Shirley Anne Sherris

The final post for the Dubai project - definite.

2012-01-11T20:12:00.001Z

As I said in my last post, the Dubai project is finished with over 70 pieces of textile work.

All I have to do now is post the last remaining pieces.

One of the windows on a building along the Creek side has been the design source for a number of pieces.

I took this image into Paint shop Pro and applied a special effect which resulted in this :-

I pondered over this for a long time trying to think of a technique to use to interpret the image. The one that kept coming to the fore was a sheer sandwich but finding a way to produce and keep the protruding window effect was the problem. Eventually I resorted to a technique I used for some of my jewellery - see the link on the right - Embroidered Jewellery. I used garden mesh. The mesh was the structure inside the sheer sandwich.

I am not totally happy with it. I think I could have had more success if I had made the piece twice the size. Even so - it is pretty.

Another multi used design is the wall fret panel.

I took one of these frets and made a fret using Funky foam. I stuck it to some pelmet vilene and then applied layers of hmmm 'toilet paper' using PVA to cover and harden the surface and then a layer of scrunched tissue paper over the whole surface. This was then painted and made into a keepsake folder. I had just found some key and lock brads so I created a lock at the side of the fret making it look like a door. I cut off the prongs from the back of the key brad and filed the sharpness off and hung it from the lock. I used more square brads for effect. A machine wrapped cord was used to close.

The fret work on the front of the hotel has also been a well used design source and I used it again for some jewellery. I made lots of squares and laid one square over the other to make the star pattern on the fretwork. I button-hole stitched all around the star and fastened a blue glass rectangle bead in the centre of each star. They were then joined together to create a necklace, a bracelet and a pair of earrings - the findings yet to be applied.

The next piece was made up of three panels joined together into a hanging. It was very much a 'go with the flow' piece. I had no idea what would be on each panel until I began to play and try things. I liked it when it was finished. I was intending to blast the middle panel and burn away some of the top sheer but I chickened out especially after the disaster of the god book which turned out even better as a result but I wasn't prepared to risk it a second time so I played safe.

Talking of disasters. This next piece was another failure which had to be rescued. I really liked the colours created by a special effect on an image of the heritage village.

The first attempt to print this out onto transfer paper was a disaster but I managed to rescue it and turn it into a successful purse. I tried again and this time I ironed it onto a light weight black lutrador so that I could quilt it. Unfortunately the Lutrador is very 'webby' and so the colours did not emerge when ironing. It lay around for a long time until I decided to attempt a rescue. I painted the surface with acrylic wax and metallic paints then I stencilled and stamped some of the jug designs I had been using throughout the project. I used transfer foil to make a frame the made it up into a quilt sandwich and free machined it. It worked. Another rescue.

So there we have it the Dubai textile project is complete and has been boxed until such time as I am asked to give a talk about it.

I hope I have given some of you some ideas to take from this project and that you will try a technique you may not have tried before. Remember, it is possible to rescue disasters - the beauty of textiling.

Cheers for now and until my next post.

The penultimate Dubai project posting - I think!!

2011-12-28T00:00:00.002Z

I hope everyone had a good Christmas break and will have a good new year in spite of everything.

It has been a long time since my last post and I have noticed that most of us are blogging less frequently these days.

I have had a big backlog of textile pieces to photograph and only managed to do them today. There were so many that I have decided to leave some for next time when I will have a few more finished pieces to add to them by then. Hopefully the next four pieces I am on with at the moment, will be the last - taking the project to about 70+ pieces altogether. However, every time I think this, I find a few more ideas come into my mind and that usually snowballs into even more so we will see.....

At the end of my last post I showed an image which was created in the computer from the facade of the hotel we stayed in.

I did manage to interpret this but it was rather fiddly. It was a compilation of several different techniques. The most difficult part was joining the pieces together.

Whenever I create a project from a visit, I always try to use the name of the place in some way. I have already posted a mobile which used the name of Dubai but separating the letters. The next two pieces use the name in full. I chose a font and distorted each of the letters in Photoshop then put them back together again in two different designs. The two designs were digitised in my machine software, sent to my embroidery machine to be stitched out using a variegated thread.

I used some dyed silk fibres and made them into a lacy fabric using an acrylic medium. This was placed onto a circle of the recycled sandy coloured fabric that I have been using throughout this project. The text design was stitched out over the top of the fibres then outlined with couched gold Japanese thread. I stencilled part of the Arabic motif around the edges and embellished them with beads. The remaining area of the fibres was stitched with vermicelli stitch to prevent the fibres being caught or fluffed with wear. The handle/strap was created from a woven pyjama cord. I dyed it, then machined a motif pattern along either side to stabilise it - ( must buy another one to replace it!). The strap was held in place with loops around the gusset. One of the bag tags used the text design - painted and outlined.

Next, I created a book, but this time the text was kept in a line in a different stylised design. I still had a very small amount of the dyed fibres, so I spread them thinly over the surface of the same fabric as the bag and adhered them in place using a fine bondaweb. The text was stitched out by my machine using the same variegated thread. As the fibres were still loose, I used a vermicelli stitch over the surface to prevent fluffing with wear. I applied some copper transfer foil around the edges of the fibres. Lastly, I applied clusters of copper beads over the surface, thinning out to single beads towards the edges of the book. The finished design was stretched and adhered to a card foundation and decorated pages were added inside. I used large beads - two of which were painted to match - for the book tags.

In the heritage village were a set of painted false windows which I have used many times in this project, mainly for blackwork. For the next piece, I decided to machine large versions of two of these designs. They became the sides of a pull tie bag. Some hand stitching was used to outline the designs and sequins and beads were used to embellish the designs. It was lined with a red silky fabric - a recycled dress.

The heritage village provided much of my design source and the large jug which stood at the entrance of a courtyard provided the next idea. I cut jugs from a number of different fabrics and materials - sixteen in all. Some were machine stitched, some were enhanced with transfer foils and some hand embroidered. They were all then appliqued to the surface of both sides of a tote or as a friend called it - a satchel - made from - you guessed it - the recycled sandy fabric. Every jug is different so there are eight different jugs on the other side.

I created quite a number of kaleidoscope patterns from the facade of the hotel and the next book uses yet another of these. I used up the last of some natural coloured Aide fabric for this piece. I chose copper metallic threads and cords with some bronze padded leather in the centre of the design.

Many of the walls were in fact open pattered frets and have used them for a number of pieces. I made a stamp from Funky foam for one of these designs. Using this stamp, I created a number of paper casts which produced the inverse of the design. I used four of these casts for the four sides of an open vessel. They were painted then highlighted with gold gilding wax. They were applied to the fabric using my favourite sorbello stitch in three different wights of thread. I free machined the centre part of the design onto the felt linings. They were then stitched together and enhanced with beads in amongst the sorbello stitches and along the edges.

I made six of these casts. One was not detailed enough to use leaving one spare - or not! I made a bag tag with it!!

I also had a left over model magic jug impression so I made that into a bag tag too.

And while I was into these bag tags, I used up another paper cast of one of the ballistrade designs. It was well varnished as it was a paper cast.

The next piece was yet another rescued piece. I was trying out some transfer foiling. The first part went well - covering the surface with some red foil. The next part was the disaster. I tried to create an effect using the heat gun but it ruined areas of the red foil. So, once again, me being me, I began to see what I could do to rescue it. I painted and foiled and stitched and painted and foiled and all of a sudden I had a fabulous piece of distressed antique surface. Better than my original idea. I turned it into a booklet.

