms and it took me a long time to get this done. I did clean out my studio during down time however, so that is a plus!

Nature is the inspiration for all that is beautiful in art.

Valentine 2 and some fabric

2012-02-09T21:45:00.000+11:00

This heart ATC is made from a painted petal in a piece of lace, layered over red felt, outlined with running stitch, white blanket stitch edge and a few pearls.

As I said yesterday, I came up with quite a lot of ideas when I thought about hearts, which, like you, Linda, I generally avoid. I wonder if I could be as successful with other symbolic shapes like stars, the moon, circles, or a simple flower. mmmm.

As you can see there are a lot of little ideas on this page. I could have kept going, but decided this was enough!

As I just came home yesterday, I haven't much to show, but today a friend gave me some yummy fabrics which I can't wait to use.

This is the most goegeous lurex and chiffon mix fabric. I can see it as sand, pebbles, and lots of other landscape bit and pieces. and of course it would go really well in a heat distressed piece.

This heavier fabric is a mixture of stripes and paisley in some bright colours with a great satin weave texture.

This is very hard to show in a photograph taken after dark in my studio, but is a dark blue burnout velvet with roses and leaves.

This one came out much better, it is also a burnout velvet, but this time green with leaves - my favourite!

hope you liked the bit of eye candy!
More hearts tomorrow!

First Love and TAST

2012-02-08T21:25:00.000+11:00

Since I had to make an ATC for The February swap on Stitchin Fingers, I decided to do a few different ones on the theme, which naturally, was love for February. I now have twenty, in various stages of disarray and as I just got home and had no ATC, I did a quick one.

Basically, the background is collaged bits on the theme of love, then a little metal heart charm. Some gold letter stickers spelling out THE word and some glitter. So now there is no excuse for not making a valentine!
Over the next few weeks, We will all probably get very bored of love and hearts, but I was so surprised when I sat down to begin designing. It was actually quite fun. I usually avoid hearts as a design element, but I filled a whole page with scribbles, which I haven't photographed, because they are still packed from my trip, but will show tomorrow

Now that it is week six in TAST2012, I have my week 5 sample finished, lol. Week 5 was herringbone stitch.

The top sample on the gree chiffon in a dark green was my first one. A bit boring, I thought, so on the one below, in a paler green thread, I went back over it and looped a purple thread around it. See Sharon B's handpicked highlights, here. I'm afraid I was not very adventurous this week, but now I am home and able to stop worring about going anywhere, I'll work harder on this week's sample, which is.... Chevron stitch.

Ah well, I think my inbox will just have to wait until the morning, with all the other housekeeping that has not been done for a few days as I'm a bit tired.

Happy creating.

making something out of nothing and Bernie Berlin

2012-02-07T16:19:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC was a major "what if".

Sorry about the reflection. but it is a bit shiny.
Way back here, when I was painting the page around the niche in my artbook, I put a piece of acetate underneath to stop paint getting onto the page below.
Another day, I was tidying my desk and found the piece of acetate with dried black paint and the rectangle looked just like an ATC. I thought, what if I scratch into the acetate? So I did and this is the result (paint side is down of course, so if you write it needs to be backward)
I have used a piece of batting, cut to size, wrapped some paperbacked foil over it, added a playing card at the back and attached the scratched acetate with brads.
For a little bit of work, it has a great effect.

Now to Bernie Berlin, Author of Artist Trading Card Workshop
I have been trying out one of her exercises, using watercolour (I vaguely remember doing something similar many years ago when I was learning watercolour)

Here is a piece of watercolour paper which I dampened and dripped paint on then let it bleed and run.

Then I got a piece of heavy card that I had made an ATC size frame out of (2.5 x 3.5 in inside)
and moved it around the paper, to see what I could find. You might want to rotate the paper and the frame quite regularly, because It will make an huge difference to what you see. This might be a volcano erupting.

This looks like a little fish to me. He is missing a tail, but that gives me something to embellish.

This one looks like two people, a woman on the left and a man on the right.

A princess standing under a tree?
The idea is to find pictures in the blobs and highlight them.
Here are some I have worked on.

After the earthquake, a pagoda is burning

Two people watching snow fall?

An Angel in the garden or maybe up in the clouds?

And a full moon through the trees.

I had a lot of fun with this technique, It certainly gets your brain thinking. A good way to start off the day in my skeychbook, so you might see a few of these type of ATCs popping up now and then.

Remember creativity doesn't always have a plan. Making it up as you go along can sometimes get your creativity moving.

A harlequin and some painting messes

2012-02-06T14:01:00.000+11:00

This one was inspired by lisa's one here
When I found these little bits of card already cut into diamonds, I knew what I had to do! Luckily they fit nicely across one way. When I was looking at it deciding whether to put another row cut in half, I had a lightbulb moment and thought about the stitching.
Black cotton, glitter coloured card, perle thread.

And some more painting!!!
After I had printed on all the different surfaces, I decided to paint the scraps to use in collage.

Light Lutradur. I liked the way the watercolour bled here.

A few face wipes. I was dropping watercolour onto damp fabric from dropper bottles. With these, I scrunched them afterwards to blend the drops a bit.

A gorgeous piece of inferfacing.

A piece of fusible. This might come in handy as an overlay in a landscape as it is so subtle, but really, my watercolours were too dilute for the normal painted fusible effects....... but

This is the release paper. and I am in love with this! I will just have to try and repeat it. Obviously, if the paint is too dilute, it just settles into the paper, but this paper is gorgeous.

A nappy liner, which is very pastelly and had a similar problem to the fusible. Too many holes, but is very filmy and nice.
and a last piece of interfacing, which was a bit too wet, but again had lovely edges where the watercolour dried.
At least with these, I can always add more layers if I'm not happy, but all in all it was a productive session.

Lots of materials for fabric collages! Perhaps I'd better make a few.
I am going away for a few days, to visit with my mother, but will still be posting.

As Lisa says, be creative

Some origami and some more printing

2012-02-05T10:59:00.000+11:00

mono printed fabric, origami hexagon in white satin, bead, transparency transfer The transfer is the japanese character for 'folding'.

When I was printing on the tissue paper, I also tried some other surfaces that I had been going to do for a while. And, yes, Judy, one of them was fusible, lol. thanks.

This one was printing on light interfacing. The main problem I had with this is that the rollers pulled the fibres off the surface and jammed the machine. In the end, I had to fold a piece of tissue and fix it at the top, so the fibres didn't catch, and as you can see, I got a good print - missing the first inch or so of course.

This one was on Tyvek and it worked extremely well. The print was really sharp and clear.

This was on nappy liner, and although it looks as though it printed well, most of the ink went straight through and only a wer faint print remained. This is just too thin!

This one was on fusible and printed really well. This is one of the things I had been wanting to try for ages.
This picture also highlights something I learned whilst doing this. The paper you use as a carrier does not have to be a full lenght. you can see here, I have reused a piece of paper and it is shorter because I cut off the previously glued bit at the top (which is now the bottom)

This one is on a polyester non woven (or light lutradur) This tended to bleed a bit. After I had done it, I remembered that it is better to coat it with some medium or PVA before you print to get a sharper print. I'm pretty sure you told me that, Judy. As you can see a lot of the ink went straight through - although this paper will make a nice distressed print for collaging.

This one is a heavy Lutradur and i didn't use a carrier for it. It went through and printed well, except, where it had been folded in the packet, tended to pick up ink from the heads. I will have to work out a way of getting the folds out, perhaps a warm iron with a bit of mist? or pressing under some books.

