Flora

Time for another blog after spending a few days doing some sorting and reorganising. I did manage to throw some stored 'too good to throw out' stuff out. Not easy for a hoarder like me.
I also managed at last to photograph a tassel I made last week. It is a representation of a lotus flower. I digitised a petals and stitched out eight of them on white sheer fabric. They were cut out with a soldering iron and then stiffened with a clear stiffening medium.
Next I made the skirt of the tassel with a mixture of green threads - to represent the stalk.
Then I made a 'pom-pom' with a mixture of yellow threads to represent the flower centre.
With hindsight I think it should have been a little less dense and straggly.
All the parts were then stitched together.
















Today there were some dandelion seed heads out on the patio having seeded themselves between the paving stones. The sun was shining so I dashed out to photograph them. It was a little bit breezy and so I spent quite some time waiting for the breeze to die down or the sun to come back out from behind the clouds. I did get what I wanted.


















Half an hour later this last dandelion seed head had blown away so there will be more of them next year.

At this point I would like to thank Lynda for her method of positioning the images without the long tedious drag from the top. It worked.

Tutankhamen then the Dales

First I would like to thank Pippa for her postcard AND its envelope. They are lovely pieces of work and much appreciated.

I have finished two more pieces for my project which is getting closer to completion although I have said that before haven't I?
I had coated some gold sheer fabric with InkAid and printed a digitally changed image of the Tutankhamen gold mask onto it. After much deliberation I eventually decided how to take it further. I decided to create a small quilted panel. I placed the image over the top of some ivory Thai silk but had to put a layer of deep gold sheer underneath the image in order to enhance the print. I used a layer of white fleece underneath to create the quilting.
The old Egyptian curse reared its head again as I had several rescues to make with this piece. Fortunately they don't show.
I created a 'distressed' look (the result of one of the rescues) to the background silk by gently finger rubbing treasure gold over the surface and stamping some hieroglyphs with antique gold paint. I wasn't too sure if I liked it as it looked more 'dirty' than gold but once the printed image was pinned in place I began to like it so I carried on.
I used several different threads to both hand and machine quilt the printed image in the centre. The idea was then to carry on the quilting effect over and outside the border, created by the surplus sheer fabrics, and out to the edge of the panel. I made a hanger using a kebab skewer painted with the treasure gold and a Krylon gold leafing pen and some silk fabric loops.
The embellishments consist of gold twist cord couched around the image and the outer edge of the sheer fabric to make a frame and some beads, copper and gold purl to create the necklace on the mask.



















Many of the Egyptian images show the Pharaohs and their gods carrying something called a 'flail'. It was a symbol of power and looked a bit like a tassel on a stick. I used this as the design source for another tassel. All the flails had three dangles from a head. I made the tassel head from padded gold leather and used beads and gold thread to make the tassel skirts. The blue wooden beads and the gold and silver wooden bell beads were from my grandson's box of beads which he used to thread when he was a toddler to develop his coordination. Everything comes in useful in time and these wooden beads have come in handy regularly.







Today my OH and myself went for a day out to do some photography. We drove up into the Yorkshire Dales which are not far from where we live. I am not going to say a lot just put up some of the photographs I took and yes these were the greens that we saw.













These are the fields leading up to the moors on the way out of Reeth.


Couldn't resist this pose by this group of sheep.










All the following photos are of Hardrow Falls. A high waterfall which is reached by going through a pub and paying the fee at the bar.










It is a pleasant short walk along the floor of this valley to the foot of the waterfall. I spent some time trying to catch the water frozen in mid air. We were lucky that the sun was into the valley while we were there.

Woven text box

Well, all my family are on their way home and will arrive about Sunday lunch time. My OH from the Isle of Man where sadly the gear box on the rally car broke and they couldn't finish the rally, and my daughter and her family are on their way home from Florida so I have been watching the flight departures for any delays. I have been in touch with all of them the whole time they have been away. My OH by phone and my grandson and daughter via webcam so I haven't been so alone.

Strange how when you have time you seem to take more time to do things. The days have whizzed passed and I don't seem to have done all that much. I think more is achieved when under pressure to find time and get on with it. Now the family is home I will be sharing my time again.

On with the creative part of the blog.
I have finished the woven text box. It began when I saw a picture showing how the ancient Egyptians preserved their cats ! and wrapped them in bandages in a complex woven design. I didn't want to try such a complicated task so kept my woven design to the under over weaving we all did at school.
First I tea stained some beige felt and then using my embroidery machine created lines of text using the names of the more well known Pharaohs. I used variegated threads in different colour ranges. Once the machining was complete I cut the text into strips and wove them.
Before this stage I had no idea what I was going to do with the woven text but once it was woven it shouted out box lid (not literally!) So a box it was to be.