Well, I think that is enough for this post. The rest can wait until the next one.

I hope you all have a happy new year celebration and I look forward to seeing lots of your textiles throughout 2012.

Cheers everyone until the next post.

Adding to the Dubai project

2011-10-09T13:10:00.000+01:00

I though that I should post another blog before our trip to Dubai as I am sure I will be extemely busy processing images after my return so no time then. I am also preparing some sessions for my camera club on creative imaging which will take up a fair bit of time. So here goes. There is rather a lot to cover.

This file cover was created using a design created from an image of the front facade of our hotel in Dubai. I put it through a distortion pattern filter to create this design.

You can still see the windows and the decorative fretwork. I transposed the design with canvas work stitching on a very open weave soft fabric. It was so soft that I had to treat it with a stiffening agent to work with it. When the stiching was complete it was mounted onto some furnishing fabric recycled from recovering my sofas. This was then stitched to make a file cover.

I plan to keep some of the sketches and printouts in it.

Keeping the distortion effect theme, the next three pieces were created from an image of windows on a building alongside The Creek. I liked three of the design so as I usally do, if I can't decide which one, I do them all. The designs were printed onto white lawn cotton. I painted over some of the detail with metallic acrylic paints.

These were then quilt sandwiched and free machine quilted. I made them all the same size and stretched them over box frames which I made. they work together as a tryptich.

Another piece was created from the same distortion effect but was given a colour change. I tackled this piece differently. I traced the design onto tissue paper and free machined it onto a quilt sandwich using a plum coloured cotton fabric. I used some machined satin stitching over the stronger lines of the design. After the stiching I highlighted areas with paints and guilding waxes.

I took an image in the Heritage villagewhich I put into Photoshop and used a colour effect on it. It gave a very vibrant coloured image which i liked. I planned to print this onto transfer printer paper and make a small A4 sized art quilt.

However, part way through the print out the yellow ink ran out and the image was banded. It was useless for the art quilt ,so me being me and not wanting to waste a full sheet of transfer paper or ink, I decided to play with it. I washed water over it which blended and blurred the colours. Then I painted squirls and scrolls over it with water and then with white acrylic ink. I ironed the transfer paper onto some black fabric which enriched the colours as it does when ironed. Then I had the idea if painting over these white squirls and scrolls with gold metallic paint. Liked it even more. I free machine quilted the piece.

I decided to make it into a purse. My rescued heritage village image turned out to be a pleasing success.

I made some bag tags from old jewellery and beads.

When I went over to the villa earlier this year, I took some hand stitching with me. Blackwork is an easy thing to pack and do when away from home. I managed to finish another one of these pieces since my return. It is another ipod touch pouch using another of the window patterns from the heritage village. I had to search the web to find and buy some clasps to hang it.

Another image of a patterned wall was the design source for the next few pieces. This image is the result of selecting and pasting the wall pattern to get the design I needed.

I changed the colours using a gradient map and printed this onto printer transfer paper.

I cut a panel from this and ironed it onto black felt and free machined the design to give a gentle quilted effect. I made this panel into the flap of a satin purse.

I used the pattern to free machine quilt the main body of the purse.

With the remaining print out I made some bag tags. It was ironed onto stained pelmet vilene. I applied some embossing powder some of them.

Liking the colours and the design I decided to print out another panel. This one was made into a keepsake folder.

I made a stamp of this pattern using 'Funky' foam and stamped the centre part of the design onto each page of the folder pockets.

I have still to fully utilise this stamp and have plans for more pieces.

This next image is the result of yet another distortion filter on the facade of the Arabian Courtyard Hotel in the old town of Dubai. I have created a hanging of this but it isn't yet potographed so watch this space. It was a fiddly piece to make but I got there.

That just about brings me up to date so cheers for now. Must go and empty the washing machine!!!

Back from Paris, getting ready for Dubai

2011-09-03T12:32:00.001+01:00

Life is a bit hectic these days. Travelling and photography is stealing time away from my textile work. Oh for more hours in the day!!

We had a very last minute week in Paris. I treat my family to either a week in New York or a week in Paris. My grandson chose Paris and what a good decision that turned out to be. The week we would have been in New York would have been torrential rain, an earthquake and a hurricane with long delays getting home. Instead we had glorious hot weather in Paris. It was hectic trying to get to all those places we see in all the photos of Paris. I could have done with a new pair of legs and feet. I climbed, yes climbed up to the second stage of the Eifel Tower. I still can't believe that I actually achieved it. I am now wading through all the images, around 800+ of them. It remains to be seen if I manage to create a project from this visit. I am still working on my Dubai project and will have lots more inspiration from Dubai when we return in October.

So, back to the Dubai project.

I have used the ornate ballistrade in the heritage village numerous times and here are a couple more pieces using this ballistrade.

I decided to do some printing onto transfer paper and this box was created using this method. The printed transfer paper panels were ironed onto fabric which were then embellished with embossing powders/crystals. I also highlighted parts of the image with metallic paints. The four panels were then free machine quilted. The lid of the box was created by embossing the design onto copper metal shim which was then highlighted with alcohol inks to add more colour to the embossed texturising. I already had some beads which fitted perfectly to make the corner ties. The box opens out and can be stored flat.

Using the same ballistrade design I ironed the transfer paper onto felt which was then free machine quilted and highlighted with gold metal powders. I used air dried clay, model magic, to make a book marker. I pressed one of the stencils I made into the clay so that it squeezed up through the design. When dry, it was painted with metallic paints and highlighted with gold guilding wax.

I colour washed tyvek sheets to line the inside of the book and drew little gold flowers in the corners of each page. there is also a stencilled motif on the inside cover.

I always use the text from a project to create pieces and so this piece used the letters from the name Dubai.

I digitised each letter and stitched it out on different coloured silks. Each was made into a small mobile edged with beads. The header used the Arabic motif from the front of our hotel which I digitised and stitched out twice. The two sides of the header were pushed apart by stitching two metal rings at the top and bottom. The very bottom motif was another smaller stitch out of the Arabic motif.

Next I printed lots of small images of Dubai onto acetate sheets. I used them to create two more pieces. The first was a hanging with little image windows. The body of the hanging was made from painted pelmet vilene covered with a gold mesh fabric. Small arched window frames were cut and satin edged. The front and back were stitched together with the acetate images as the windows. Beads and a tassel were added to finish.

The second acetate piece was an image mobile. Each acetate image was hand edges with buttonhole stitch. I used the machine to make the equally distanced holes around the edge of each image. I used kebab sticks to make the hanging frames and hung each image from twisted threads. This was the tricky bit - getting the positions and lengths right to balance and allow the images to spin.

I used the same images to make the next piece but this time they were printed onto transfer paper and ironed onto fabric. They were cut out and machined onto four sides of a small duffle bag design.
One, my favourite piece of architecture in Dubai - the Kalifa Tower - was used to make a bag tag. I used small metal curtain rings, covered with buttonhole stitch to make the pull closers for the bag. I twisted several yarns of blue wool together to make the draw strings. I managed to hide the joins of the drawstrings inside the large beads.

The final piece for this bblog was created by using the window pattern of a building which I had used previously - see an earlier blog - changed the colours and put it through a kaleidoscope filter in Paint shop pro. The resulting design was printed onto tee shirt printer paper, ironed onto white fabric and free machine quilted. I used silver decorative threads and ribbons to hightlight some of the design. It was edged with a navy blue fabric. I made a block frame, covered it with canvas, painted it with white gesso then mounted the piece onto it.

