Another week!

Another week and this week I feel I have done a bit more and been more productive, Even with some saddening family news this week.  I am glad I have been keeping busy, because I think it does help when life happens - having things to do.  Stops you reveling in your own sadness.
But anyhow,  Let's look at what I have gotten done this week.

This is my first bit of embroidery on my Sue Spargo sampler with craftsy.  It has taken me a while to get started, but hopefully I will get some done on Tuesdays at Quilt group which begins again this week.

This is a Thread painted moth I finished during the week.  Not sure what I am going to do with it yet, perhaps it will become a fabric page.

I finished unpicking this piece of printing on chiffon, which had some free motion I didn't like

Another of the fabric and paper collages I am making for Fabric books.

Getting along with my crochet!

Some thread lace leaves.

A teeny tiny embellishment - again for fabric pages.

A page in my doodle book I am working on.  The red leaves are a deli paper page that has been cut - over the top of the green and purple page.

This is a page from week two of Lisa Congdon's Sketchbook Explorations on creativebug.

If you have known me for a while, you might recognise this pile of fabric pages ready to embellish.  I have used my collage background challenges from last year.

And here is one of the pages, with a free motion sketch which has been painted.  Quite happy with this page, but still needs a little more work.

Another fabric page in process.

And finally another fabric page, a two page spread ready to free motion stitch.  It might seem that I am a bit obsessed with fabric books at present and I probably am.  I have been interested for a few years and never yet completed one!  So this year is the year.
My pinterest page has lots of inspiration if you want to look, but the main artists who are inspiring me are Frances Pickering, Ro Bruhn, Jill Taylor, and Annette Bolton and of course Cas Holmes. As usual quite a few UK artist in that group!

Happy Creating!

A fabric page

I was inspired by a friend's post about fabric books and this is my first page

The central leaf is free motion sketched and I have added some fabrics for the background and some leaves cut from lace.  I also stamped some leaves over it.  I have actually done a lot of stitching on this, but I'll show you that in a later post.

I have also been working on my sunflowers piece that I talked about here.
I started again, taking everything down and was a bit more picky about what I put up.

This was the arrangement I came up with.  But there were some other things I wanted to add to it, so I took some off

The bottom was a little bare, then (black felt), so my next step was to take this picture into my digital drawing program (artrage)

I added some text.  Studio of the south was vincent van gogh's dream, which never came to fruition.
Then I got down to some drawing.

I forgot to save some process versions, but this is where I ended up.  At the top is a sketch of the yellow house where Vincent lived in Arles.  At the bottom is an impression of one of his last paintings and under the top sunflower is a section from one of his letters.  I am quite pleased with this layout, although at present I have no idea of how I will transfer these ideas to the background.  I think there might be a thermofax and maybe some needlefelting and lots more free motion embroidery.  I might also add a bit of paint to the bottom sunflower, but we will see.

Oh and by the way I am a bit behind with visiting blogs, but I will catch up in the next day, sorry.

happy Creating!

on the design wall

Today I'm giving you a peek at my design wall.

In this first section, are a lot of little needlefelted items I am working on and a collage that just needs sewing down.

This second section is above my thread painting machine. The pansy is a watercolour I did last week, then the top landscape is a raw edge applique that I am adding poppies to.  Below it is another leaf collage that is finished, but not yet mounted.  Below the pansy is a needlefelted landscape that I am free machining over to use in ipod cases.  The iris is a large raw edge applique that I am thread sketching on and below it are two little free machine practice pieces that will probably become journal quilts.  On the right is the collage I showed yesterday.

In this third section are a lot of bit and bobs.  The long skinny bit next to the collage from yesterday is mt current stitch sampler and the gold and green piece is a painted newspaper collage that has been foiled.  It is finished, but I need to put a new backing on it.  The two white things behind it are paper casts that I am still deciding what to do with.  The tags at the top are fabric manipulation samples and the rest are just bits that I put up to remind me of stuff, lol.
As you can see, it is a large design wall, about twelve feet long, but I still wish for more,  especially when
I am working on large pieces.  It tends to change a lot, depending on what I'm working on.

Also, I have started my first page for the fabric book I am making.