Now in my loft I save boxes of all shapes and sizes ready for such an occasion but this time there wasn't a box which was the right size to fit the woven text so I had to make one.
I covered it with some soft interfacing to give a softer feel for the covering fabric.










I made the lid first. I used some natural woven fabric and machined the woven text in the centre edged with a fancy yarn which had the same colours - (it is times like this when I can again justify my huge stockpile of everything). Continuing with the Nefertiti theme, I stitched out four of the digitised Nefertiti motifs using the same variegated threads. These were stitched in place using 'invisible' thread and it is exactly that - invisible - very useful but hard on the eyes trying to see it.









On the underside of the lid I continued the theme creating the outline rectangle again and another four Nefertiti motifs. This time I digitised her name and stitched it in the centre.

The seams were stitched , turned inside out and pulled onto the prepared lid leaving the hinge edge open.

Next I made the cover for the base of the box and made the lining out of a soft coffee sateen fabric stitched with the text of Nefertiti over the bottom to adhere it to the padding underneath. The inside walls of the box were padded with batting too.

I also stitched yet another motif on the front.
Using the covering fabric and the fancy yarn I made hinges which would hold a length of dowel. S ix of the hinges were stitched into the back edge of the base and five were stitched into the back edge of the lid. Very fiddly and I it had to be hand stitched.



It is a good sized box so I should be able to keep a number of the smaller pieces of the project in it.









Now I need some suggestions here.

Do you think the natural fabric of the box needs anything doing to it or should I leave it plain as it is? I don't want to distract form the text and motifs so not sure about it. Offers of ideas welcome.

Being such lovely weather I have been out in the garden doing some photography. How about this little chap who sat there defiant when all the other frogs had dived down into the pond as I approached.

I had to get very close to him in order to photograph the marsh marigolds in the pond. He 'frogged' out eventually and dived in.
Managed to get the shot of the flower I wanted.


















And behind me was this - how about this delicious purple velvet pansy? Almost poetic! They keep reappearing from previous years planting so don't need to buy new plants this year. The tub is full of them.





Finally - does anyone know if there is a way of placing the images instead of them all coming in at the top and having to be dragged down bit by bit to the right place. It is so tedious. It would help if the window was bigger. Whinge, whinge.

Well looking at the clock - the plane should be taking off right now 10.20pm their time and 3.20am ours. Yes it is late but I am a bit of a night worker.
Can't wait for a huggle from my grandson and OH. Missed them.

Rescued

Time for another blog.
I have been keeping in touch with my family in Florida via the webcam. It is so amazing to be able to see and talk with them when we are so far apart. My GS had his day swimming with the dolphins which he enjoyed telling me about today. They also swam with and fed the rays. he had a wonderful day.

I finally decided what to do with the prints I made. The first one I chose to do was a small quilted panel. I began with the image of Queen Nefertiti which I isolated from its background.

I took the image into Photoshop and played with some of the filters. I eventually settled on this effect with a graduated background.

I soaked some cream Thai silk in Bubble Jet so that I could put it through an inkjet printer. The silk was 505'd to a sheet of A4 printer paper which acted as a carrier for the silk as it passed through the printer. It was well smoothed and was flat on the paper.
Unfortunately, even though the silk was very flat and smooth when it entered the printer, it did form a wrinkle as it passed through and so it caught the black print nozzle and there was a black streak across the face in the worst possible place - the mouth.
Me being me, I had to salvage this disaster so I decided to paint over the fault. I mixed some copper and bronze acrylic paint to match the colour on the print and painted out the fault. I also dry brushed some blue metallic paint over the headdress as the blue wasn't as strong as it should have been. It worked.

Now I could do the stitching. I put a layer of white lining fleece behind the print to give a gentle quilt surface. Then I used a selection of seed, Delica and bugle beads to create the collar and couched metallic twist around the collar and to pick out the design on the headdress. I used different rayon threads to vermicelli fill the background. Finally the printed piece was outlined with another gentle variegated metallic twist.
It is a very stylised piece and OK but nothing more than that.

I have also been working on the woven text and it is now a box which I will post on the next blog.