That is about it for this blog. I have a number of other pieces waiting to be mounted and photographed and hope to have them ready for the next post.

This week, while trying to decide what to take with me to Dubai (a bit early I know but it does take up time making these decisions) I finished up weeding out clothes which I no longer liked/wanted or more to the truth didn't fit anymore. I spent a whole day altering what I could to fit again and those which I didn't want I stripped, giving me some rather nice fabric stashes crying out to be made into bags and books. I can print on them, over paint them, stamp them, embellish them, quilt them and make some lovely bags, purses and books.

This may just put the Dubai project to one side for a while!! Excuse the repetition but Oh for more hours in the day!!!

Now it is a quick lunch, provided by my OH, and on, I hope, with making some block frames for the three quilted pieces waiting to be mounted.

My grandson is coming to sleep over tonight too.

Cheers for now until the next post.

My Dubai project just keeps growing....

2011-07-17T16:30:00.000+01:00

Hello again after yet another fairly long lapse. This year seems to be flying by.

I have been busy with my photography and of course many more Dubai pieces.

I finished the last post with an image of the butterfly duffle bag which took its design source from the hanging butterflies of one of the Dubai Mall domes.

I created many sheer fabric butterflies some of which were for the duffle bag and the rest were for a mobile and a panel. The mobile wasn't an easy piece to photograph. Not only did I have to contend with shiny sheer fabric, metallic threads and glass beads but it also constantly moved so many of the images were binned. This was a reasonable success.

The panel is a representation of the dome and used a machine stitch pattern of butterflies. It could be used as a book cover or box lid. I am leaving it as a panel for the moment.

Another very rich design source was the Heritage village, just a short walk from our hotel. One of the buildings had a very distinct ornate ballistrade which I have used for many pieces.

I made a stencil and a stamp using two of the designs.

This design was used for the stencil which I made using an acetate sheet. The acetate sheet is thick and strong enough to use over and over again - just be vigilant about cleaning the stencil (and stamps) before the paints dry.

I used the stamp and the stencil to create a large tote/bag. The fabric was a sandy weave and I used red, bronze and gold metallic paints. The stamped and stencilled motifs were then quilted and outlined with free machining. The back of the tote mirrored the same design but this time I just free machined the motif designs. I also made some bag tags to hang from the handle.

Another set of designs were taken from a wall of windows. The bottom windows were shuttered and the top set were false painted windows. It was the false windows which caught my eye and became the source of many pieces.

I chose two of the designs and created patterns.

I transposed these onto graph paper and created blackwork designs to stitch onto Aida fabric. These were perfect for taking away on holiday, which I did, so a number of them were stitched sitting by the pool over in Florida. I still have many more to do but will keep them for the next trip away in October (or before if things go to plan). They were perfect for bag tags, ipod touch phone pouches etc.

This is a little bag tag and the following image is the ipod touch pouch which will hang from a belt loop or handle of a handbag. It is lined with a nice soft thin felt.

While we were in Dubai, we stayed at the Arabian Coutyard hotel & Spa. It is situated in the old part of Dubai just a short walk from the Creek and opposite the Fort museum and a short walk from the Heritage village and lots of shops and souks. It is very different from the large showy beach hotels but with as high a standard. We didn't want to be by the beach although this hotel provides free transport to and from the beach if required. We wanted to be in a much more interesting area and from where we could go for a stroll. The Creek is the place to be in the evening with lots of lit up floating restaurants which set sail when all customers are on board and everyone promenades along the side of the Creek. We enjoyed Dubai so much we are going back for a longer visit in October and staying in this hotel again.

The hotel itself provided me with more ideas and designs. I posted one at the beginning of this project - an embossed metal shim box.

This is the front of the hotel-

We were on the top floor to the left and were overlooking the museum. I took a close up of the two centre panels and in Photoshop, applied a filter to give me this special effect.

The two arched columns were done using blackwork. I took this first stage away with me and they were stitched over in Florida. It took a long time - a lot longer than I thought it would. It was a very small intricate pattern. The painted, sponged,padded and quilted overlay was created on my return. When it was complete I stretched it over a box frame.

I used the Arabic writing motif in the centre of the hotel name for a tassel. I isolated the motif, digitised it and sent it to my embroidery machine to stitch out four of them to form the tassel head.

This is the last of the photographed pieces. I have quite a number of pieces still to photograph so they will be in the next post.

This project just keeps growing as I have many more ideas, sketches and designs in the pipeline so I had better get back to it.

Until the next post, cheers everyone.

More of my Dubai project

2011-06-10T00:19:00.001+01:00

I have just returned from a nice relaxing break in the hot sunshine of Florida. I took lots of hand stitching with me ( for the Dubai project of course). There was no way I could have spent a couple of weeks without stitching. I did have my laptop with me so I was able to keep abreast of everything.

We had all our photography gear with us and although we didn't do a lot of photography this time, we did have a super shoot at a Harley-Davidson outlet which was not far from the villa. All the bikes were outside - everyone different and a work of art - lots of chrome and reflections. They all had their keys in them so that anyone could sit on and start one up!!!! (There was also a burly biker sitting under a tree watching.) We were free to take as many photographs as we wished. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Here are a few of my images. I like to take images within images, close ups and unusual angles so not many full bikes. My OH did those..

Now that I am back - on with my Dubai project.

This next set of pieces is based on a motif which was on a large panel inside one of the very opulent 'shops' in the Dubai Mall.

I managed to isolate one of these motifs and created patterns in different sizes. From these patterns I made stamps and stencils and I digitised the design to stitch out on my embroidery machine.

The first piece I created was a bag tag using the digitised motif.

This was stitched onto black felt and then cut out.

As usual, a set of jewellery using this motif design. All these pieces use the sheer sandwich technique.

Using the sheer sandwich technique again, this small hanging/mobile.

Having just acquired new glasses so I made myself a case to store them and to wear around my neck.

I used this motif again as the focal point for a book. I embossed the motif onto gold metal shim. The background was a fabric which I couldn't resist and have had in store for some years.

The pages inside were colour washed and a part of the motif stencilled onto the bottom corners. I also made a little pocket folder for keepsakes which hangs inside.

I made a second book, this time using a stencil and molding paste. The motif was 'pasted' onto pelmet Vilene which was then painted and the raised motifs highlighted with gold gilding wax.

Again, I made the pages for the inside. They were colour washed and then sprayed with gold mist.

Moving on from the motif but staying in the Dubai Mall. There are many different area of the mall and each has its own roof or dome. One of the domes was filled with hanging butterflies - thousands of them.

This butterfly dome is now the desogn source for some more pieces. The first completed piece is a small, hand bag sized, duffle bag. The butterflies were made from a white sheer sandwich, free machined, cut out with a soldering iron and beaded. When applied to the bag fabric the wings were left free.

I made many more sheer butterflies which will be made up into a mobile hanging as they are in the dome ceiling. Hopefully for the next blog.

That is all for now. Stay tuned as they used to say.

Cheers everyone.

Divers of the Dubai Mall

2011-04-21T11:28:00.000+01:00

Before I begin my blog about the divers of the Dubai Mall, I have a couple of other pieces to show from my last blog about the speaker pods and the jug.

