Journal Quilts 2015 no 3

The finished journal is above.  As you see, I do not bother about binding my squares.  For me, there are a bout experimenting and playing, and not about whether or not I can make a binding.  They have, in the past and will in the future form an important reference for me.

So, here's what I did

I started with a piece of batting and some furnishing fabric

Some green chiffon

A piece of felt, and a piece of painted baby wipe.  Now, in the beginning, these were circles which I had cut with my die cutter ages ago, but I decided I liked leaves better.  I spent a bit of time thinking about the backing fabric and whether i should now change it.

I took a piece of scrap fabric and used a black marker to turn the circles into leaves.   Hmm, that gave me an idea.

 I used some free motion embroidery scribble to do the same on my journal.

As you can see, as usual, I got quite involved and forgot to take photos!  but above all the free motion is finished and the extra bits are added.

And here it is done, with a lot of hand running stitch added.
I have another one waiting in the wings as well!


Happy creating!

Journal Quilts 2015 no 2

This isn't really no 2 but no 3, because no 2 is still in process, Ah, well.
I had seen an article about needle felting stitching into a background and decided to have
a go.

I started with a piece of batting with some fibres felted into it.

I started doing some stitching into it with wool.

And here it is after a long time needlefelting by machine and three broken needles!

The difference is only very slight.  Perhaps I should have left the french knots until after, so as not to break my needles, and then the petals might have felted in a bit better.
So this Journal quilt was a bit of a failure, but of course I learned a few things and that is what it is all about!



Happy Creating!

A long time between stops

It has, indeed, been a very long time between posts.  For many reasons. I have been busy on Instagram and facebook with a few challenge groups, but also, we have been renovating and for months, my studio has been packed away!  But my textile work has been languishing, although i have been doing a lot of hand work.

So, to infuse a bit of interest for me i have begun making journal quilts again.  Hopefully playing in this way will get me back on track!

I now keep my journal quilts in a book, so they are easy to look up and refer to

The quilts are 5" (five inches) square

 They are just about playing with materials and tecchniques.

And here is my first new one!

This one  made from a base of gold organza needlefelted onto some batting, then I have added some scraps of sheers, organza, chiffon and netting and stitched around them free motion.  I also added a piece of dyed batting which i attached with free motion pebbles.  I felt that the focus needed to be floral, so i added a free motion sketch of some basic flowers.  I finally finished off with some beads and running stitch.

Considering how long it is since i sat at my machine, I am pleased with this one.  Let's hope that it is the first of many, hopefully weeky journal quilts!

Another week of faces

I have not gotten much done EXCEPT faces this week for a few reasons, firstly a sick DH, who thinks anything that goes wrong is the end of the world (sigh). and secondly our first hot spell this year, though why it has waited until half way through Feb is a mystery to me.
so, beyond a bit more embroidery this morning

I am actually quite surprised at how much I got done!
So, without further ado, faces 11 to 18 (I am actually a day ahead!).  The first seven are exercises from Pam Carriker's new book

this last one is awful and looks like a nasty little pixie!  They are exercises on faces at different angles and it is clear to me I need lots more work.  I also did a little more work on expressions, but it is not fit for consumption.  I am amazed at how difficult angles and expressions are, but of course a likeness is infinitely harder and I know, because my last face this week is my own and, frankly, parts of it look like me, but not the whole. 

I suppose more practice is in order, but I suppose that is why I am doing the challenge in the first place!  To Practice!

Embroidery

I have been doing a little embroidery.  Hand embroidery.  At the moment, I seem to be obsessed with samplers!

One day when I couldn't get moving, I threaded all the embroidery threads in my box and added them to a piece of felt.  It really helps keep you going!
I am doing one with Sue Spargo on Craftsy, which I have showed before.  I am also doing two with rebecca ringquist on creativebug.  I am only just

starting on these.  The stitch combination up the top, I enjoyed, however the red and blue stitches are supposed to be tete de boef or the head of the bull.  Rebecca taught it differently to how I know it.  She used three sepearate stitches, on the right.   I was taught to do it as a fly stitch with a chain tail, at top left.  I also tried reversing the fly stitch and adding the chain below that.  The variations are interesting, and who's to say which is right.  Stitch names are not really that important to me so long as I don't get confused.
The third sampler, is a set of samplers from Christen Brown's book Embroidered and Embellished.  At present I am working on the first one with simple stitches.

I am also doing some crochet for charity for our local CWA (country Women's Association)  branch of which I am secretary.  We have decided that we will start the year with a drive to make hats scarves and blankets for the homeless as winter will be along soon.  This is something I have been wanting to do for so long.

I have been doing a little journaling.  This is this week's page for daily journaling.
Also The Tangled Textiles Group I belonged to has come to an end at challenge 15.  On the page, there is a grid for each of the challengers showing their work.
I thought I might show my grid here for you.

So, a quiet week for me.

Happy Creating!

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!

Journals everywhere

Yesterday, I spent some time, gong through my huge stash of gelli prints and put together two new journals.

As you can see I am really short on journals!  Hmmm.  Well, I still went ahead and made two more.

I call these "Serendipity" journals, because they have a mix of blank and coloured/printed pages, so it is just fate what you get to work on.  I find I tend to create things I never thought of or planned with these journals.  Here are a few spreads.

As you can see, I have a variety of pages, including deli paper, cartridge paper, watercolour paper, card and even some black card as well as a wide variety of prints and failed prints, all bound together using my old comb binder.  I am quite pleased with these.

Here are a couple of recent art journal pages

This one started with a scrap of watercolour paper with some test painting on it and a tree cut from a page taken out of an altered book.  The branches were cut of in the cutting, but I put them back in with drawing.  The autumn leaf drifts began as bits of gelli prints which I scribbled all over with oil pastel then melted with the heat gun and moved around with a baby wipe.  It turned out very atmospheric!

This page has sat around for nearly a week.  I had "drawn" the tree and grass, with some elmer's glue on a coloured background and intended, when the glue was dry, to wash over black ink and wipe it off from the glue to create a coloured tree on a black background.  But alas, the ink dried too quickly and I couldn't get it off.

today, whilst I was playing with the oil pastels, I thought I could rub over the tree and get the pastel on the glue, but again, that did not work, as the pastel also got onto the background as well in places.  As I was rubbing the background to try uselessly to remove the pastel, it simply created more of a misty background - AND  the cloth rubbed the pastel off the glue!  So I eventually, after many plays, got the opposite effect of what I originally intended, but I really like it and especially love the shiny, black dimensional tree.

Happy Creating!