The last one is tyvek paper, which also did not need a carrier. It has a totally different texture to tyvek fabric and appears more like a very smooth lutradur, which has been pressed. (Which it probably basically is as they are both polyester fibres. Although the image was good, it did bleed a little.

So now, my poor printer has printed on just about everything over the last year!
As you can see, I have done most of my prints at around ATC size, so you will probably see many of these prints cropping up through the year. I'm sure to manipulate them in unimaginable ways, so you might have too look hard to recognise them, lol.

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.” — Edward de Bono

A bit of ribbon and some tissue.

2012-02-04T21:05:00.000+11:00

Today I went to a meeting of ATASDA Vic (Australian textile art and surface design association), so hi to any of you surfing the web. We had a great day and had a silk paper demo from Elma who creates lichen inspired sculptures using crochet. Fascinating
Today's ATC is decidedly floral

I used a piece of the collage background I made here. The flower is some rolled organza and satin petals and the text is printed on a transparency. bound with organza ribbon.

I followed a link from Lisa's blog to that of an extraordinary artist, Marilyn rock. I was inspired to create some stamped tissue papers like she showed in her video, but I decided instead to print on the tissue with my computer.

As you can see, they printed quite well. I actually used greaseproof or kitchen paper instead of tissue, but I'm sure if you ironed the tissue out flat it would work. I just tend to use kitchen paper for layering tissue as it's cheap and works well. The images I used were from the graphics fairy.

I used a gluestick to glue the paper to the top of a piece of printer paper. (I put an oversized piece of tisse paper on and trimmed it down after I glued it)
I found it ran through the printer quite easily.

And as you can see the print is excellent. I can't wait to use these in collage. I did find, however that the images bled if I used matte medium, but if I used neat white glue, this was minimised, But I will show more about this in a later post.

Thanks for the lovely comments yesterday. As always, it is the supposed mistakes that people like the best, lol, but I appreciate them all the same.

Now, I need to get into my sketchbook because I have an idea for my balance challenge!

Have fun creating - and do it all the time!

In the toy box and watercolour

2012-02-03T16:27:00.000+11:00

another simple fabric card

As you can see, my tranfer went much better this time. toy theme fabric, vintage boat embroidery/applique, transparency transfer. Buttons.
Aren't these the cutest little buttons? A friend gave them to me and I just had to use them they were so cute!

I have been doing a bit of playing with paint, mostly for use in my artbooks and in fabric books.
With this paper, I wet my paper first (too wet as we shall see) then dropped watercolour randomly all over it and let it move. Then I applied different things to them as they dried.

Here they are with their additions, drying.

This part of the paper had bubble wrap added whilst drying

This sectioon had salt crystals added

This section had scrunched gladwrap (saran in us)

This section had nothing added.
As you can see from the dried pieces, the colour faded a lot. Water colour does become less bright as it dries, but my mistake here was to over wet the paper so it took a very long time to dry and as a result, the colours spread too far and became washed out.
Although I did not get quite what I was after, the pastel washed out paper, will come in useful for backgrounds.

Of course mishaps like this always lead to more 'what if...'s' than I have time to complete. what do you think about living to 150? Do you think I'll get bored by then?

Transfers and tinkering

2012-02-02T16:42:00.000+11:00

I am much better today. Unfortunately when I get stressed, my back sometimes plays up. At least when it is stress, it get better as soon as I relax and get rest!
today's ATC is a bit imperfect.

I used a bit too much gel with my transfer and it bled into the fabric a bit, oops.
Cotton cat theme fabric, transparency transfer, wooden cat shaped button, perle thread. This reminds me of my cat, who is afraid of anything, including a wisp of air and especially, the main culprit,

Thumper, the bunny, who chases her around the house! (The cat has learned to move around the house from one high place to another, lol)

Now on to some stuff. I said yesterday that Tony had pulled some electrical stuff apart for me. I am collecting little bits to make some (very) mixed media collages.
Here is my desk this morning!!!

This deconstructing of things to use them is a very messy business, perhaps it should be called messy media in my case instead of mixed media
Here are a few of the items which I have collected and intend to use on these pieces.

These are the chips out of computers. originally, I just wanted to decorate the square and rectangular tops as central motifs, but when they came out I turned them over and there were all these tiny pins, which made me think of weaving patterns with thread on them (or wire)

These things are all called heat sinks. I suppose they are to stop things getting to hot when the electricity goes through. But I love the shapes and patterns on them. Colour is not really an issue as the colours you see here are just skin deep and I can make them any colour I want, but I really love the pink tree shaped one!

On the left are two reflective disks from cd rom drives. I can't wait to stitch them down. The circles at the top right are faces from computers fans. and the beautiful coils at the bottom were in the battery compartment of an old tape player. I love spirals.

I have a big collection of these fan blades. I think they will fit in very well in a garden collage after a bit of painting and embellishing.

Now, these, were some very conservative heat sinks which I almost didn't keep, but I decided the holes might be useful for adding interesting stitching to.

These are some of my favourite bits. They are sets of coils from motors and fans and are like little flowers with beautiful metallic petals. They are all different sizes and numbers of spokes and colours. The two silver things were holding one of the coils in place, and I liked them, too.

Last, but not least, this is my pride and joy and will be the centrepiece in a collage one day. It is a set of coils, like the ones just above, but it is from an old 5 and a 1/4 floppy disk drive (think 1980 type computers!) I hate to think how many of these drives I have turfed over the years!

Anyway, you can see what madness my husband and I get up to when we work together, can't you? I don't know whether I'm a bad influence on him, or he is a bad influence on me, but we certainly get up to no good with old junk. I do love making something from stuff that is junk to any other house in town, lol.

now that I have got all that madness off my chest, will we get back to "normal" stuff tomorrow? - you will have to see.

Remember, one person's trash is another person's treasure, or perhaps should we say anyone's trash is an artist's treasure?

Tick tock time's passing...

2012-02-01T21:52:00.000+11:00

today's ATc is a simple card about time.

clock pictures, letter stickers, scrapbooking paper on a playing card.
Brigitte, I store my ATCs in a very large folder with trading card pockets made out of tape and plastic. And, yes, Janet, they are slightly curved and when put together create huge interlocking rings.
Thanks, everyone for looking in. I do appreciate it.
Unfortunately, nothing to show today as I have a very sore back and didn't get to the list I had for today, but Tony did pull some electrical components apart for me and I will show you my little treasures for mixed media when I am a bit better.

felt flowers and some patchwork

2012-01-31T20:31:00.000+11:00

A simple ATC today

Simple felt flowers stitched onto a black felt background. backed with a playing card (I knew they were useful for something)

Today is my quilting group, so I decided I had better put up a picture of what I am doing. It doesn't seem like I do much patchwork, but I have several on the go, which will get finished....one day.

My name for this pattern is windmill crossing, but I know there are other names for it. I have completed about 15 of these blocks, and have lots and lots to go

So it is going to be a long time befor the blocks start to be pieced into 3x3s. I am afraid that I have felt a little guilty, what with Lisa finishing her quilt, and Nicolette nearly finished her dear jane!
I thought I should make some space in my room full of ufos.

precious and not so precious

2012-01-30T09:08:00.000+11:00

today's ATC has some working parts!

This one is simply scrapbook paper on a playing card with stickers and flaps. The question is what is precious?

I suppose choosing the correct answer depends on who you are!