To finish off the collection of pieces based on the design of the speaker pods around the fountains at the Dubai Mall, I created a vessel. the problem with vessels is that they take up space - they don't store flat. However, it is so nice that it has been given a place to sit on one of my living room units.

iI used the same technique as for the front of the purse and the hanging. I used pelmet vilene for the foundation cutting two wide and two narrow panels. This was covered with a silver lame fabric and overlayed with black voile mache to knock back the silver ( I love this fabric. It is so delicate.). The design was free machined then I cut away part of the design to create a fret at the top of the panel. Each panel was edged with satin stitch and then joined together. It is fairly substantial and can stand very stably on its own. I did, however, save a small coffee jar which fits inside perfetly and is below the fretwork, should I need to use it and to give it even more stability.

This finished - for the moment anyway- my speaker pod selection.

Another small piece adds to the Arabian jug set, which is still ongoing. I was making some bag tags and used the jug design for some of them. They are not all photographed but this one was. I digitised the design so that I can use it as often as I wish and I have plans for other pieces for the jug design.

Now for the divers of the Dubai Mall.

Inside the Mall we followed a sign doe 'The waterfall'. We had no idea what to expect and as we reached the waterfall we just stood there absolutely amazed - 'gobsmacked' would fit better. There were actually two waterfalls which were was three stories high. Jutting out from the falls were huge bigger than mansize, silver divers. We could go onto three different levels to photograph these divers and so get some incredible shots. I took a lot of images and I mean 'A LOT'. I have also created an AV from them and set it to the music 'The ride of the Valkaries'. It took some time to fit all the images to the music - hitting the beat or phrase of music exactly but I love a challenge and it has turned out well. Here are a few of those images.

I used one of the divers to create a pattern.

This pattern was used to create metal shim embossed divers and digitised for machine stitched divers.

This piece is an attempt to create the waterfall with the divers. The divers were created from embossed silver metal shim. The waterfall had silver grey slub silk fabric as a base, overlaid with black tulle and then couched white and silver threads and yarns over the top. Some were threaded through the tulle. I used sticky dots to attach the divers.

I also made a little bag tag using the same silver grey slub silk with some couched yarns and then a machine stitched digitised diver over the top. It awaits its hanging thread.

Next I created a tassel which fitted the subject perfectly. I created several different sized digitised divers and stitched them out on a thin vilene. each was carfully cut out. As I had used silver in both the top and bottom bobbins the divers were the same on both sides so could hang and spin freely. I made the tassel from the same selection of threads and yarns as I had used on the panel. I stitched two of the divers around the header and hung the rest at different levels around the tassel.

Not an easy piece to photograph - all that white and reflective silver!

I have more pieces completed and ready to photograph and hopefully they will be in my next blog.

So until then

Cheers everyone.

More of my Dubai project

2011-03-16T19:04:00.002Z

Doesn't time fly?

So many time consuming interests and not enough time to do them.

However, I have managed some more textile pieces which have been inspired from my visit to Dubai.

These pieces are all based on the beautifully designed speaker pods which surround the lake area outside the Dubai Mall. When the fountains are on, the music to which these fountains dance, come out of all the speaker pods. Incredible sight and sound.

The first piece is an interpretation of this speaker as it is. I used a silver metallic sheer which sandwhiched a layer of silver angel hair. I created the pattern and free machined the whole thing using silver thread on top and underneath so that it can be viewed from both sides. Once the machining was complete- and I machined it all twice - I cut away the unwanted areas leaving an open fret which is how some of the speakers were on the approach to the Kalifa tower. I couldn't use a soldering iron as the sheer is metallic and wouldn't burn so great care was taken to prevent any fraying.

I intend to use all these small pieces to create a new fabric. Can't possibly waste them can I??

I wanted to set the textile piece into a stainless steel frame as the Dubai speakers were so my OH found some stainless steel rod and tubing and made me a frame to mount the piece into. At the moment it is hanging on a wall but I would love to use it free hanging as a mobile or divider.

Here is a close up of the top secion which on the actual pods were boxes.

As I mentioned, the top section of the pods were boxes so....... I created a box using the same design. The frets were created first but this time, as I didn't have enough sheer, I used black voile mache over silver lame. This time I could use the soldering iron to cut out all the spaces.I used opaque draughtsman paper behind to match the effect of the pod boxes. A pretty good representation.

I used grey felt for the inside of the box and stencilled the design onto the felt with silver paint.

Onto the next two pieces which are related as they are both jewellery, a matching bracelet and necklace.

I used silver leather covered with the black voile mache to take some of the glare away from the leather surface. It was backed with grey felt. I chose a part of the fret design on the speakers to create two design - one for the necklace and one for the bracelet. They were free machined onto the leather using silver thread. When complete the spare was cut away and the edges satin stitched. I didnt cut away the fret this time. Couldn't decide whether to or not so played safe and didn't. I used a toggle and ring fastener for the bracelet and made a stainless steel ring for the necklace. I also added some silver beads around the edges. Not on the speakers but this was jewellery so some artistic license!

The next piece was an evening purse. Again I used the fret design as the source. I created another square similar to the top of the hanging. This time I used the black volie mache over silver lame and a siffener for the back. I stitched the design twice and removed the excess with a soldering iron which sealed the edges. Much needed for a purse which would be opened and closed a lot. The main body of the purse was made from a silver grey dupion slub silk. Perfect for the job. This was quilted with the design from the main column of the speaker pod. The silver fret square was free machined ontoo the front flap. The lining was gey satin and I used a silver chain for the short purse handle. I also made two bag tags - one being a smaller version of the necklace.

This is the back showing the quilted design.

That is all so far from the 'speaker pod' collection. I have more in progress. Sometimes a design can produce a lot of ideas. It is knowing when to stop!!

One piece which did take a long time was one which used a jug I saw on a shelf through the door of one of the Heretage village builldings. I couldn't get a good image of it so I had to source another one from the net.

I like this one but it was ambitious and took a long time to stitch. It was all stitched by hand.

I decided to create this piece using padded metallic leathers - gold, silver and bronze. The background was a traditional tapestry canvas sprayed with gold paint. The areas not covered with padded leather were stitched with black metallic fingering and cross stitch to give depth to match the padded leather. I also used silver and copper fingering to stitch abstracty jugs over the background. It is stretched over a gold frame and the background it is displayed on shows through. It looks better in reality than this image.

That is it as far as textile work is concernedJust before I started this blog post, I embossed two divers onto silver shim. They are the divers from the waterfalls in the Dubai Mall. More of them in the next post.

I have been doing a lot of photography and last week spent a day at a sculpture park. I am doing a project on sculptures so have a few more visits planned to other sculpture venues. I hope the weather is better than last weeks. We suffered every type of weather in just a few hours including a downpour of very sharp ice chips which really hurt. I think they call it 'sufferring for your art'!!!! Hmmmm. At least my macro photography is inside where it is nice and warm.

I have also created a couple more AVs. I have begun to make my textile projects into AVs and set them to music. At least, this way, I see the work which is sadly stored away in boxes and only seen when I give talks to interested groups. Fitting music to the textiles really works well and enhances showing the projects. I can view the projects whenever I wish and they are much nicer viewed with music that complements the themes of the projects. I am on with the AV for my Egyptian project and found some wonderful music by a lady in America - Gale Revilla - which fits the subject perfectly. My problem is which piece of music to use. I like so many of them.

Must away now and get on with all these things I want to do so cheers for now.

