Getting my art on

I have had an extremely difficult year with family issues and am finally starting to get my mojo back. It has taken me a long time to find my space again and I am still working on it, but recently, I have started to get some work accomplished! I have been doing some free motion work on my new little bernina, which I got from Bernina Australia at caroline sharkey's wonderful workshop in August at Uluru (Ayers Rock) It was a wonderful time and I did a workshop with Sue De Vanny, which was excellent

Above is the piece of work I completed at the workshop.

Since I came home and also since the problems have sorted themselves, I have been doing a lot of free machine practice and free machine doodling.

These are two of my current practice pieces.  One is just a grid of squares but the other is in a double wedding ring type layout.

As I said, I am also doing a lot of doodling.

These are two panels that will be part of a new sewing machine travelling case for my new Bernina, since one of my machines was damaged badly on a plane trip early this year!  I am in love with this multicolour wonderfil thread!

This one, finished now, was a mandala I doodle stitched then coloured with fabric markers.  I also have one other doodle panel on the go, but haven't photographed it yet.

So what else?

Above left is a needlefelted panel I whipped up one day (lol), which is waiting for some stitching, and the other is a very large crochet blanket I have been working on called sophie's universe.  I am only half way, perhaps I'll finish by next summer?

Of course if you know me, you know that textiles are only half my crafty self.  I will post soon with some of my art, journaling and mixed media play.

Happy Creating!

Back again

I have not blogged for nearly a year, and  I have found that I was not as productive, partly because I was not blogging, but also because the Tangled Textiles Group finished.  I tried lots of challenges and workshops, but found that it was impossible for me to stick to anything, especially if it was an every day commitment because there are periods where I am not at home. for the next few weeks, I will try and go through some of the things I am doing.

My last posts here were about journal quilts and I have attempted to keep doing these with the help of Kate Bridger, who is hosting a Made on Monday five inch square challenge on her site.  I have been absent for a month or so, but am hoping to join in again.  Participants also post their work on the textile arts facebook  page.

Here are my first seventeen contributions

They are all on my favourite theme of leaves and use a variety of techniques including free motion embroidery, hand embroidery and thread painting and a wide variety of fabrics including hand printed fabric.

Hope you enjoy these and I will be back with more as I do them

Sad days

The last few days I have not been very good about blogging or any of my online courses, but I suppose there is a good reason.  Our family dog, Rubin, died on saturday and we have felt a bit lost.  Rubin was nearly     17, quite old for a large dog.  He was spoilt rotten and loved lots of hugs and we will miss him terribly.  Ruby the puppy keeps wanting to go outside and look for him, which is hard.

I have been doing a bit of textile work, in the last few days.

I finished the quilting on this piece and now I want to add some hand work and beads, but I happened to lay my ipad on top of it on the table and realised that it was a perfect size for an ipad case!
I didn't use theone above because I had plans for it, but chose a pair of other grass prints

These have been quilted and I will put them together to make an ipad case!

I started a small free motion embroidery piece based on the sea dragon sketch from here.

Here is where I am with that.  You can click to make it zoom.
I have a sketch in process, but it can wait for a post  'till it is finished.  I have also begun making a few things for christmas presents and I will show you those soon.

Happy Creating!

A noisy day.

I have had he embroidery machine stitching away beside me most of the day as I am embroidering quite a large piece of felt for a special bag I want to make.

Here is the machine sewing away.  This was earlier today and this was only the second section.

Here we are after about six sections.  As you can see I still have a long way to go to fill the fabric - Perhaps another day's worth?
Whilst the machine Has been going, I have been getting in a little quilting practice.

This is one of my practice quilts, of which I have several.  This one is an old cheater fabric piece I was given.  Waste not want not.  This fabric is absolutely revolting, however it is great for practicing on as it has lots of different block patterns.  I also don't waste batting on these.  For this one, I am using a recycled mattress protector, which is basically poly batting.
I have also been doing a little painting in between the beeps from the machine, but haven't taken any photos, perhaps tomorrow.

Happy Creating!

A finish!

Almost.  I have finally finished all the machine stitching on my class project for 'Beyond basic machine quilting' on Craftsy.  It has only taken me a year!
But I often find I lose interest in finishing work that is not my own.  when I do a workshop,  I am more interested in learning than actually making something,  but in this case I actually did the project!

Here it is (above)  As you can see it is not squared or bound yet.  I will take it to craft group and see if they think (or you) that I should do a bit more.  I love the texture in the leaves, but they are hard to see from a distance.  I had thought of perhaps painting or beading on them.
Here are some close ups.

And my borders.

But I am quite pleased that I actually did it.

Happy creating!

Free motion filling in

you might remember this quilt that I started recently

I have been working on the free motion on the black organza

I am doing a spiral sort of design on this one.

As you can see, my free motion is not perfect, and I still have not trimmed the edges of the leaves.  that will be the next step before I quilt the background.  I am still umming and ahing about what to do there.  I am thinking about gold thread but whether or not to do some shadowy  leaf shapes or more abstract designs eludes me at present.  We will see.....

Happy Creating!

a fabric monoprint

Today, I did some work on a fabric monoprint I made a few weeks ago when I went a bit overboard with gelatin printing.

I have layered it with a piece of felt and quilted all around the flowers and am in the process of beading it.
The dotted stems, I am beading with those bugle beads  and You can see I was trying out how I wanted to bead the buds/flowers.

Here's a close up of these two ideas, one where I just space beads around the bud and the second where I covered the whole edge with beads.  the monoprint is two layers and the flowers were overprinted in a dark blue.  these beads are a sort of iridescent dark blue and I thought they would be perfect.
I often take pictures of my work at different stages so I can work out how things are working.  Having it in a small picture helps to  work out how things are showing up.
This picture obviously helped, because I actually changed my mind totally and did something altogether different.

I decided to embroider a lattice and put the beads on it like this.
And here's where I am at with that.

I am liking how this is turning out and hopefully will finish it by the end of the month.

a few bits

I have been working on several fronts, but not my tangled textiles piece, the deadline for which is beginning to loom.
I have been continuing my free motion samples.

Here is a week's worth of patterns.
I have been working on my Creative sketchbooks course, which I won't share here, but have also done a little art journaling, as well.

This was a dragonfly I drew on a very red page I didn't know what to do with.  I like this page a lot.

This was a very cathartic page to do.  The tree was done using a mask.  I sprayed over the mask, then  printed with it instead of painting around it. I stencilled the butterfly with some lumiere paint.  I am not happy with it's colour, and think I might change it to a green.

Another reworked failed page, This page had several incarnations and I now have this tree on it.  It doesn't have very good contrast, but I think it might make a great fibre piece using bias applique.

This is just a background, but I was playing with borders and just used a flat brush to make the squares in this grid.  I liked that.

And on the crazy quilt front, I have done a little

This is my first block with some satin samples.  I have actually done the last two seams on this one, now.  At present I have four blocks, but I may expand to nine, we'll see.

This second block also has a bit more since I took the photo.
I have also been practicing making flowers.

Here are a few pansies.  The top one is organza, the middle one  is satin ribbon and the bottom one is velvet ribbon.  The top red bit is just a gathered poppy, but has no black centre as yet.  The two red objects at the bottom are a rolled rose and bud, but they were not smiling at the camera like the pansies!
So, as you can see, I have been working away.

Remember to create every day