And now, I will show you what I have been working on all these weeks. I submitted this piece for an exhibition, but it wasn't accepted. It was my first try, so I will live with it and I was not happy with it myself - we live and learn.
On the flip side, not being chosen means I can put it in our little show here in march.
anyway, here it is

It has a poem free machined on the background, freeform piecing and beading, and six small thread paintings.

here is the first one, some rugged mountain ranges

this one is of a jewel sea (the 12 apostles, near lorne, vic)

cooktown orchids in the treetops

Some ferns

A cross section of an opal

My brown country (King's Canyon, NT.)

Enjoy!

Remember failures are what drives creativity. They create space for learning and problem solving.

some face wipes and a sampler

2012-01-29T15:09:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC has leaves on it again! (are you surprised?)

This card is made from a painted baby wipe and face wipe which I made here
I have layered a square of face wipe on top of the baby wipe and some more pressed leaves. I freemotioned around the square and the leaves and used the paint colours as a guide for stitching. I have so much trouble with satin stich edgings (my corners get eaten up) and have tried lots of different ways, and I thought, what if I tried it free motion? and it worked reasonably well - needs a bit of fine tuning, but no eaten corners!

Now for the sampler,

This rather untidy piece of work began it's life as a sampler for a quilt which I will show you tomorrow.
Basically, it is simply different coloured strips tacked down on a backing, to which I have then added lots of different stitches and embellishments.
It now has a new life as part of my TAST2012 challenge, because it is the perfect base for me to practice the stitches on. And as it happens, three of the four stitches we have done are actually on it already.

On this section, I have

some straight stitches,
a couched piece of machine wrapped cord
a piece of tulle bunched up and sewn down
some seed stitches with a nylon knitting ribbon
a fly stitch pattern
some random fly stitches

beginning from the blue frayed piece, which is organza attatched with running stitch

a pice of satin braid couched down with a line of blue pearl beads above it
a piece of blue and white eyelash
cretan stitch with a piece of nylon knitting tape woven through it
a pice of flat tape secured with vertical straight stitches
some random lines of basque stitch
a piece of furry eyelash couched down and surrounded by seed stitches

Starting just below the eyelash and seed stitches

green ribbon attached with a chain stitch at top and diagonal lines of fly stitch
a piece of ladder tape yarn couched down
another frayed piece of organza attached with a curvy chain stitch and random beading above
three buttonhole stitch leaves

Starting from the leaves

a piece of green chiffon which has not been embellished yet
a piece of burned organza attached with three lines of very messy snail trail stitch
some more eyelash couched
woolen yarn twisted really tightly, then sewn down

and that is as far as I have got. Now it can be my sampler for the challenge - bring on tuesday!

a meteor and some red stuff

2012-01-28T11:53:00.000+11:00

today's atc began it's life as a sun.

... and became a meteor in the process - organza and cellofoil on black cotton, distressed with heat gun. echo quilting.

After my lazt day yesterday, I decided I needed to get some work done - ahh guilt is a great motivator!

I finished another three red button blocks.
For challenge 3 at Tangled textiles, I made a red quilt using buttons in Beryl taylor style you can see it here and here.
I actually designed too many blocks and so am putting together another one

I think I have already shown these two, but a refresher won't hurt.
The top one is on a bronze brocade, then a circle of gold sequin waste, squares of red and cream organza placed at 45 degrees to each other. The cream organza is frayed. next, four vintage mother of pearl buttons on the corners of the cream organza, and in the centre a circular metal filigree finding held down by a bead and sequin.
The bottom one is on red satin with two frayed cram/gold satin squares at 45 deg angle with a large pink vintage button and another mother of pearl button topped with a heart shaped brad. The edge of each square was beaded with red metallic bugle beads.

This one was on gold satin with a bit of texture. I made a gold lutradur flower for the really vintage button on this one, then made danglies fron bugles,and seed beads, with a red natural seed at the end of each.

This piece of fabric had a great harlequin pattern, which I used to space my buttons. each yellow/gold diamond had a mother of pearl and a red button stacked and in the centre three red diamonds, I did some feather stitch in gold thread.

Since I missed TAST 2012 last week, this close-up can serve as a sample.

This piece of fabric had a japanese feel to it. To keep along simple japanese lines, I just added stacked buttons to the three different areas and put some twining cretan stitch in red and gold along the edges.

Here is a close up of my messy cretan stitch, which is this week's TAST 2012.

The pot of gold is not at the end of the rainbow, it is in the sewing room.

skeleton leaf

2012-01-27T14:48:00.002+11:00

Another 'a bit different' ATC today.

This was a skeleton leaf free machined in a hoop on water soluble stabiliser, which was then washed away. I trapped it between two layers, of acetate and sewed them together with the basting stitch on my sewing machine.
Nothing to show today. I have worked up a new batch of ATCs, but you will just have to wait to see them one by one.
It is extremely hot here and maybe a cool change on monday, so I ambeing lazy, wandering around doing bits and pieces here and there, trying to keep cool. I will try and get some work done this evening - perhaps after a swim in the creek!

Some leather and some flowers

2012-01-26T17:22:00.001+11:00

Happy Australia Day!

Today's ATC is a bit different.

small offcuts of different coloured woods sewn onto a piece of leather - backed with card. Holes for stitching were made with hole punch. thread is an ecru coloured cotton perle 5

And now - today, I had one of those quick fix days when you just have to make something quick to fix you up.

So, I made a fanfold fabric book.

I started with some heavyweight interfacing which I cut to 13 x 10 cm. I am using four pieces. I like to use an even number because then you can fold it up with everything inside.

I laid them out on some prefused fabric, spaced about 1/8 to 1/4 inch apart to allow for folding, and ironed them down.

Then I laid another piece of prefused fabric over the top, and ironed it down, so I had the interfacing sandwiched between the two layers. I ironed again on both sides to check they were well fused.

And then I had a little fanfold book that stands up on it's own.

I trimmed the edges up to the interfacing.

I played around with some arrangements of a few dimensional flowers I had lying around. I like the one on the right.

Then I chose some buttons to cover up the centres. The next little bit involved a lot of glueing and stitching. I stitched all the flowers and leaves and buttons down, then reinforced with a bit of fabric glue.I found a scrap of binding that matched both the front and back and attached it initially with double sided tape cut to 1/4 inch, then sewed it down.

Here it is almost finished - a bit of quick gratification!

The last thing I did was to make some cord by stitching the binding together, cut off a piece to make a loop and attach it to the outside , thren thread the cord through the loop and tie it up. I did not want to attach the cord tp the covers as I usually do, because then it would hang off when the display was open.

Pretty good for an afternoon's work!

I think if I were to do another of these which involved a lot of stitching, I would leave the fused fabric off the outside (and perhaps even the interfacing) until the items were stitched on.be easier to stitch that way, but it would depend on the items

There is a quote that says neccessity is the mother of invention, but I think maybe neccessity had a sister, called creativity.

Poppies and time to regroup

2012-01-25T10:17:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is one of my favourites so far.

Cotton background, batting, card. Straight stitch, chiffon circles attached with beads or folded.
This ATC took less that half an hour and, well, I love it. I am a bit of a dimensional flower addict.

Finally, the stress of the last two weeks with two projects due is over. The first, my Tangled Textiles Challenge, I showed here. The second, which I will still have to wait a week or so to show you, is also finished, and what a relief!