Dubai art quilts galore

2011-02-01T02:34:00.001Z

I hope everyone's new year is getting off to a good start with lots of creativity. All this cold weather gives us a good reason to stay indoors and do lots of textiling although I did go out Sunday evening to do some blue hour photography andit was bitter cold. So cold I could hardly feel my fingers to set the camera. A few reasonable shots from it and there could have been more but it will have to wait until it is a bit warmer. Having said that - we are planing to go to Whitby this week to do some evening photography!!!!! Gluttens for punishment. It is forecast to be warmer by then - they said!!!!!

We have taken the plunge and made the decision to have the two settees reupholstered. We are waiting for the fabric to arrive and once they are recovered I can get rid of the throws which are a pain to keep straightening.

Now, as I said I would, the art quilts I have created form photographs I took in Dubai. As I alsways do, I openend the photographs in Photoshop and played around with them until I came up with an idea that I liked.

The first photograph was one of the water taxis tied up and parked on the Creekside.

This is the effect which I liked and used for the art quilt.

This was printed on silk then some surface highlighting with metallic paints was applied followed by free machining.

This is the finished art quilt. I haven't actually applied a border yet but when I do, it will be blue as above.

The next photograph was one of the buildings next to the water taxi parking place. I liked the arched windows.

Again, applying different effects on it in Photoshop -

I quite liked this very colourful effect. I made a pattern and traced the design onto cotton, then painted it with acrylic paints. I free machined the painted design and applied some glitter black pen to ouline the windows.

The next image was of the wooden roof of the fabric souk. there were some incredible fabrics for sale in there but I resisted as I have a huge stock of fabrics and need to use them up. The roof was was created from wooden arches with large ornate lights hanging down.

I simply inverted the colours of this and they turned out to be blue and perfect to make an art quilt.

This design was printed onto silk and free machined.

The next image was taken in the Heritage village. In the foreground there is a part of the original old Dubai fortress wall which has been preserved.

As before, I played with it in Photoshop until I found a design and effect that I liked.

I made a pattern and traced the design onto cotton, then painted and sponged the design ready to free machine.

Another potograph from the Heritage village was a close up shop of a decorative ballistrade which I liked.

I have cloned out the ark lights which light the village up at night. I had to do a lot of work in photoshop in order to create a flat image of just the ballitrade. This too was played with in Photoshop.

I printed this design onto silk and applied some metallic paints and some gold paints.

The final quilt was the largest and so was the most difficult to free machine. It was another image taken in the Heitage village and included a carved wooden camel in a doorway.

I used the same effect as for the old wall art quilt. Red seemed to suit these images and had they not occurred while applying different effects and filters I would not have thought of using these colours. This is one of the main reasons I use these filters. I get colour schemes I would not have dreamt up myself.

Ths design was enlarged with the height being more than a metre. I made a pattern and had to print out several sheets and join them together. the pattern was traced onto white cotton and then I sponged the colour using metallic paints and paper to mask as I sponged. I do not use a long arm quilting machine so it was difficult dealing with such a large quilt.

This quilt was so big I had to photograph it in sections and stitch it together in Photoshop as I had to do with the fabric souk roof art quilt.

That is all six art quilts. I wish I had the wall space to display them all but they are already full with lots of other textile work.

The piece I am working on at the moment is taking a long time as it is all hand stitching. It has turned out to be quite a challenge with a lot of padded leather work so it may be a while before I can blog about it.

So until the next blog

Cheers everyone

A Happy New Year & the start of my Dubai Project

2011-01-02T02:30:00.002Z

A Happy New Year to everyone and I hope it brings you a satisfying and creative one.

I spent my first day of this new year sorting and storing a cupboard full of completed textile pieces. They are all - as best I could - in their appropriate box or file. All the pieces should be easier to find now. I also sorted the pieces and samples I am going to take to the next workshop I am giving later this month. The first talk is one I have given before so that is ready but the one after that is a talk about the jewellery project which led to my book. I need to plan the order of pieces and create the slide show to accompany it. All the pieces have been photographed so it shouldn't take too long. A good start...

The rest of the day was spent creating the jewelled fabric and tracing all the designs of the Dubai motif jewellery and a motif hanging. I managed to free machine the two sides of the purse and the pendant. Still a lot of pieces to free machine - a necklace and a bracelet - hopefully tomorrow.

I began the Dubai project last month - last year!!!- sounds a long time ago doesn't it? I completed a box, a bag and a folder.

I will begin with the box- which had the starting design source from an image of the lift pod in the hotel we stayed at. We stayed at the Arabian Courtyard Hotel in the old part of Dubai not far from the Creek. (I can hiighly recommend this hotel - very friendly and very very helpful). The lift pod was one of two which ran up and down a central well in the hotel.

I used this image and played with it - as I do - in Photoshop and Paint shop pro. I used a kaleidoscope filter and came up with this design.

I knew immediately what technique I would use so first I made a pattern.

Then I used gold metal shim and embossed the design for the lid. The box was created from a bright red silk fabric and the centre of the design was used for small shim 'flowers' on each of the sides.

I used my usual method which allows the box to be stored flat. I free machined the design on the inside of the lid.

The next piece was designed using the image of one of the buildings on the side of the Creek. We went for a trip on the Creek on an Abra which is a water taxi. We hired the taxi to ourselves for an hours trip up and down each side of the Creek. I was able to take many photos of the life and buildings along the sides of the Creek. This was just one of them.

I zoomed in and took just the green squared windows.

Again, I played with the image in the computer and came up with a design which was ideal for printing onto fabric.

This gave me ideas for more than one piece - I created a folder and a bag from the same design.

First, the folder.

I printed the design onto silk fabric. I cut and dyed and sprayed a piee of pelmet vilene the same size. The silk was mounted onto the vilene with a thin layer of wadding then free machined. I free machined each of the squares then threaded some cord through between each of the squares. the edges were satin stitched and I made a wrapped cord to fasten and stitched small beads around the outer edges.

The square machining created a stitched pattern on the lining to match the outside.

To make the bag, I printed the same design onto cotton. This was made into a quilt sandwhich and again I free machined each of the squares then pulled cord through between the squares. I gave the surface a coat of acrylic wax to waterproof and protect it. Then I stitched tiny seed beads around all the squares. The bag was constructed and a handle made from machine wrapped cord and applied with more tiny sed beads. I made tags to complete the effect. It has a zip to close and a satin lining the colour of the original windows on the building.

So there is the start of the project.

I have created six art quilts too but they have yet to be photographed. Some are very large and the weather and light have not been right for the job. Hopefully I will have done that for the next blog.

The only good thing about all the snow and bad weather is being able to stay indoors and be creative both with my textiles and still life photography of which I have done a lot. However, I do miss the photo shoots so I hope the weather will improve enough to go out and do some outdoor photography other than dashing in and out to take pictures of the snow like this one which I played with afterwards for a bit of fun. These are stones in my garden and with the snow on the top looked like little heads. Half an hour after I took this photo it snowed heavily and they were completely buried under a couple of feet of snow - brrrr.

OK - that's it for this blog so until the next one - cheers everyone.

Free machine while it snows!!

2010-12-01T02:00:00.000Z

I suppose I should blog about the S-N-O-W. We have a LOT of it and it is still coming down with no sign of an end to it.

But I won't.

Instead I am going to blog about free machining.

I had a hit on my blog from a lady in America who has posted about my art quilt free machining on her blog. Many thanks for her complements.

It set me thinking. Although I am a fibre, textile and mixed media artist using many many different techniques in my work, I have always been an avid free machiner.

