I'm back!

I hadn't gone far, we just lost our connection due to a 'stale session' at the BT end fixed in 2 seconds by Scotnet..but not till Monday am...then I went to work.

I hadn't done much, just 'made' some curtains up.

When I say 'made', we were looking in Debenhams, 2 pairs £180. Neutral, lined. They were fine. Of course we 'popped' into a charity shop, knowing we wouldn't find 2 pairs the same, but did. Talk about the absolute opposite to neutral! They were 2 huge pieces of hemmed fabric so I folded them to make them lined & added curtain ruching tape stuff. One long pair & one short pair. ... perfect & a snip at £3 a pair ;) The bathroom floor tiles were a ittle more expensive but a floor is for life not just for Christmas. We've had painted chipboard for 11 yrs & it worked out £10 per year, a bargain & the clever DH & Youngest laid it themselves. So we're almost sorted for the second room B&B. I think they might inspire my next painted background! I haven't done triangles yet ;)

So I'd made a ground from Maggie's Stitches Straps & Layers.  Her samples are delicious, using yarn, tape, sari silk, silk carrier rods, or stitched border patterns cut from felt. I couldn't do them all so I chose a mix of yarn, the knitting tapes Maggie had kindly sent me & some of  the miriad of stuff I've spent my life collecting (this book so justifies my way of life!) It's time consuming laying out the yarns over lightly foiled velvet, needlefelting a bit & stitching down with zig zag & straight stitch in various colors, but worth it. I made a small piece from silk carrier rods & combined the 2 as per Maggies sample. Not sure if you remember that I borrowed this book from a friend & my arty buddy Jo said it was so good for me I should have bought it myself. But I've had amazing fun actually working thru the samples  & I'm so grateful to Lesley for lending it to me...I've so nearly finished!

sample

As we had no internet I was able to catch up & make some cuffs with beads  & cord loops out of the new fabric. The middle one, I think, will go into my Etsy shop soon.




















And I finished the second gauntlet. Slightly bigger so less of a gap & cords instead of ribbons. Scuse the flash.

Jo lent me a book about Zandra Rhodes. I had no idea I'd be so interested!

cover, studio

screen printing, sketchbook

pattern, cloths

Sorry there are so many, couldn't resist!
Forgot her wonderful quote!

"I am  tired of good taste. I want to do everything wrong & get a result that is of value & valid as well"
Zandra Rhodes

Some cuffs & brooches

In between the hail showers I took some pics of the cuffs & brooches I've been making this week.

The one on the right is a  request from a customer & I made a couple of bigger ones, one in the same fabric which will hopefully be in my Etsy shop soon & the top one in last weeks gauntlet fabric.

She wanted a couple of different shaped brooches, too.

Those are the 2 at the top, then I made a couple for the studio. I'll stitch the backs on while bonding with my boys (the DH & Youngest) while watching Day & Night. The preview looked silly but fun.....what more do you want in life after a hard day's work?


I decided to start another gauntlet in the sea green Neptune colors, just so Pam has choice. I like to give a bit of choice, just in case.....trying to please everybody all the time... huh. Oh & started another cuff, too.

Here's the finished gauntlet

I had a lovely card from my DH & put my engagement ring on for the day - we found it on February 14th 25 years ago in Portobello Road Market, London. It's wearing thin , the gold bit, so I don't wear it all the time, now. It's done well!  ;) Mine to him is left & he cut the heart shape out for me ;)

Look what I found in my compost bin - look away if you're squeemish!  I've nearly finished transferring one bin to another, exhausting work but it's got the juices flowing & I must start a plan of action in the garden, just a little at a time ;)

I'm on holiday!

Well, just not going to my 'weekend' job this week, which means 2 whole days extra in the studio ;) So of course that made me a day later than usual posting with no threat of a 9am start. I momentarily lost my 'sieze the day' attitude! Well, we did unusually have  B&B guests, great weather for them & very welcome indeed, so there's my excuse.