Now, today, is time to regroup, and get my routine up and running again. I will return to my normal posting format in the next day or so, probably tomorrow, depending on how much I get done today - so off I go.

don't forget to have a giggle

2012-01-24T14:32:00.001+11:00

Today's atc is a card one, just for fun

play ing card, decorative paper, punched holes with quilling paper threaded through and small spiral quilling. stickers: a definition and picture pearlescent rub on smudged on the definition to integrate it with the background.

A pebbly arrangement

2012-01-23T11:04:00.001+11:00

I love pebbles. I often pick up lovely smooth river stones on my walks, and you know I bought a bag of them recently!

This ATC is made from a piece of a quilting sample with pebbling pattern, and pebbles trapped under organza. The organza has long frayed edges, which are difficult to see in the photo.

My other project, which I can't show is moving along, but it is going to be down to the wire, I can see.

There is a fine line between letting work rest (briefly) to allow for contemplation time - and procrastination and I think I cross it regularly!

another leaf

2012-01-22T10:49:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is a simple leaf.

Quilted fabric, organza, thread sketching, glue and gold leaf edge.

Still working away, but make sure you take time to play!

some shadows

2012-01-21T12:35:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC

Quilted fabric, fused tree, glue and gold leaf edge

This was an experiment, playing with shadows. I did not stitch as I did not want to interfere with the clean lines, however I could, perhaps have fused a sheer or tulle over the top and stitched it down to make it more sturdy.

My secret work is moving along, although not as fast as I would like.
I went to the interweave winter sale and bought a few video downloads to watch (Very cheap) while I am stitching.

be creative every day

round and round in circles

2012-01-20T11:35:00.000+11:00

today's ATC is just felt, cotton thread and a few sequins and beads.
I am working very hard on a secret!

A bit of free motion handwriting.

and more..........................................

a bit more...............................

and some bits that I am hand embroidering.
There are 32 lines and it has taken me a long time to finish this section.
This project also involves the thread paintings I was working on here.

UH well, back to the needle and thread.

oh, and here is my little Tammy, sleeping on the washing basket!

An ATC a day keeps the creativity flowing!

a bit of tulle and Transfers

2012-01-19T11:13:00.000+11:00

today's ATC is HOT

Abstract cotton fabric on heavy stabiliser. Decorative yarn trapped under tulle with free motion scribbling. yarn couched on the edge

Now, an update on the fabric transfers I was doing last week.

This transfer (of a dover copyright free image) was done on very high count cotton using an acetate overhead transparency (not a printer transparency) When you print this way, the ink does not soak into the transparency, but just sits on top of the sheet.
My fabric had been moistened thoroughly, but was not dripping. I made sure there was no water sitting on top by wiping it.
I carefully placed the transparency face down onto the damp fabric and without moving it, pressed all over with a brayer (I used the brayer, but I have found that it is not as good as using your hands)
If you look carefully, you can see down the centre of the picture, there is a pale streak. The brayer did not make good contact here, so that is why I find using your hands is more successful.
another point to make here is that there was a little bleeding with just water. If you look carefully at the edges, you will see that they are a bit wobbly. Also, if the fabric is too wet, this will happen, so there isis a bit of balance to it.

This transfer was done using an Alum solution to wet the fabric. (I use a saturated solution, which means no more alum will dissolve in it. It is available at chemists, but you might have to order it.)
As you can see, I was still using the brayer here, but the edges are much clearer and the image is much more defined.
Imagine my surprise, when searching on the internet, to find this method being used by a printmaker!
This is a very complicated image, so these results are pretty good. The main points are:

use an overhead transparency, or a thin piece of acetate (the flexible sort, not stiff) cut to size for your printer.
prepare your fabric (damp, but not wet) before printing, I find placing an absorbent piece of paper under it helps with this)
Don't disturb the ink on the acetate before transferring it
use an alum solution for slightly clearer prints
I heat fixed my prints when still wet, but I actually found that they did not bleed if left to dry and appeared sharper
use your hands to smooth the transparency and transfer the print

Obviously, this process will differ with different inkjet printers as they all have different feed mechanisms and inks.(don't use a lazer or photocopier for this method)

One of the main advantages of this method is that it is very cheap.

after transfer, simply wipe the acetate clean and reuse
you can get a reasonable print with water

Another leaf and some painting

2012-01-18T12:23:00.000+11:00

today's ATC is another leaf!!
Felt, Wire, Silver thread, green stranded cotton, running stitch, couching, chain stitch.

I was looking at the colouricious site in response to their newsletter, and found a gorgeous landscape by Ineke Berlin. This one is also gorgeous, too.'

Ineke uses Lutradur for her landscapes and because it is a non woven fabric, there are no fraying problems. I thought I would have a go at it. I have lutradur, but I looked around to see what other nonwovens I had.

I found some nappy lines, some face wipes and baby wipes and for good measure, I added some tea bag paper.

Since they were all very thin, I layered them up, so that ant paint going through would go onto the fabric below, and I decided to use the kids paint brushes I bought the other day. (Instead of throwing out the paint - nothing goes to waste around here!)

Here is a baby wipe painted. I was using primary colours, nothing very nature like about that, but I will show you how I changed the contrast and colours in a bit.

Tea bag paper - very translucent and yummy!

and some nappy liner - you can see here the colours are much more natural and the contrast is more blended in. I did this by doing something I often do when painting fabrics for landscape. I roll the fabric together to blend the paints. In these two above, I rolled the fabric into a sausage and then rolled it between my hands. In other samples, I scrunch and roll into a ball and roll between my hand, and this gives a more blotchy pattern rather than the streaks you see here.

My group of tea bag papers. Because these were so see through, I didn't blend the colours by scrunching.)

Here are some of the face wipes and baby wipes. you can see the bottom right, green one was scrunched rather than rolled.

More baby wipes and some nappy liners. The two nappy liners at the bottom show clearly the difference between rolling and scrunching with these very thin materials,

All in all, a very successful session. Now, I need to do a bit of work on my sketch of the creek, which is what I want to use this for. and start cutting ripping, arranging and sewing. Hopefully, I'll have something to show by next week, although I still have one deadline today week to get done! (It will be down to the wire as usual for me)

An ATC a day keeps the world at bay!
Go see lisa's ATC

A little beetle and a finished butterfly

2012-01-17T09:48:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC

Beetle, cast with tissue paper and painted with nail polish. Beaded and stitched on to monoprinted fabric. folded edge.

and now, my butterfly, I was working on here and here is finished.

I added some dyed chiffon in the bottom right and stitched it down, then did a bit of stitching over it. Last, I quilted/embroidered the sky and called it done. I might, pehaps add some hand stitching and beads and of course, finish the edges, but all that will take a while to think about.

What are you creating today?

A bit of nature and some stars

2012-01-16T12:24:00.002+11:00

Today's ATC is a bit different, but I just thought, "what if..." and made it. The background is some eucalyptus bark, which is always lying around outside. The pebbles are ones I found in the garden (not the ones I bought, which are much more regular) and the twine was just out of the drawer. It was quite easy to sew through the bark to attach the pebbles and I punched the holes for the twine with a simple hole punch!
I like this one, and it is telling me that the simple things are often the best.

Today is tangled textiles challenge reaveal day, so one of my deadlines is finally gone.
Here is my piece in response to the theme of "look up"

It is my view of the Southern cross and the milky way, which I see from the back steps most nights, only of course infinitely more lovely than this.

I started with a closely scribble quilted piece of fabric

Then painted it with acrylic paint.
Next, I stencilled in the milky way with a silver shiva stick and I disliked it so much, I didn't even take a photo.
I tried using some organza to cover it up

but that didn't work! In the end, I thread painted all over the shiva cloud with a variegated white to blue thread.

