more fusing fun

Now that I am back on the mend again, I have been doing some more work with my silhouette, which I am getting pretty proficient at I must say.
Yesterday at quilting group (where I was NOT quilting, but crochetting - as you do), I was leafing through a magazine and saw some pansies.  I thought they might make a pretty table runner for our stall, so I sketched up a few of them, then put them into my silhouette (Digital cutter) and cut out lots.

I made three different ones, just for variety.  I had lots of scraps left over....

And I am sure I will find a use for all of these, lol.
I started a little journal quilt from the tiniest scraps.

I will probably just do some hand embroidery over these strips, but they were so colourful, I just had to do it.

Here is how the little flowers go together.  I put some little yellow bead in the centre just to see how it looked.  These are just laid out, not fused yet, because I can't decide what background to use.

What do you think?  I do like the top left, but perhaps it is a little low contrast, perhaps the bottom right?
I have also been working in my journals, mostly just putting background layers down to add to later.

This one is just a bit of paint on gesso, then had glad wrap (Saran) scrunched over whilst still wet.  It makes a nice texture.

This one is just a few greens dry brushed on (a great way to ruin your brushes, too)

This one is just a bit of left over paint brushed on.

And this one was just playing with a few colours in squares.  The copper is a metallic paint.

These samples are from a while ago, I was playing with different textures and coloured gesso.  I used forks, sticks and laying pages together and peeling off on the first one, stencilling, stamping and tape in the second one.  A comb and a pencil on the third one.

And these two are on fabric, with some stitching.

These are fabric paper samples, with sprayed, dripped and blotted inks.

 these are playing with watercolour on wet paper

These are playing with all types of circles collected around the house.
As you can see, I recycle everything.  Some of the samples are on old flashcards from my teaching days, lol

And just for interest, here is another butterfly

This one was a rubbing over a stencil with soft chalk pastels.
I wonder, is a butterfly a new beginning?

I saw this quote in the quote of the day at the top of my blog (wednesday, it changes each day), and had to make a new digi inspiration!

The dreaded lurgy

Ah, well, all things come to those who wait, don't they?  I have been offline for a few weeks with a very bad dose of the 'flu.  We Aussies call it the dreaded lurgy.  I am on the mend now and getting back into my rhythm.  It is Spring here and the gartden is blooming, but with it comes hay fever - Yuck!  But you have to take the good with the bad.

In my last post I told you of my new toy - a silhouette cameo!  Before I got sick, I did a little work in my journal with some stencils I made.

I layered two stencils, the flower one and the butterfly one on top of each other, so the flower pattern filled the butterflies.

Then I went around the outlines with a very sketchy fineliner to define it.  The page needs more work, but has been sitting for a bit.

We had our monthly quilting day a week or two ago and here are some of the regular ladies in our new community house.  On that day I was working on one of the UFOs in my cupboards.

Obviously still not finished, but getting close.
Since then, I have really only been doing bits and pieces, between lots of resting.

I crochetted this  beanie for my hubby, who has also been very sick (and sooky, as they are)

I started this table mat, I used my Silhouette to cut the applique pieces.  It will be for our fund raising stall at christmas.  It is an adaptation of a free pattern from martingale.

I worked on a bobbin lace bookmark, that had been sitting around for a while.

I did a little piecing practice with my huge stash of charms.

And I did a little quilting practice on the longarm.  (no closeups neccesary).  If you have been following me for a while, you will know that my hubby created my machine for me.  He is very good at that sort of thing.  He is a fitter and turner by trade.  I used to have it set up on rails, but find this sit down arrangement much easier.
And since it's spring, I thought I'd finish with some gorgeous gum blossoms I picked the other day.

Thanks for the comments on the last post. I will get back to you, just haven't been well enough.

some shadows

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

foil flower and instant gratification

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!

Collage sampler

After watching Laura Wasilowski and Frieda Anderson on Sewing with Nancy (here)the other day, I was inspired to do a few small collages.  In one of the segments, Laura made up a pattern sampler of nine small squares.  I started out making patterns with strips and such,

But it was not long before my little squares started to be pictures instead of patterns, lol.

Here are all the little squares up on a felt board.  I have a range of these felt boards, which are just a timber frame like for a stretched canvas, only I have lots of different sizes covered in felt for viewing work on before I make finishing decisions  I call them preview boards.  Sometimes, a black border can give you an idea of what a finished piece will look like.  In any case, I tend to mount my work on stretched canvas when it is finished, so it works for me.

Above, the boards range in size from 8 to 24" square and lots of rectangles in between.
Anyhow, back to the work at hand.
I will just go through each block and show you what I did whilst I was playing.

This one was pretty similar to one of LH's in the video,only I cut some bias strips with my curvy rotary cutter blade and put them in the centre of each leaf.  It looks pretty effective.

This was the next one and it started out as the purple rays on a green background, but I decided it was a bit boring, so I played around with splitting and layering the leaf shapes.

In this one I used bias strips to curve and make wavy lines.  As I was doing it, I thought about how it might look if I put little knots in like in tree bark.

After I cut the bits for the leaf centres earlier, I had a little triangle left with curvy edges.  I decided it looked like a sunflower petal, so I made some more, only this time I used the larger wave blade.

My next experiment was to use the curvy blades to make some water by layering different colours.  Then I added some grass and reeds.

Next, I thought I would make a tree.  A very bloody tree!  At this stage I cut myself with the rotary cutter - as you do!  I did not realise how much my finger was bleeding until I dripped it all over my tree! Yuk!  OH well, a bit of paint or embellishment will fix it.  And for easy identification 50 years from now, it has my DNA.
After a little break, I played with the wave blade and got these cute little leaves by lining up the blade so that the last cut met the first cut and did not stay an equal distance away (like in the leaf centres)  It took a while to get it right, but I had fun with it.

Then, I remembered that I had a scallop template in my quilting templates and I thought - "I wonder if I can make big leaves the same way, and guess what - I did, aren't they cute?

Whilst I was cutting the big leaves, I noticed the patterns the strips of leaves made as I cut them and so I made that pattern, too.  There are actually two patterns on this square.

While I was thinking about what to put in the last square, I happened to look at the scraps left from the tree's leaves and noticed how two of them together made a pine tree, so that became my last square for the sampler.
As you see, it doesn't take me long to get back to playing after a big day doing boring stuff.
Now on to lots of stitching and embellishment.