So, a while ago I got a commission from the landscape artist, Pam Carter - she has a lovely holiday home a few doors down from us - & thought it was about time to stop provaricating (sp?) & get on with it. Thing was she asked for a gauntlet cuff & I haven't done one of those before so lots of thought & procrastination necessary before getting down to it. Glancing at the very gory Sparticus that the boys were watching - the Middlest came up for a visit - I was inspired by the Gladiator's leather gauntlets! Then I couldn't find the measurements, Heaven's sake. That meant picking up each item on my desk & table in the studio, putting it in it's place (& a place for everything!) & about 150 items later, after the Youngest said it would have been clever to have clipped it to the bundle he was holding, but never mind (he's so PATient! The DH came in, took one look & left again!) He went over to a box & I said it would unlikely be in there but wondered if I HAD  been clever enough to actually put it in the box (my tidying off the shared table to give the DH space box) & there it was.

In the first pic I fused purple silky fabric to an old guest towel, the likes of which people of my mothers generation would have put out when they knew guests were coming - my interpretation of batting. Then I laid whispy yarn all over, then I tried to get between the yarn with bits of magenta silky fabric & poked at them with the tip of the iron to fuse them down, then tried to get between all that with little bits of bondaweb that I could stick I mean fuse gold foil onto. I know, a about t but that's how I work;) Otherwise how whould I know what went where? ;) The pic immediately above had a piece of pink organza laid over & I've stitched along the yarn & around the magenta oblongs. I started the piece as one big piece before I found the measurement & would you believe that a guest towel, lightly trimmed each side is the exACT width required for this cuff? (bearing in mind I wanted the stitching to go top to bottom) cool, huh? It's a good thing I made a paper template as I'd no idea a gauntlet would be this shape, surprising how much fabric a 'tube' takes up.

Not so cool was that when I decided to free motion embroider some little circles here & there, to balance up the linear feel of it, garnet stitch I believe it's called, just before I got down to making some loops out of the magenta 'ribbon' & 'buttons' out of the spare fabric, I dropped the tiny screw that changes the feet of the machine, onto the floor. Well I just wasn't going to go there & came in to talk to you guys, instead. I will find it.

In my clearing up parts of the week I wondered why I had so many plastic bags in a large pile. I realised they were for ironing into 'paper' & figured if I got on & did that the pile would shrink dramatically &  could be stored in the 'paper' drawer. Result ;)

I mentioned to the youngest that life was about moving things from one place to another & he found it a rather depressing thought. I must also mention to him that it's what you do inbetween times is the important thing. I think he knows that. He was cheered up by the rugby - in this house where we're English, Welsh & Irish by blood, live in Scotland,  honeymooned in France & also love anything Italian, we don't really mind who wins ;)

Magggie's Patches & a winner

First, welcome to my new followers. I'd love to visit but I can't see a link, if you comment I'll be able to ;)

Second, I was one of the winners of Maggie's book giveaway! I chose Dale Rollerson's 'Let's play with Sari Ribbon' which is a sweet little booklet giving you ideas of how to use sari ribbon. In with the book, Maggie had very kindly sent some of her own precious flat woollen tapes for me to use on my 'applied yarns' samples, which she was enjoying on my blog. I was delighted, thank you Maggie!

So this week I was struggling with making this....or that, my usual weekly problem ( my list is so long, I know I'm not alone there!) I had already decided the next sample from Maggie's book 'stitches, straps & layers' would be Patches.

such exciting little things! Maggie uses them as borders & edges around her pieces, horizontally or vertically. The basic way to make them is with pelmet Vilene, bondaweb & crumpled tissue painted with walnut ink. You could use card, felt, painted papers or book pages & tea bags for dyeing instead of ink. Anything, really.

I made an A4 ish page & cut into the above strips. This gave me straight edges of course except for the one on the far right, above as I had a small piece of vilene already cut. I like both, but the cut edge means you have to paint or tea bag dye each edge...which is fine, worth it to get rid of the white. You can stitch or burn the edges (I've wanted to get my lighter out for ages!) Then you can use embossed foil, little pieces of painted papers, fabric, beads.

From left to right (top pic) I used a rusted razor blade, sweet foil with stitched raffia, painted paper from my drawer, newspaper on a tiny patch with other found paper edged in metallic paint, & finally, a copper roof tile nail - they don't make them like they used to! with verdigris colored gimp french knots , the extended kind. Couldn't believe it when I thought to myself, bet I haven't got any verdigris colored thread anywhere,  to match that wonderful nail - got these when  Jetta, who I gardened for, had her roof reslated. I was picking up these little beauties for weeks ;) -  & there it was in my ribbon & thread drawer! Kind of a 'gimp' sort of thing I think.