I Added iron on sparklies for the stars, but I still didn't like it but I bound it anyway because the 15th was hours away, then as I sat, thinking, I started adding some hand stitching with perle thread, and I started to like it a bit. Obviously, time was an issue, or I think I would have added more hand stitch. Next time I will start hand stitching much earlier, as I think I am starting to want that texture in my work.

Anyhow, have fun creating every day.

TAST week 2

2012-01-15T09:06:00.000+11:00

Week two for TAST is buttonhole stitch. This landscape ATC is done entirely with buttonhole stitch.

I found a poor, dead butterfly and put it in one of my little books with pockets

Very morbid, I know, but it was just too beautiful to leave.
And then I sketched it.

I don't know why I tend to do this when I sketch moths and butterflies - that is, only finish one side, but I do (perhaps I'm just lazy)
Here are a few other sketches from my book, whilst you are waiting for me to meet my deadline tomorrow. (or late tonight, maybe)

A quick outline for a landscape.

A fish I want to use in a layered piece.

Some teacups from a home decorating type magazine.

A design for a beaded embroidery.

And finally a shell which was sitting on my desk.

Now, off to finish my Tangled textiles challenge!

Make a playdate with Art!

2012-01-14T11:21:00.000+11:00

This was made from a tape transfer with a magazine page, then free motion stitched onto yellow felt. The ribbon was added with a double sided blanket stitch.

That's it for today, need to work on my two deadlines which are looming, looming,

Make art a part of every day.

Let's play and go shopping

2012-01-13T16:22:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is a mixed media one

On an ATC mattboard, scribbled markers (textas), black shoe polish, glitter. enamel square, spiral paper clips, cardboard letters (and tacky glue of course).
and all I've got to blog about is a bit of shopping!
I am the dollar store queen, when it come to supplies.

some pealy brads. I love brads.

some light wooden circles, which might make a good stamp and embellishment.

some stick on gems, which I of course wanted yesterday for my ATC, so had to do something different

Some great foam stamps, I love butterflies, don't we all?

Some felt sheets, for 69 cents!

leather scraps - a great find!

lots of great stickers with text, pictures, sayings etc.

some great papers.

Greaseproof paper, which is just like craft tissue and which I use in fabric papers and tissue collage. And contact film, clear book covering, which is great for tape transfers and means you are not limited to the width of tape.

some pebbles, which I have been wanting for a while

And last of all, some cheap kid's paint brushes, which you can refill with whatever you want, then squeeze to paint, useful for painting big areas, and for coating pages with PVA.

So, although I haven't got any work to show today, I have done a bit of preparation and since it is my birthday tomorrow, I don't feel too guilty, lol

Don't forget to spoil yourself!

Remember spring, and altered books

2012-01-12T12:37:00.000+11:00

playing card, molding paste through a stencil, gesso, watercolour paint, (very messy) decorative machine stitching, lazy daisy, felt backing.

Another brief glimpse into my artbooks, today.

This is a niche, cut into my insect theme book, using layered tissue paper and a cast tissue dragonfly.

and another, layered tissue page in my techniques book, with some decorative stitching on the side of the page.

I have arranged some distressed leaf samples I did a while ago on some paste paper in my leaf theme book.

Here are two little niches, front and back in my leaf theme book.

hereis the page complete, with a metal leaf and a cast made from it mounted.

and from the back, with the distressed leaves showing through.

this page is created using newspaper, gesso, acrylic and then a watercolour wash with salt.

And I am playing with this acetate overlay, but I think I might make one out of stitching to go on this page.

I am very busy with things I can't show you yet, which is quite frustrating, but hopefully next week the pressure will be off slightly and I will be able to get some playing done!

And don't you forget to play every day!

Don't forget Lisa's ATC

another metal ATC and my doodled bird in progress

2012-01-11T11:36:00.000+11:00

Today's ATC is another embossed foil one, a leaf, which I have painted with nail polish. It is sewn onto some more of my collage background with chain stitch and french knots and bound with organza ribbon.

some of you probably remember this bird from one of my artbooks.

I actually have a small quilt in process using this design.

here it is with the outline quilting done

and a close up
I have now started the doodling in the feathers

I am really enjoying doing this ddodling and have been practising lots of doodles in my quilting scrapbook

Here's a close up. I think I need to go over the stitching more than once as it is such a thin thread and I'm sure there will be some scope for beading when it is done.

Happy stitching, don't forget to check out Lisa's ATC and the TAST page

a bit of a daisy and some transfer experiments

2012-01-10T14:06:00.000+11:00

This atc is made from a bit of the Pam carriker collage I showed a few posts ago. The daisy is molding paste painted gold. I have added a few beads to the centre and blanket stitched the edge.

I have been fiddling a bit with transparency transfers since reading about using hand sanitiser gel in pam carriker's book. I works really well.

The tranfer (on to fabric) on the left is with sanitiser gel, and worked really well, despite my awful pictures. I wondered if it was the gel, so I tried some aloe vera gel, and it worked, but it bled a little (right)
This gor me thinking, so I looked at the ingredients list on my sanitiser bottle. There was alcohol, glycerin and eucalyptus. I happened to have all these things, so I did some experiments.

For this transfer, I mixed up my own concoction of glycerin, methylated spirits, eucalyptus, water and a bit of aloe vera gel. It worked, but I wanted to know which things were doing the job.

This was eucalyptus and methylated spirits, with a bit of water, and worked very well, except that I moved it and smudged it.

This one was just methylated spirits(alcohol) and water. (I have found that a little bit of water is neccesary)
I worked, but was a bit blurry.

This one was eucalyptus and water and also worked very well, although I redid the bottom and mis aligned it!
So, I think that although the alcohol does transfer, it doesn't fix the ink and bleeds a little. The eucalyptus seems to do a good job, and has the advantage that it will evaporate away. I think Perhaps the gel or glycerin helps to stop the bleeding because it makes the transfer medium thicker and less able to bleed. any way, I have had some good results and will continue experimenting.
Oh, I nearly forgot, it also works well on paper.

Also, I had a little mistake and printed on the wrong side of the transparency. I found that the ink did not dry on the acetate, so I had a go at transferring it.

I sprayed a little glen 20 ( antiseptic spray, mostly alcohol and water) on the ink and simply pressed it into the fabric. It worked! Just a bit of bleeding.

In this one, I used fabric which had been sprayed with alum solution to try and stop the blurring. It worked, but the image was still not great. The alum seemed to coagulate the black ink although the coloured inks transfered well. This would be good for outlining with a fine black stitching....

On this one, I sprayed the glen 20 on the fabric and the damp fabric made it bleed.
This second set of experiments needs a little more refining. My reason for exploring it is that transparencies are expensive and can only be used once. I happen to have a lot of simple acetate sheets which I picked up at a junk store, still in their packets (the type we used to use with white board pens, when they were called overhead pens - a long time ago, lol) The second two prints above used these sheets and after transfer, I simply wiped them clean and used them again-wow!
Anyhow, I have been having a bit of fun, playing with this technique!

don't forget to play with your art materials!

foil flower and instant gratification

2012-01-09T12:34:00.000+11:00

This ATC is a bit monochromatic - just silver foil, brads, marker (of course the foil is not really silver, just the colour, lol) My first go at using thick foil.

sometimes, especially now, when I am working on a few large projects, I get the need for a bit of instant gratification. Yesterday I needed to finish something - right away.
So I did a quick fused collage based on Linda Kemshall's "Pieced Landscape" on DMTV.
Here is my quick sketch (see, my sketchbook does not only have works of art in it, lol.)