Yesterday I went to visit a friend with whom I occasionally have play days and I took my Cloth Paper Scissors magazines and did a temporary swap for her Quilting Arts magazine. This way we buy one each but can read both. However, I am thinking of not renewing my Cloth Paper Scissors mag when the subscription runs out as I do not like much of what it covers any more. They seem to be going in a very strange direction. Not my taste at all.
I was out in the garden very early this morning doing some macro photography which I am going to look at now. The sun wasn't exactly where I wanted it to be so my OH had to direct the sunlight with a reflector. They do have their uses!! I will miss him though - he is off to the Isle of Man for four days crewing for a rally team for which he has been crew engineer for a number of years. This means I will be completely alone to do whatever I like for four days!!!! What mixed feelings.

I love the colours of this new growth on the Berberis.

Bags and dolphins

Well, I have talked with my family over in America twice already using the webcam. The first time my grandson simply waved to me and then told me he was going back into the pool now - Bye grandma - and that was that. I couldn't compete with the pool so had a good chat with my daughter instead while my son-in-law was blowing up the large inflatable dolphin my GS rides on in the pool.

(Goodness - loud thunder and lightening and hailstones - English weather!! It is in the 80's on the other end of the webcam!! Grrr )

Back to what I was saying - the second time we talked I was given a detailed run down of his day including finding a large furry dolphin in one of the wardrobes which must have been left behind by one of their guests. Probably too big to pack. They were off to Sea World next , my grandson's favourite place. One of many, many visits I have no doubt. He is going to swim with the dolphins later and he doesn't know it yet, but he is going to spend a whole day with them, feeding, looking after and playing with them. I expect that will be a very excited webcam exchange.

I gave my daughter a list of goodies to get for me while she is there. They are half the price over there. Sadly, Walmart, which was THE best place to shop for our kind of goodies has reduced this side of their sales dramatically in spite of every effort by the American quilters, sewers and textilers to change their minds. It is now only about a quarter of what they used to sell - a great pity. It was much better than the Joanne store we hear about. I am now going through my wish and replace list to give her any further lists. She has already bought the very large roll of freezer paper I asked her for, for a fraction of the price here .

Now to some creative work. I have made another bag for my Egyptian project.

I began by stripping down a hardly worn cream linen skirt. I used just one of the back panels. I spray dyed it then give it a coating of gold glimmer dust which I had to seal using 'hair spray' which seems to have worked. This dust gets everywhere and I glowed in the light for days as did everything else. Once the fabric was dyed and dusted, I stencilled the Nefertiti stencil I made onto it and stamped the lotus flower stamps I made using a subtle aubergine metallic paint. I did try screen printing but that was a disaster as the screen I made - re the DVD'd that Lynda sent me - clogged up with paint - just as well it was a tester and not on the bag. Wrong paint - it dried too quickly so back to the drawing board on that one but I will persevere- pity about the carefully created stencil though!!
I did the same for a circle base. Now I had to find a way to create a top edge which when it was closed up would resemble a lotus flower.
Eventually I came up with the solution. Six petal shaped zig zags along the top edge.
Next I cut some purple satin lining for the bag and stitched the two together. The base was stiffened with some stiff polythene stitched inside.
Those ex- bras strap rings came in useful again. (Although I did have to go and sort out some more old and never worn bras to obtain some more rings of the same size. Two birds with one stone here - more room in the drawer now!!) I covered six of them with several different threads together. These were stitched at the bottom of and between two petal shapes. I crocheted two lengths of cord using the same mixture of threads and threaded them through the rings. They were passed through two large gold beads (brought back from America a few years ago) and knotted to finish them off. In order to keep the petal effect, I stitched a small bead on each petal to hold the shape when the bag was closed.
And the finished bag which has turned out rather well. Quite pleased with it.


And here is one for Karen. I know they are a weed but they are beautiful. It is a matter of managing them. The grass verges on the country roads look so sunny and uplifting thanks to the dandelion. The seed heads too are quite beautiful and the source of many an embroiderer and artist - weed or no weed. A bit of macro lens photography here Sharon, and digital imaging to isolate it from the background.


Now to decide what do do with two printed images - one on Thai silk and the other on gold sheer fabric and the woven machined text. Decisions, decisions. They take up more time than the doing.
I'm off for a cracker and a coffee while I think about it.

Another pyramid bag and a garden piece

Well my GS has gone off to their villa in Florida for 2 weeks and so I won't miss him so much we have set up Skype on the computers so we can keep in touch. I will be able to see him and talk to him live using web cams. Aren't computers brilliant??