In my early days I was influenced by Liz Hubbard and bought both of her books. It led me to begin buying my stock of threads: cotton, rayon and metallics. I even dyed my own variagated threads and wound them onto empty reels - thanks to a gadget my husband made for me to make it easier. At the time, Guttermann sold packs of 50m themed threads and I bought every set - almost every colour that Guttermann produced. Then I added other makes to them and started my collection of rayon and metallic threads. I am still adding to the collection. You can never have enough threads.

Another influence was Annameike Mein and her work led me to creating 3D pieces.

Free machining has continued to be an integral part of my work and at the moment I am really into creating free machined art quilts. I have already posted a number of them in recent posts and have just finished another seven of them - yet to be photographed.

For this post, I thought I would show some of the diversity of free machining dating back over many years.

Here are some examples of my 'Thread Painting'. I took the photographs, painted the fabric then free machined.

I made a box with thread painted images on each face and a gold thread free amchined image on the inside lid.

These were the days before computers and printers. I had to use the negatives and project them onto fabric (mainly calico and sometimes satin for a richer finish) and mark out the features with a pencil before painting with a mixture of diuted acrylics, fabric paints and silk paints. Oh how technology has changed things; computers, digital cameras, printers and many new products appearing all the time to continue the diversification - wonderful.

I also created the covers for books - this one is a digitised image created in photoshop, printed onto transfer paper, applied to fabric then free machined. Free machined lace added surface texture thanks to soluble fabrics.

I used free machining to create the surface texture on fabrics for bags as with these two bags. They started out as a silk skirt my daughter no longer wanted. I free machined and surface embellished the squares of the design before making up into bags.

When I was creating jewellery, I used a great deal of free machining as with the next series of images.

This last jewellery piece was the one chosen for the cover of my book - Embroidered Jewellery. Sorry, but I could not miss an opportunity to give it a plug. All the techniques for creating these pieces are in the book, however, the skill of free machining is down to practice and dexterity.

As soon as I have managed to photograph my latest art quilts I will post images of them but there are lots to see on previous posts - Domes of Venice ; Purple palm; Richmond falls; Himalayan Poppy; Rusty kaleidoscope to mention just a few!!

So as I have shown, free machining is a very diverse technique once mastered and modern sewing and embroidery machines have made it even easier so if you haven't tried it - have a go.

And it is still SNOWING!!!

Cheers for now.

Dubai, hexagons, silk and cog wheels

2010-10-13T12:21:00.002+01:00

My last post was all about my preparations for a fabulous photo trip to Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Well, we made it to Dubai and in the afternoon of the first day my OH missed his footing, stumbled and in an attempt to prevent a fall, twisted his back so badly it put paid to the rest of the trip. We had to fly back home after only a couple of days. He has now recovered after numerous sessions of physiotherapy but the trip is sadly gone.

I did manage to take some photos of Dubai and I have to say I loved the place. We thought we would have problems with the heat but we didn't. As long as there was some shade the heat was wonderful.

Dubai is a fascinating blend of old and the most spectacular new architecture.

This is the the Khalifa Tower. It is the tallest free standing structure in the world and so beautiful.

I have enough images to create a reasonable good audio visual and I have also decided to create a project of embroidery and textiles based on Dubai so watch this space.

Since my return I have been busy with some textile and embroidery work. As you will have gathered, I take much of my inspiration from my photography. I have created two pieces based on this image of a gravel path in the gardens of Richmond Castle here in North Yorkshire.

The first piece is a little goldwork piece on some woven silk fabric. I used a gold and silver twist for the wire mesh and beads for the gravel.

I haven't decided how to display it yet so it is a sample at the moment.

I put the image into Photoshop and played with it and the result of one of them led to this panel.

The hexagons are couched silver twist onto black velvet and the gravel was created using free machining with variagated metallic threads. Metallic beads were added to give more texture and depth. At the moment it is a hanging but I keep folding it and think it would make a lovely bag! Not sure which it will be yet.

Every time I finish a piece on black velvet, I promise myself it will be the last. It is so difficult to work on. Obviously, I never keep that promise.

I have had the insides of an old pocket watch stored for some time now always intending to use it on a textile piece. I finally did just that with this little piece.

The background is an even weave piece of silk. I tea dyed it and sponged it then I made some cog stencils in different sizes and painted the cogs onto the fabric with various metallic paints. I also used some cogs from the garage to stamp various different cogs. I free machined around all the cogs , stitched down as many of my old pocket watch cogs as I could and filled the open areas with upright random cross stitches to add more texture. Job done.

Two of the pieces so far have been stitched onto silk , this is because I have had a pack of textured and woven silk pieces stored for many years and thought it was time they were put to good use. So the next piece is also stitched onto silk. This is a piece of dupion slub silk. It was big enough to make a book folder. I decided to use one of my digitised designs for the front. I stitched it out with gold thread and used gold thread in the shuttle too so it was the same on top and underneath. I used sponged pelmet vilene for the lining to give it strength and I put some wadding between the silk and the lining to give it a quilted look. Tiny pearl beads were stitched around the edges of the folder to finish.

I have another piece of silk with a large binca style weave. I am thinking 'pulled work' for this. Meanwhile I will be busy designing lots of pieces for the next project - Dubai. I am totally smitten by the place. It could be as big as the Craster project and the Egyptian project. I already have an idea for some of my jewellery which I always include in a project. The more diverse the better.

Until the next post - cheers everyone.

Time to share more art quilts

2010-08-13T20:24:00.002+01:00

These long lapses are becoming a habit although this time I do have a lot to show.

As well as my textile work, I have been busy with my photography too. I bought a delightful little glass bottle in Venice (probably imported from the far east but it is pretty) and have been playing with light and reflection on and through it with both artificial and bright sunlight.

I still have to set up to take images with light passing through in the dark and see what effects I can get.

I am also playing with a digital microscope attached to the computer to see what kind of images I can create. Looking interesting so far.

We have also been out and about with our cameras. We took our grandson for a shoot at Saltburn-by- the-sea and he came back with almost 200 images to sort!! I showed him how to create an AV and he is on with that now. Picked it all up very quickly including all the ‘bells and whistles’ that can be applied. I had to point out, however, that using too many of these can make the viewer go dizzy!!

I too have completed a couple more AVs using the images I took in Venice and also one using all the images I took of time pieces. It is such a nice way to use all the photographs you take and show them to music. the hardest part is deciding which images to use!!

I have also been busy with all the things that have to be done before we go on our next trip. Just made arrangements to have any vaccinations we may need, checking on the insurance cover for all the camera equipment, getting the trip flagged with our credit card company so that they don’t put a stop on it thinking it has been cloned, finding comfortable shoes (very important), more cool skirts, mending the big suitcase which was damaged during a trip by my daughter and her family to Monte Carlo, and I expect there will be a lot more to do before we leave. Remembering now why we stopped travelling so much. Just hope the threatened strikes don’t effect us!!!!

Onto the textile work.

The first piece was created from an image of the Basilica in Venice which we took on our recent visit there.

I opened it in Photoshop and played with some of the special effect filters and liked this effect.

I used this image to create an art quilt. I duplicated it four times and created this design.

I painted some silk for the background then and printed the domes onto another piece of silk. I ironed soft iron on Vilene onto the back and cut them out. They were pinned over the background, a quilt sandwich made and then I free machined the domes onto the background.I used French knots for the multi crosses on the top of the domes and towers. Finally I quilted the background ‘sky’.

I haven’t decided how I am going to display it yet. I am considering stretching it over a frame.