Fabric fused on the backing paper. I use Frieda Anderson's method of drawing the pattern on the parchment paper, (I use a wax crayon), ironing the fabric on, pulling it of an cutting out using the lines which transfer to the back of the fabric. By the way, she has been presenting a great series on art elements and principle in the last week or so)

The whole piece, arranged, fused together, peeled of and fused onto some interfacing and batting and then quilted

A close up of my simple quilting

I used the pattern in the sun as a guide for some swirls.
Here is the little bit of free motion grass added at the bottom right and the ribbon I decided to bind it with

And the finished instant gratification - not quite instant, took about three hours, but finished.

Like Linda, I have decided the contrast is not good enough between the grass and the background, so I will add some beads and hand embroidery to bling it up, so a bit more to do tonight.

This might come in handt for a landscape class I have been asked to do in a little while. Easy for beginners. and easy to create lots of different landscapes.

Happy creating!

spiral sun and some collage

2012-01-08T13:32:00.001+11:00

Here is my ATC for today. Fabric paper, crushed velvet, satin free machine embroidery, dimensional paint beads and blanket stitch.

Pam Carriker's "Art at the speed of life" is the inspiration for this collage background that I am working on.

Here is the fabric paper base, using magazine clippings and scrunched tissue paper.

Some molding paste through stencils.

Multicoloured glazxe over the top of the stencils.

A better picture showing the stencils

I love the texture of the glaze on the wrinkled tissue.
I am not sure what I am going to use this for, or if I am going to finish the other steps Pam uses, because I like it the way it is. - Any ideas?

Any time is a great time for creating.

Stitched house and a butterfly

2012-01-07T11:53:00.000+11:00

"Once upon a time there was a Little House way out in the country.
She was a pretty Little House and she was strong and well built."
So begins Virginia Lee Burton's classic The Little House, winner of the prestigious Caldecott Medal in 1943.

This ATC was stitched with wool on water soluble stabiliser and then needlefelted, this was from an article by Jan beaney and Jean Littlejohn, the stitching queens in " fabric from cloth" Quilting arts 48 and also here.
I used my prompt cards for this one and they were
Use heavy stitching
Add a charm
I had recently read the article in QA and decided this was a great way to use heavy stitching. I selected a little charm of a house, which inspired the design ( but forgot to add it in the photo.

Here it is with the charm added with a brad.

Remember this digital projection of a piece I started using prompts?
Well I have done a little bit of work on it after a lot of thinking. My work often takes a lot of that before I find what I want to do with it.

Here is where I am at the moment. I was inspired by Melanie Testa "Inspired to quilt" and using sheers, to add a sheer layer and as I was about to stitch it, I thought of using some black sheer and reverse applique to outline the butterfly. I like the effect, however I couldn't solder the edges of the black because I already had a sheer beneath it, so I have a few problems with the black sheer fraying as a result. I have stabilised it, but it looks terrible close up, so I am bow going to do double sided blanket stitch around it to make it look better, I will do some free motion embroidery over the sheer, then I will create sheer flower silhouettes with the soldering iron and sew them down.

Let life inspire you.

Sunny days and sketching

2012-01-06T11:03:00.000+11:00

Today, another screenprint

This piece of screen print was just asking for a sun. I used some red organza backed with fusible and applique'd/cut it with the soldering iron (I showed this technique here) I added some dimensional gold paint for the rays and put some brads in the corners. OOps, no stitching at all in this one.

OK - now a quick glimpse into my sketchbook for this last week.

A stylised japanese tree, based on a dover illustration

a design from a lolly (candy) wrapper.

Some leaf shapes ( the white bits you can see on the page are a result of using a black marker in my book - it creates spots on the back of the page - which I have to paint over)

A design for a quilt, which might use applique or printing.

A leafy doodle which might be interesting as a free machine embroidered wholecloth - however it will have to wait as I already have one in progress)

A sprig of rosemary from the garden, sketched in outline ( Now write - "I must not use markers" one hundred times, lol)

And finally, another quilt design that I am sure I will get to... one day.

Remember to create something today!
oops! and don't forget to check out Lisa's ATCs

fly stitch and some running water

2012-01-05T09:28:00.000+11:00

today's ATC is about two challenges in the one task. I decided to combine TAST (Take a stitch tuesday) on Pintangle with my ATCs and here is my first result.

Just a little fly stitch swirl. TAST is a weekly chellenge run by Sharon B at Pintangle. I'm pretty sure she has near a thousand participants, as there were over a hundered a month ago when she stopped adding to the list
I sketched out my design for this as I was getting confused

And I also drew a little spiral on my fabric as a guide with an iron off pen.

And now, a little peek at a fused collage a' la Laura Wasilowski (Quilting arts TV episode 401)

Here is the basic fused picture. This one I am going to embroider by hand in the evenings.

I have begun with some swirly water (close up on right). Mostly, I will use straight, running stitch, lazy daisy, seeding. blanket stitch, but of course, now I will have TAST to inspire me as well!

happy stitching!

Something simple and another journal

2012-01-04T12:06:00.000+11:00

Ah, a bit late after the big storm this morning, but oh, so cool - a great day for working!

Today is just a bit of screen print with some free motion meandering. I loved the fabric so much, I didn't want to put much on to of it. I was trying out Melanie Testa's knife edge finish from her book "inspired to quilt"
And here is a little book I created recently from Pam Carriker's Art at the speed of life.

I folded mt book, then I changed my mind and pulled it apart and painted the papers

Bit of a messy job. I used mt homemade glaze medium, which is white glue 1:1 with water.

Here is my cover after collaging and addin molding paste

And after glazing - I love this texture. In the book there are lots more layers, but I stopped here as I liked it.

and the book. Almost to good to draw in, but I will be adding to it as I go through Pam's book.

happy creating.

Serendipity and a peek

2012-01-03T07:50:00.000+11:00

OK, ATC number 2.

Serendipity, because mine is shiny and molding paste, too. See Lisa's here.
Playing card, molding paste through a stencil. Starburst moonglow spray (I got it here) and silver marker

Also, today, a peek into one of the projects I am working on.
You may remember these sketches

Which ! posted recently.
Well, they have multiplied and are fast becomming thread paintings

these are simply what i call underpaintings, or sketches. At this stage I am just sketching in colours and getting even stitches to cover the stabiliser.

And a new one. This one I did not even sketch in my book! I just sketched it straight on the stabiliser from a photo taken by a friend. Not quite sketched out yet. some water, sky and trees to go

Now this one, I did consider asking you guys if you could work it out, but I decided that right now it is a bit too hard. It looks like an aerial photo, I suppose, but it will actually be a cross section of an opal. the centre strip will be full of all the little coloured bits and black and dark blue lines. The orangy bits are the rock the opal is living in.

ATC No. 1.

2012-01-02T11:27:00.000+11:00

Let's hope this is the first of very very many!
Here is my first ATC-a-day.

Fabric paper, green crushed velvet, free machine embroidery, shot organza, beading, blanket stitch edge.
I must have been half asleep when I squared this one up as there is more border at the bottom than the top. I suppose I could have left it and you all would have thought it was by design, lol. I just put the bugle beads at the bottom to make it seem that way!