First I will show the bag I mentioned on my last post. I used the pyramid shape as the design source. It was a lot more complicated than the little gold purse and there was a lot of trial and error. I used some brocade that I had in stock which had flowers on it similar to some in the Egyptian wall paintings -(well close enough).

The base was square and I made four double sided triangles stiffened with a stiff polythene which used to be scan cards for our old video recorder. This was also used to stiffen the base.
Between the triangles were inserted gussets so that the bag would open.
Because of the construction I had to hand stitch one side of the base.

I used four bras strap rings (I throw nothing away) and covered them with a blue and gold thread. These were attached to the peak of each triangle. I made cords using the same thread and large gold beads and threaded them through the four covered rings to make a draw pull fastening. The gussets - unfortunately - have to be pushed in when the bag closes. I tried several ideas to make this automatic as the strings were pulled but none worked satisfactorily.
















This is the completed bag when closed.










Many thanks to Karen for her award. I have been looking at her garden blog and her garden is much further on than mine. My bluebells are just throwing up the flower head buds whereas her bluebells are in bloom. I use my garden as a design source so I am going to include a photo of one of the plants which is at its best at the moment. It is the Piris which has incredible pinky red new growth. In the next couple of weeks these leaves will change to variegated green like the rest of the plant.


I used this plant and this photo (taken this time last year) as the design source for a piece of work. We had just replaced a fence and I took photos of the newly sawn wood which had a really nice texture.
I combined the two in Photoshop.
Then interpreted this image into textile piece.
It involved inkjet printing onto dyed scrim and craft Vilene then hand and machine stitching. The Piris was cut out and proud mounted onto the wood interpreted background.
I also created this digitial image which is on my web site with many others.


I have a lot of work in progress at the moment and have spent this evening spray dying some fabric for another bag. I am having a go at screen printing and have made a screen stencil of Nefertiti which will be printed on the bag fabric. So... watch this space.

Gold purse

First of all I must thank Debbi for her two beautiful postcards - so much thought and work in them. They complement my present project on the Ancient Egyptians and I will be adding them to the project when I give a talk about it later in the year. She also sent me a piece of hand made paper - she thinks came from Thailand - which has hieroglyphics printed on it. I intend to use it in another piece for the project but not sure how as yet. Watch this space Debbi. She posted them on the Monday in Australia and they arrived through my letterbox on Thursday morning. I was amazed - only 3 days. I wish our internal post was so quick.


Well my GS is back at school, the Easter break over, so I can now do some work during the day. There is no substitute for daylight when working with colour.
Spent yesterday preparing for a string of new pieces most of which are stemming from ideas which I am not sure will work as yet so it is go with the flow and fingers crossed.

I have made a stencil for some screen printing thanks to Lynda. It is now ready to mount and then to test!!
I have coated some sheer fabric with InkAID ready to print out a digital image I created in Photoshop.
I have soaked several pieces of silk in Bubble Jet liquid ready for some more printing of digital images.
I have applied some walnut ink to some thin beige felt ready to do some machining of text and then to weave the text strips together.

I have also made a very large birthday card for my son-in-laws 40th - large card, big 40 - which is exactly what it is - a very big 40 on its own on the front.

Sooooo, now to do all the 'ready for's' and hope they all turn out as I am hoping they will.

Now to post the finished piece I mentioned on the last post. It is a gold purse.
I used the pyramid shape and the lotus flower as the design source, gold lame fabric for the body of the purse and white satin for the lining. I ironed a soft iron on Vilene to the back of the fabric before cutting it out. Here is where I made a mistake. I cut the shapes out with scissors and only at the end did I remember that I should have cut the gold lame using a soldering iron to seal the gold threads which fray very easily even with the Vilene on the back. (So many things to remember when using so many different materials and techniques).

Once the shapes were cut I used a gold thread and a lotus flower machine pattern stitch to stitch rows of lotus flowers across the gold lame.















I left the surface of the flap clear and created a padded gold leather lotus flower. It is surprising how many different golds there are and so I couldn't use my favourite gold leather because it was the 'wrong' gold colour. At least it made me use some of my other gold leather stock. The petals were outlined with a couched Japanese gold thread.

The lining was cut and the two pieces were satin stitched together with gold thread.
I made two tassels - one to hang from the flap and the other to hang from the bottom point of the purse.


I used a piece of gold braid for the handle.

A quick and simple evening purse.



I have also made a pyramid bag - not quite so easy to make - and will post that next time.