Well, I loved making these & decided to make a little book, inspired by Maggies 'The Little Book of Walnut Ink' which she was using to demonstrate how to use the patches on the cover. Beautiful, I really want to look inside! I found one entry on google, just one delicious page!

This is only about postcard size, with 3 signatures made with brown paper used on the worktop, handmade paper & book pages. (there's lots of work out there using book pages - finally we can use the pages we tore out of reclaimed, altered in some way, books) I bound it using phamphlet stitch, the only one I can do with ease.

Inside front cover - you can't quite see copper & gold highlights. I made the patches on the front cover quite symmetrical, for me & used book pages as well as the painted paper from my stash.

The writing on the back is from the dressmaking tissue paper I used. I'll put this in my Etsy shop next week - I only manage to add heart cards for Valentine's day last week. Well, we need a heart all year, really ;) Oh & did I mention I got my first sale? Thank you....so exciting!!!!

I showed the DH my book & patches, expecting him to say 'what're you going to use them for?' or 'they're a bit hairy' but no, he said it looked like an ancient book, reminded him of the Book of Kells. Well, you can't get better than that!

My New Etsy Shop!

I'm pleased to announce that finally I have an Etsy shop! Please do stop by to have a look & tell me what you think.

However I'm not so pleased that I can't manage to change the text below edit, the text won't publish here either!

 My mucky hands (look at the depth of those wrinkles lifelines!)

into what I can see in the sample for my Etsy Mini at Etsy. My head is pounding, i've watched a couple of videos, very helpful & i'm doing it all right (well, obviously not! ) & all I get is a non clickable word that says My Etsy shop. I've spoken to lots of Etsy holding blogging friends who've been so helpful, thank you! The Youngest just showed me last night how to search on Etsy for the friends who's link won't work either, (or i'd have asked a few more questions!) by choosing 'people' & not products thing! It's a bit of a learning curve this, but I can't fathom why something that looks so simple just doesn't end up on the blog as you see it in the sample.  I shall move on & just announce the shop with this little link. I feel as tho I've had an office job this last week, but I'm so excited, things started happening at the shop  within one hour of going live! That is circles & treasuies & things I need to learn more about ;)

I had to do something with paint, as you can see, above, & it is Valentine's Day soon, & anyway, I do love hearts...

excuse the flash, last minute as usual

Don't you just want to keep some pallettes just as they are?

No Northern lights or sun flares that we've seen this week, but the stars have been amazing & last night, bumbling outside with the Youngest in the pitch black I saw for the first time EVER a star reflecting in the bay. I didn't take a pic, I just saw it as magical. I didn't even mind that he told me all about the stars & planets but he admitted he might have got a couple wrong - well, I knew that when he pointed to the East & told me it was the North star  ...now, some things I do know, but who cares?       We did have a giggle about it, if there's one thing I've taught the kids it's how to laugh at themselves.   What I didn't know is that particular red acrylic I used this morning to paint the papers for the collage, as seen in the first pic doesn't come off...& I'm working tomorrow with our staff night out in the evening; it's gone a very pretty if shocking pink! Maybe it'll come off in my bath...

More notebooks

Made some more papers this week, this is the first of the next design in this years new range of greetings cards, circles again but this time terracotta & blue. I didn't have time this week to make the pretty pic with 9 cards in it ;) But I had to make one at least. I thought it was rather dull & realised I'd not added my trusty gold yet. Still a little muddy looking so I got out the Chinese inks again looking for dark blue but there was only light blue. What a pick up, I thought ;)

 

greetings card

papers

I enjoyed making notebooks last week so made a couple more.

  notebook front

I used cream Lokta paper for the inside & made another book out of last weeks paper

 

I couldn't waste all the little snippets, the cut off corners, small jewels of color ( can you tell I like them?) so I started making some squares for cards, I thought, then decided I might put 3 of the squares together for a collage. I'll scribble some more & stitch.

Lovely sunny lunchtime between the gloomy clouds so I went up on the track behind our house to take pics of the Highland cows, inspired by Aileen  

Just in time as they were taken off the hill mid afternoon. I hate to think where they were going.....