Don't forget to check out Lisa's gorgeous birdie ATC here.

By the way, I will still be posting other stuff, tutorials etc as separate posts

Don't forget to create every day!

Newspaper collage

2012-01-01T12:18:00.000+11:00

Today is just a short post, and happy new year to those of you on my side of the international date line.
I will begin posting my ATCs (every day OMG!) starting tomorrow, ie on the first US time, since it is my friend's idea and she is in the US.

Down to business.
I love Kim Thittichai's work and follow her adventures all the time. One of the things she has begun using is newspaper and scrap paper. If you have been reading my blog, you know I have been using newspaper as a great base for my artbook pages.
In December's issue of Workshop on the Web, Kim had a great article on making a collage using newspaper and so I had to have a go.

Here are some pieces of newspaper which I have gessoed, randomly painted and them stamped with my motif of leaves. (The stamp was made from a piece of wood with elastic bands glued with contact adhesive. I often do this with stamps that are composed of only lines)

Here is my collage assembled. The leaf at the bottom left has been free machines and applied. I decided I liked the rough edges, so I free machined the collage to a backing. I have also added a bit of foiling.
The background fabric is only pinned around the stretcher bars, because I intend to do some hand stitching to isolate the leaf and to integrate the collage into the background. I will also tone down some of my over enthusiastic foiling with some gesso and stitching.

OK, time to get some work done!

Art books

2011-12-30T17:50:00.002+11:00

Just a quick mention, that I am going to start posting an ATC a day as a way to play with lots of techniques. This was an idea put forward by my friend, Lisa and I have decided to join her in her venture. we shall see! She also has a great list of techniques which she wants to try.

My art books, as I have said, are recycled/altered books which I use to create little bits of art and experiment in on different themes.
Here are a few pages I have worked on recently.

This is a page from my bird theme book. The backgrpound is newspaper painted with gesso and then a watercolour wash, which I find easy to paint and draw on and is a cheap and easy way to cover up the page contents underneath. The bird was inspired by a card. It is a little hard to see because it is drawn with a metallic pen, but basically each piece of the bird is doodled with a different free motion quilting design. I have a small quilt based on this page in process, so you see the books are a great design resource..

This is a page in process in my water/oceans book. Again the background is painted newspaper/gesso.
The seahorses are molding paste applied through a stencil, then painted gold.
This page will be layered again to add some more weeds and depth before it is finished. I already have ideas about using painted fusible in a small quilt like this.

These ferns in my leaf theme book are stencilled with oil pastel. Next, I will put a watercolour wash on which will be resisted by the pastel. This can be mimicked on fabric using shiva sticks and fabric paint, so i do see a batch of fabric comming up.

I have shown this page before. It is a ripped printout pasted to the page, but here, you can see I have begun to sketch out the missing parts. I think this page needs a wash for the background, so the leaves will brobably be completed with oil pastel.

Another page from the leaf book, this is a simple layout for a small motif (about 4") I made using couched copper wire on a piece of woven wool fabric. This page has a piece od non woven paper/fabric (the type florists use on their posies) pasted directly to the page. It is semi transparent, but I actually like the little views you can see. The pink/orange paper is paste paper .

I have actually been doing a lot of sewing an textile work, but haven't quite got to the point of something to show yet and a couple of my WIPs are things I can't show until a certain date, but two days untill I start posting ATCs!!!!

Paper making and painting

2011-12-29T16:43:00.002+11:00

After watching a video from Linda Kemshall about paper making on design matters recently ,
I ripped up some paper scraps, got out my mold and deckle

and old vitamiser/Blender

and made a bit of handmade paper.

I made about 2 dozen sheets. Here is a good tutorial for making paper and the tools you need
This paper has not been pressed much, so it soaks up paint really well. More about that later.

Also on the paper theme, I had been wanting to try some painted paper hand towels for a while as they have such great texture.

These two are just drops of watered down watercolour paints (purple, blue, green and yellow) on dry paper towels. After painting, I scrunched the towels up to mix all the colours together

This is the same as the first two, however I dripped the paint on a damp paper towel

This one is a paper napkin - just one ply/layer not the whole thing and it was just too fragile when wet. It fell apart.

This is the same napkin, but instead of dripping paint onto it, I pressed it into my freezer paper (that I used underneath to protect the table) and it picked up all the little bits that were still there

Here is a napkin, done by pressing onto the freezer paper after I dripped paint on the freezer paper.

Finally, I tried out some of the handmade paper. On the left, I dripped the paint on, and it tore when I picked it up. On the right, I pressed it onto the freezer paper after adding paint to the freezer paper. This gave some lovely ink blot type marks.

I think this technique will be something I do whenever I have some paint left over from something as the textures are very nice.

Sketchbook work

2011-12-28T19:51:00.001+11:00

Ok, Ok, I took a week off for the holiday, I know. It was very naughty of me.
But I have been working every day. So much so, that it has taken me over an hour to work out what I need to post and I can see it is likely to take a few days, lol

First, I have a fair bit of sketchbook work. I do try to sketch every day, or to work on sketches every day and I find that my sketchbook is important to me because

it keeps me from getting too rusty with drawing - and this makes it easy when composing new work or designing new work
it serves as a repository of visual ideas that I can come back to again and again when I need an idea
it also becomes a record of what I am doing as well. A simple sketch can mean a thousand words - and you know you will forget that idea if you don't record it.

Enough preaching.

This first set of sketches is for a piece that I am currently working on which will be small thread paintings. Ocean, Mountains, ferns and orchids. These little sketches provide enough information for me to create my stitching canvases when I get to it.

This sketch and it's associated photo were one of my daily scribblings. The photo is from the creekside not far from my home.

This is also a daily sketch, but there is no photo, because it is only a few steps from the back door and is so familiar, I could probably draw it in my sleep.

This sketch is a close up of the centre portion of the photo. It is a perennial sweet pea which grows in our garden. Another daily exercise.

Also from the garden, a native iris flower.

The final sketch, of a nautilus, is an example of a memory technique. After studying a picture for a while, I turn the picture over and set about sketching and at present I allow myself three glances. Although this gives me sketching practice, it 8is not really about sketching, but about observing. Perhaps one day I will be able to do it with out looking at the picture after the first observation - but if I get better, then I'll be happy enough.

Mostly, I work in this sketchbook with lead and coloured pencil. With the exception of a watercolour pencil sketch now and then. I keep my other media for my artbooks, which I will show sometime later in the week.

Be creative every day

recycled mixed media

2011-12-20T19:33:00.000+11:00

I have finally finished all of the blocks for my recycled piece.

This is the first set, which have in order from the fabric up
plasterer's tape (grid), sewn down with scrap thread
Chewing gum foil flower blanket stitched down
flower made from scraps of entrapped fibre film
plastic washer painted with green nail polish sewn down
black transistor with the eletrodes poking out in the centre for the stamens.

Here they are closer up.
Here is the next set.

These are constructed from.
plasterer's tape (grid), sewn down with scrap thread
Tyvek scraps and tea bag flowers cross stitched to opposite corners
Small straight stitches across the opposite diagonal
Large to medium circular disks couched down (painted with nail polish)
Medium washer with smaller washers or rings around it (painted with nail polish)
Coloured LED for the flower centre

And here they are close up - there is a lot more variation in this group.
And the next set.

These are constructed from.

plasterer's tape (grid), sewn down with scrap thread
A plastic disc cut from plastic packaging and painted with nail polish.
Two different coloured and oriented chewing gum foil flowers
A black metal gripper or crimp used for wiring
A grey wire crimp that I have painted green for the centre

And there they are close up - this group is actually my favourite.
And the last set.