The next piece was created using an image of some palm leaves taken while over in Florida last year.

Again, I played with filters in Photoshop and decided on this effect.

This was printed onto silk, painted with metallic acrylic paints, made up into a sandwich and free machined. Beads and sequins were added for additional texture.

Again, I haven’t decided how I am going to mount this one.

The next piece was designed from an image taken at the foot of the waterfalls at Richmond in North Yorkshire.

I played, as I do, with the image in Photoshop and decided on this effect.

This time I took different parts of this image and duplicated them creating 15 small pieces. They were all then arranged into a large composite piece.

When I was satisfied with the layout, each of these 15 pieces was printed onto cotton, highlighted with gold acrylic pant, made up into a sandwich and free machined. When the machining was complete , I added some hand stitching then cut them down to their edges, arranged them onto a heavier backing and zigzag machined them down. The whole piece was edged with a loose satin stitch.

The final piece was created from yet another image. This was part of an image of a porcelain ornament of a little girl with a broom. I decided to use the Andy Wahol effect and have four different colour effects of the same image.

I turned it into a black and white and stylised it.

Next I changed some parts of each image into another block colour so that there were four different coloured images.

I made each of the backgrounds a different colour too and arranged them into a large square. Colours were changed and adjusted at this stage until I liked the colour balance.

I painted and highlighted each of them with metallic acrylic paints then made a sandwich and free machined the piece using different coloured threads including an invisible thread. the final quilt was edged with black.

I free machined little flowers over the backgrounds of each square.

That is it for the textile work.

At the moment I am getting to grips with extra features of Photoshop CS5 and expanding my knowledge of what this program will do. I have subscribed to Photoshop Creative which is a monthly magazine which is full of tutorials and tips for Photoshop. It comes with a CD full of video tutorials and images and brushes etc. Pleased with it. All the extra techniques and features will come in handy when I start on another batch of digital images and composites.

I recently purchased a new extra external HD (you can never have enough back up) which I am going to use as a library. I am trying to develop a way to catalogue all my images and resources which suits me and the way I work.

I must also begin to plan the next batch of textile pieces. I find making these decisions the hardest part. I have a file bulging with sketches and ideas and find it hard to decide which to tackle first. I am like a kid in a sweet shop unable to make up my mind as I want to do them all.

Until then – back to CS5.

Cheers everyone

Venice and blue poppies

2010-07-02T01:02:00.001+01:00

Hard to believe it is July already and yes I have been very lazy about keeping up with my blog. I do manage to keep up, to some extent, with my long list of favourite blogs so I do keep abreast of what these bloggers are up to even though I don't manage to keep my own blog up to date.

Since my last blog I have been to Venice and completed another art quilt. I have also created quite a number of AV's - something I am really enjoying. I just wish there were more hours in the day to give the time I would like to ALL my creative activities.

First - my visit to Venice. This was quite a sudden decision as was the next trip to be taken in September. It is thirty-one years since I last visited Venice. I went for five days and at the end of that time I had 671 images to bring back. We had lovely weather except for one day when it rained heavily ALL day but at least it was warm rain and we were wearing long capes which helped to keep us reasonably dry. It did give us different kinds of images.

This was the very first image I took while out on the first evening getting out bearings.

A very typical image of Venice as is the next one -

of the Grand Canal. I took many well known images of Venice but I was mainly interested in taking images of the side of Venice we don't normally notice. Everyone is used to seeing the gondoliers standing on the back of the gondola weaving along the side canals. I was amused by this group of gondoliers gathered together relaxing.

This was a very unusual building and not one to miss. It took some finding, hidden down a narrow ally. It was surrounded by a stout railing so could only be photographed through the railings. Could have done with a set of steps!!

When we left Venice, we hired a water taxi which gave us a speedy and exhilarating ride back to the airport. VERY expensive but fantastic.

It has taken a long time to process all my images and have reduced them down to just over 400 - still rather a lot but......

Before we went to Venice we had a visit to a sculpture garden known as The Hutts. It is part of a farm which has created a Himalayan garden which features lots of sculptures - mostly contemporary. The garden was full of azaleas and rhododendrons and it closes when the flowers on these bushed die off. There are two lakes which have large floating sculptures in them. It is quite a testing walk up and down the hillsides but well worth a visit.

I took this image of some blue Himalayan poppies which are very difficult to grow.

I used this poppy image as the design source for my next art quilt. I took it into Photoshop and played with lots of effects, keeping those which rang the design bells like this one..

and this one....

I created fifteen different designs and used the computer again to bring all the different designs together into one large art quilt panel. Once this was done I could edit and size each image which was then printed onto white cotton. Each was highlighted with metallic and acrylic paints then sandwiched into mini quilts and free machined. The stamen and anthers were stitched using French knots. I cut the surplus away and satin stitch edged each of them.

I took a while to decide how to join them together, eventually deciding on free machine fagoting which worked well and suited the panel.

I am now creating an AV showing how the panel was created which is quite a challenge to do it the way I want to do it so I am having to learn some new tricks. I have found a lovely piece of music for it.

I went over to the Lake District yesterday - more images to process - and bought a pair of the most comfortable sandals I have ever worn. Much needed for our next trip to Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore. My feet really suffered during the five days in Venice with so much walking to do and carrying all the photo equipment. To top it all, we were on the third floor with no lift!! I made this climb usually in bare feet as they were pounding so much and the stairs were cool marble. We would spend the next few hours laid on the bed resting the feet ready for the next trip out including the late evenings for night photography.

The next trip will be sixteen days and again - a lot of walking so better and more comfortable footwear was a must.

OK, I think that is it for now. Don't know how long to the next blog but until then

Cheers everyone.

Hong Kong dragons and NASA leaves

2010-05-11T11:46:00.001+01:00

Another long gap but I have been busy. The work I have been doing has been rather time consuming so not a lot to blog about while creating them. It is another case of 'not enough hours in the day'. So much I want to do and not enough time to do them. Housework tends to slip to the bottom of the list although I did do a good dust bust and hoover yesterday - well actually, my OH did the hoovering bit while I did the dist busting bit.

We have been out on a number of photo shoots and when we return there is always a long and time-consuming session processing and playing with the images. I have also given two talks to embroidery groups with another one later this month. i was also persuaded to give a workshop for one of them so have been looking at ideas and creating samples for that too.

Another new passion of mine is creating AV's (audio visuals) from my photography. I have created five of them now. The latest one evolved from the need to scan and rescue our huge library of slides taken when we used a film camera. They were beginning to degrade and were also covered in dust particles and tiny bits from just the general showing of them over the years. Each one has been scanned, every tiny dust mark removed, the image enhanced and brought back, as close as was possible, to the original and saved as a digital image. It brought back so many memories of that trip that I decided to create an AV from some of the best images. We did not have the camera or the lenses of today and you can imagine the results of taking images sitting in a sanpan travelling over the water with the boat going up and down, an iso of 100 and no VR lens (for those not in the know about this - it means slow speed film and no anti shake lens). Many of the images were a bit blurred but in spite of that I did manage to sharpen and enhance them enough to use in the AV.
I have used a fabulous piece of music called Fishing junks at sunset - perfect for this AV. It is about 8 minutes long and uses about 74 images. I have also learned how to pan and zoom which makes for a more interesting effect.
These are a few of the images I used.

This is Hong Kong in Cantonese and was part of the intro.

We were there a few years before Hong Kong was handed back to China and I created this Dragon box as a memory of that visit.