The first 2 pics are at the bottom of the hill where they low for their food. They lined up for me nicely, the babies, as they think anyone who's walking out there are going to feed them. Then they followed me up the track, they're fed up the way, thankfully behind the fence as you don't want to get too near those horns, especially with young near them. The amount of visitors who stop IN THE MIDDLE of a single track road, sometimes even on a 60 mph duel track road to take a photo & GO RIGHT UP TO THEM.......don't get me started!! Peeps don't seem to realise how you could get tossed or impaled by a slight turn of a head. I know it's not often but once would be enough for me!  (sorry Aileen, I know they're cute little sweeties, really ;) they are in your wonderful pics, anyway!) 

The last photo is for a sense of place, the water on the left is the bay in front of our house; what a fabulous place for us & the cows to live!

Concertina notebooks

I made a couple of concertina notebooks this week, starting them when I went over to Janet's; appropriate as it was she who encouraged me, showed me hers & gave me tips on folding in the middle & folding back on itself etc. You end up with a shape dictated to you by the length the paper started with, which was fine as I was using up some old marked watercolor paper torn in half. I'm sure the formula for measuring & ending up with a square, if that's what you want, is out there somewhere!

I painted the insides with a wash of the base colors I'd used on the papers (I hadn't put them away yet, oh the mess that needs to be cleared up! on my list, of course ;) Then I used thinned a little gesso to make an area to write or draw in, just using my fingers to paint & going round & round, so gentle & theraputic. No fingerprints left anyway!

I've never made these before so I attached the ribbon behind the back 'end' paper just by glueing & pressing down, it seems to work well. There are many inspiring ways out there & Janet has a couple of mouthwatering tomes on bookmaking, but I wanted to start simply.

Can't wait to make more papers or fabric for further books. One day I'll have the courage to make beautiful mixed media pieces in themselves like Kim at Letting in the Light has. She's just opened an Etsy shop, too & that  will surely encourage me to open mine, I've been talking about it for long enough!

I also made myself another earing after I lost the one I was wearing when I went to my first Zumba class. I knew as soon as I'd made it I'd find the lost one so now I have a spare. I haven't moved so fast at the class since running after my toddlers 15 years ago. It seems all the rage & the class has come to a village near me so why not? I've never done any Salsa either, but the teacher said if you're moving it doesn't matter. The more you wiggle your hips, strangely, the easier the steps are & when you're zooming right for 4 steps & you don't move back left in time you'll be sorry otherwise it was a great laugh...when I could get a breath! I gave it 110% & feared for my neck & back just after the class but having streched out well, no problems. Next week I'll try 90% & work back up gradually ;) I do look forward to Yoga starting back next week & I'm sure my body will benefit from the combination of these 2 classes.

The next page in 'Straps' was some lovely work by Janet Crowther on pin tucking, using a twin needle. Can't find any of her work but came across this you may aleady know about where you can read some of the articles, very generous!) Can you believe I have a twin needle from the 'old' days? ;) Unfortunately, when I inserted it I could see that it wouldn't be able to go down into the hole in the plate as the needle holding shaft has bent again. I think it's time for a service but not until I can find a machine in the loft that I was given in 1976....

Anyway, I skipped along to making a 'felt motif' These are usually made from black felt & colored with a wonderful mix of metalic thread with zigzag & embroidery thread couching them down. then you cut round the thread, snip out the center of the pattern & stitch down to more felt. You can then stitch inside all the shapes. Motifs can be attached to anything, a wall hanging, handbag, book cover. The best way I think is Maggie suggesting getting a sample  or piece out of the 'failed experiments' box & 'just' adding  the motifit creatively to the found piece , & adding lots more lovely stitching & that's what can be made into the above. Therefore, nothing has failed! I used a piece of ground which is the base of my cuffs & I grabbed the first 4 aged pieces of felt in the colors of sweets ;) Maggie had clematis flowers inspiring quite abstract motifs but I thought I'd start with the petal shapes, very much in my comfort zone. When I added the first pieces to the felt I thought I'd make a reverse applique effect on 3 petals so you could see a suggestion of the ground as well as the base felt, before stitching into the space. Another enjoyable experiment.

Welcome to my new followers, I think I found you in the grey picture area at the back but no links, do comment then I can visit, thanks!