These are constructed from.

plasterer's tape (grid), sewn down with scrap thread
A circle of dyed batting blanket stitched down
A plastic flower cut from plastic packaging and painted with nail polish.
Four springs painted and tied into petals
A painted washer with a scallopped sort of edge again painted
A few french knots in the centre and some tied thread in the corners

And here they are close up. You can click on them to see a bit closer.

I really enjoyed making these and the challenge of making them from scraps and rubbish was fun.

I do enjoy making little fiddly things like this in the evenings.

Now I just have to decide on a background and arrangement. I have a few ideas but I'll just let them play around in my head for a little while before I decide.

Oh, well, that's one project out of the way, just a few hundred to go......

quilting to a timeline

2011-12-19T23:13:00.000+11:00

Above are the last week or so of quilting practice. As you can see, I need all the paractice I can get.
I got a bit bored with these samples and decided to make it a little more interesting.

I decided to tke some simple sketches out of my sketchbook and do a related quilting sample. Above left, I have a dragonfly sketch and some veins as a quilting pattern. and on the right a stylised pomegranate and some pebbling. I have also included a word in script on each sample, too.

Above is the dragonfly sample finished. I used a lilac rayon on top and a white bobbinfil on the bottom. Although with thread painting I tend to want the bobbin to pop up at times, in quilting, I want it the other way, I would rather the top thread peeked through to the back a teeny tiny bit.
Below are two pictures of the back. You can see a little bit of spotting on the back. If I felt it was a problem, or it was for a show, I would loosen the bobbin a tiny bit, as the top is already quite tight.

Here is today's sample, the pomegranate.

Still a bit wonky, but reasonable.

The thing which is surprising me, is that the handwriting is actually the easiest part of the quilting. I remember watching some Linda Taylor videos where she always said that drawing your designs many times is the best practice and this has shown me how true this is. Handwriting is something that I have been doing for a long time. Other motifs are not as familiar to me and so are not as easy to quilt. Laura Kemshall on design matters has also talked about being familiar with your subject especially through using a sketchbook.

Now why is this important to me right now?
Well, I am working on a piece that has lots of quilted text on it - Actually forty lines!

Can't tell you any more about that one right now.

But -
I have finished all the blocks for my recycled mixed media piece and will hopefully post them tomorrow.

Painted papers

2011-12-17T20:01:00.000+11:00

At present, I am posting a lot of mixed media, however I do have a number of textile pieces in process.
I will be posting these as they are finished in the next few weeks
Deadlines are looming, and of course, that is when the work gets done, lol.
Today I am posting about some painting on paper I did recently. The papers will be used in collage and mixed media work.

As you can see from the overviews above, I did quite a few samples as well as trying out a couple of techniques at the same time.
The first thing I wanted to play with was paste paper. I had recently read about this at a gorgeous bookbinding blog here. If you are not at all interested in paper, you will be after looking at her galleries.

Paste paper is like what we called fingerpainting at Kindergarten, just a bit more of a grown-upversion. Whilst not really paste papers, the two above were printed with paste paint, using a lace doily (a mass produced machine one) The first is the positive and the second is the negative. I loved this effect.

These second two are using paste paint on newspaper. In the first one, I used a barbecue rubber brush to create a pattern, in the second, my fingers, but you can see that even with dark paint the coverage is really not good enough for newspaper.

This sample used green paste paint with glitter on brown paper. The swirls were created with the rubber brush.

This paste sample was swished with the brush. This was on a coated paper and you can see in the top right that the coating decided to come off. not a good paper to use.

This one is the same, using a brush to create texture, but on a more interesting paper which knows how to behave. This was on an opened out white paper bag, (with a shiny side, like you buy lollies/candy in at the shop) The result was almost translucent when dry and I really liked it.

The same white paper and paste, using the rubber brush to make this lovely texture. My favourite.

This time more colours, some metallic and a small brush to make swirls. This one is great, too.

This one is what is called a pulled paper - You know when you used to make inkblots or butterflies by folding the paper paint side in then opening it again. The texture is really interesting and I will be doing maore of this type.

The other things I wanted to play with were newspaper and adding stuff to painted papers.

Here are three painted newspapers. The two things I learned were that the paint needs to be dark and thick and more than one layer works best. I don't want to obscure all the print, but I want it to be difficult to read.
I also decided that it would be worht trying a light coat of gesso before painting to wash out the text a bit, then I could have more muted colours.

These three were all paint on paper, but with different additions sprinkled on. The one on the left was baking soda - in the middle rock salt and right was sugar. They all create a different texture. ( I do not think the baking soda changed the colour, but being a biochemist I am aware this is possible, so as i can't remember if the paint was the same in all three, I will just have to do it again)

The final two samples are just using different papers.

This one is on white butcher's paper, the type they wrap your meat in. I used the shiny side and found it took prints really well.

This last sample was an accident, but I was interested in what happened. I used freezer paper under my papers to protect the work surface and this is a piece which inadvertently got painted. I thought the paint would come off, but it doesn't, so it's worth keeping my protecting sheets for another project.

All in all, this was a very productive day, and I got a lot sheets of lovely paper to use in my books and mixed media out of it. The sample tags I have shown here are just little bits cut off the edges of thode sheets, and would you believe it? I have also used the scraps from cutting out the tags on some collaged book covers!

We don't waste much around here!

for the market

2011-12-15T23:15:00.000+11:00

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

little birdies having a little chat on my work table prior to going to market on sunday.

These little birdies were made using a modified form of a bird design by Terry Grant on Quilting Arts TV 710. (See more of Terr's work on the 12 x 12 site by clicking their icon in my side bar)

You know I can never stick to a pattern or a technique without thinking what if?
One major difference is that they were done entirely by hand!
This is the second batch I have made for our local quilting group's fundraising stall. They were so popular I had to make more!

Perhaps not an utter failure

2011-12-13T23:13:00.001+11:00

Thanks Gina, Renate and Caroline.

Just to show you that I

do eventually get around to things
have projects that are failures

I have a little project to show you.
Way back in June, I designed this piece.

It has been sitting around, patiently waiting for me to play with it.

So got out my pattern and decided to make a little version, since the big one was not happening. I traced the pattern onto acetate, so I could arrange things on my lutradur backing.

I added some water (A cotton fabric)

Rocks and more water in the foreground (more cotton).

Some more rocks and some more water (more cotton).

I tacked all these cotton fabrics down with a little free motion.

So far so good........

I added some cellofoil and sewed that down too.
I decided the rocks needed a few highlights and darks

So I added some organza and satin.

Then a little more for the sea, with some ripped up nappy liners

And then more nappy liners

I overdid the nappy liners because I know how they shrink to almost nothing...........

When you blast them with a heat gun! So now you see why I used cotton on the underneath layers.
OOps! - too much nappy liner just turns into blobs.
I can see that getting the effect I got here

Requires a bit more experimentation.
When I added little bits of nappy liner (and lots of cellofoil) I got a bubbly fluffy texture (above), but this time I used lots of nappy liner and not as much cellofoil.
In addition, this time I did not distress the cellofoil and nappy liner layers separately.
I could probably do some hand stitching to perhaps make something of this little piece, however at this point, I will just set it aside and think on it again.

Sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side of the hill.
But remember, all you have to do is get up and walk there! It might take some time, but you'll get there.