I found that the pages are just the right size for two ATCs, and since I still have a lot of ATC bits and pieces, I think I will try and use them.  The background is a piece of handpainted fabric and the two
atcs are covered in painted chiffon.  The leaf on the left is heat distressed lutradur and the one on the right is tyvek.  I an blanket stitching them down and when I have finished two, then I will sandwich them onto the felt and bind them in as one page.  One down, 25 to go!

happy creating!

a scrap collage

As I have mentioned, I get a lot of my stuff from a recycle depot, Resource rescue, One of the things that always catches my eye is the sample books for fabrics.  The little swatches in a myriad of colours ar very hard to resist......

..so as you can see, I have a lot of them!  This is the third time I have put this collage together.  The first time,  I got sidetracked and the cat walked all over it and messed it up.  The second time I had a lot of trouble keeping the bits where I wanted them.  This time I was prepared.

I used this spray on fusible web to stick them down.  I found that the spray was a little bit tacky, even before the fusing with the iron, so I got all my coloured pieces down easily.  There was chiffon, organza, silk, satin, velvet and lots of textures.

This is how it looked when they were all down.  I covered it with some fine black bridal tulle to make my free motion stitching easier, later.
Originally, the idea was just an abstract one,perhaps representing the sun, but the more I looked at it, the more I saw a flower.  A pink flower with a big yellow centre, so I decided to do some free motion to make it into a flower.

Here it is under the machine I use for thread painting (as you can see, there is no presser foot - I have adapted this machine to use no foot as I find it much easier to thread paint  and sketch this way.  However I do not recommend this to any one, it is just the way I work).

And here is a close up of the pebble stitch I am doing in the yellow centre with my favourite gold thread again (well, it was on the machine, so...)  Obviously I will have to change my colour when I move to the petals and the background, but that is for another day.

My main problem as an artist is that I have too many ideas.  (And some say too many UFOs)  I find that if I concentrate on finishing everything, then I get nothing done, because it all becomes a chore, which dampens down the creativity quite a bit.  I have to keep the ideas flowing and sometimes it takes me a while to get back to a piece.  80 or 90% of the time, I do get back to the piece, after a time and mostly it is when I get a new idea or a 'what if' that adds to the piece.  That is true of this collage, which was sitting in my 'current' pile for quite a while until I thought of the 606 spray  I am sure Van Gogh didn't finish everything he started, in fact historians know that he and other artists repainted their canvasses as the muse took them.  Anyhow, that's my stuff for today.

Here are a few of the leaves I will be putting into my fabric book from yesterday.  I will have at least a few pages for you sometime next week.

Happy creating!

Fabric book

I have been going to make a fabric book for a while, and yesterday I finally started, with the intention of putting all my leaf samples in it.

I started with a book cover.  I get these from the recycle depot, who collects from a book binding establishment.

I covered it with this handmade paper (it is very thick and simply made using large bubble wrap).

You can see here I put an accordion fold with the flaps glued together into the spine to hold my pages.

I wil construct the pages separately and add them one at a time, sandwiching the two sides over some felt.

The felt will sit on top of each flap of the accordion like this.

And the book will be finished, but as yet I haven't done any pages. Let's see if I can finish it in the next few weeks.

Create every day!

a cameo appearance

OK, I have been absent for a week or two, but I have been busy playing with a new toy!, oops, I mean tool in my studio.

I am the proud owner of a brand new silhouette cameo digital cutter and have been experimenting with all types of media, to see what it can do!

Above is a page from my notebook.  As you can see at the left, it cuts light lutradur/rainbow spun beautifully, and below it is some acetate sheet (For stencils) which it also cut well.  It did not cut painted baby wipes, which is a disappointment, but I am not finished experimenting with that.  I have tried papers of different weights, plastics and vinyls, and of course fabrics.  It cuts cotton really well and I am looking forward to thinking up a few applique projects to do with it.

I cut these beautiful boxes from card.  I purchased the cutting file from silhouette.com.

and all these wonderful masks and textures and text and....

Here were a few of my first efforts.
And some starts at journal pages, none of which is completed yet.

By the way, the black butterfly is a design I created myself with the software, while the blue butterfly, I only attached on one side so it becomes an extra page.

My collage from the last post is finished and just needs mounting

Here are a few close ups

Also, the fabric pages I finished a few weeks ago have reached their owners, so now I can show you

I have been doing a little crochet

This is from a pattern in piecework magazine last year.

And this is from an old annie's attic pattern.

And I think I'll just finish with this winter leaf I found the other day

It had such beautiful lines, I couldn't resist.

Happy creating.