We are now in the process of putting together another visit to Hong Kong to see how it has changed over the years and now that we have a camera and the lenses to do the photography should get a fabulous record of the place. I loved every minute of the last visit. I hope the next one will be as memorable (in good ways with no disasters).

I have still been creating some textile work - and yes, more art quilts. I am really into these at the moment.
When we were over in Florida we went to NASA space centre again - having lost all our photographs of it from the last visit when my computer crashed. I took this image of some very large leaves which were outside a restaurant. This image has been played with a little to get a better composition.

I played with this image in Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro and came up with several designs for art quilts. The first one was created using PSP and the kaleidoscope filter.

I also played with the colours and quite liked this rusty red effect. I also extended the design with some copy and paste. I made it 30cm wide so that I could print it on the A3 printer to its maximum size. The colours were saturated for the printing and I used pigment inks on white cotton. I also put it through the printer twice to enrich the colour. I have devised a way to fool my printer so that it will overprint. Once printed, it was made up into a quilt sandwich and free machined.

I couched some thick yarn and added beads for effect.

The second quilt was quite different. I kept the leaves but played with the colours and effect. I also selected some leaves and pasted them over the top to create a balanced design. I used these selected leaves and printed them separately to apply on top of the finished quilt.
This is the finished art quilt. It is 60cm wide so fairly big.

I had to divide the design into two and printed the two halves separately - each 30cm wide. They had to be joined with a single seam down the middle which is partly hidden by the applied leaves.

Again, when the printing and joining was complete it was sandwiched and free machined. The separate leaves were stabilised with vilene and free machined. Then they were cut out and stitched in place over the top to create a 3D effect. I made six of these.

And that's about it. I am now ready to start designing the next project. I have more designs based on the leaves ready to print but might do something else. I have noticed that the bluebells are pen in the garden so may go and bring some inside and do some macro photography on them. Hmmmm - a bluebell art quilt!!!! but I really need to use some of my other materials. In a quandary as to what to do next. Watch this space.

Cheers for now everyone.

More Art Quilts

2010-04-09T22:19:00.002+01:00

Time for another blog.

Spent this morning out with my OH and my grandson on a photo shoot. We went to one of our two unique famous bridges - The Transporter bridge. I prefer to take odd angled images so I didn't take a full conventional view of it to show you.

When I was a teenager in the days of tight pencil skirts and winkle picker stiletto heels and backcombed buffon hair - a few of us decided to cross the bridge the hard way - up and over the top. And yes, we were dressed in pencil skirts, stiletto heels and backcombed hair with lots of hair spray. We looked a bit hot, sweaty and wind blown - in spite of the hair spray - by the time we reached the other side. These days, this climb and walkway have been closed to the public - sadly because of suicides. It is a long way down to the river below. I shudder at the thought of it now.

The weather, at last, was glorious even down by the river quayside. My GS took his usual huge batch of images which we managed to whittle down when processing them. He is becoming more discerning about what he keeps now. He has always loved this bridge which he called 'blue ferry' and we used to take him across regularly when he was younger. It has a cradle which you drive onto and it travels across hanging from the span.

Between all the photography sessions, I have managed to do some textile work.

I mentioned the Stone Queen in the last post. I printed the image onto white cotton and then highlighted areas with metallic acrylic paints and then free machined it.

I have also created another art quilt which started out as a photograph of some leaves on one of my house plants. I put it through a serious of special effects in Photoshop and the results triggered an idea for an art quilt.

This is the first panel. I loved the colours.

This is the second panel.

I used these two to create a composite.

The panels were printed onto white cotton. Obviously the colours would not be as vibrant as on the screen but I made them as strong as I could by sliding the saturation level higher and also the red and magenta to get the purple I wanted. I always test print on a piece of the same fabric and adjust accordingly. The panels were printed so that I could stitch each one individually.

When they had been printed, I painted some areas with metallic acrylic paints before free machine quilting them.

Once all the panels had been stitched they were trimmed and butt joined together. I used a wide zigzag machine pattern to join the panels and a narrow zigzag to edge.

I decided not to give the piece a border.

The final quilt is less vibrant and I still haven't decided on the black four petal crosses over the windows and over some of the joins. I made some mock ups and laid them on but could not decide which I preferred. So as I always say - 'If in doubt, leave it out'. So I have for now. This is a close up of the top set of four panels

The final quilt is about 50cm long and I used one of those furnishing samples I mentioned in my last post. They make excellent backing for quilting.

I am now ready to begin thinking about what I am going to do next so cheers for now everyone.

Bags and books

2010-03-24T18:07:00.003Z

Time to blog again and an update as to what I have been doing recently.

A friend of mine dropped by with a big bag of furnishing samples. These are the ones you see in the big books in furniture shops.

I don't ever say no to a free-bee and after she had left I began to wade through the pile putting them into sizes, colours etc. As I was doing this the design bells began to ring and I could see bags and books and folders and many of the pieces would be very good for the backing of art quilts so I doubt that any will go to waste.

The first piece was a bag using a piece of striped red fabric. I covered it with a silver scrolled sheer fabric over angelina fibres and used the design on the sheer to make bag tags.

Onto the next piece.

I used the back of the fabric for this piece as I liked the design better on the back than the front. I machine couched yarns down the stripes and picked out the three leaf trefoil and digitised it to stitch out on the machine many times in two different sizes. Twisted and wrapped yarns were stitched around the edges and to make the fastener with two more trefoils on the ends.

The next piece of fabric became a shoulder bag. I picked out the printed border design and embellished it with fancy yarns, threads and beads. I used a matching knitting yarn to plait a long handle.

Using a similar fabric but in different colours I made another shoulder bag.

The next piece of fabric suggested a folder using the diamond design on the fabric. I picked out this diamond design and created an embossed shim accent for the centre. I also used alcohol ink pens to colour the shim. I used transfer foils to pick out the flowers in alternate diamonds and sequins for the remainder with hand stitched daisies. Gold thread and dyed chenille yarn was machine couched along all the diagonal lines. I sprayed turquoise card with Starburst stains and glued it to the inside to form the lining then machine couched more chenille yarn around the edges. I used the same yarn machine wrapped to create the tie.

A similar piece of fabric, but in reds ,was made into another folder. Again I used transfer foil on the little flowers and black beads and hand stitched red daises. Black and red yarns were couched along the diagonals and around the edges and to make the tie. This time I used four red glass jewels for the central motif. They were stitched in place using needle weaving. if you look closely you can see me taking the photograph. I forgot to put the polorising filter onto the lens....

The final piece for this post is this little book. The round medallion was a paper caste over an old brooch painted and rubbed with gilding wax. I made the pages of the book by painting some pages from a book and stamping them and the remaining pages were folded to make pockets. I stamped these too. They were all machine stitched down the spine of the lining fabric. The front and lining were stitched together with card inserted inside to stiffen.

I couched gold ribbon and fancy threads down the spine. Gold elastic was used to fasten the book closed.

Finally, at last, I have plucked up the courage to install the continuous feed ink system onto my A3 printer. I have had this system for two years being too apprehensive to install it. So, I engaged the help of my daughter and together we managed it. There were a couple of air locks in the lines but eventually it all installed and works - thank goodness. All I need to do now is to buy some bottles of ink and keep the system topped up which won't be for some time yet as there is a lot of ink in the system bottles. It works fine and I have tested it by printing out my stone queen design for an art quilt. It has been sponged with some metallic paints and is now ready to free machine quilt. It will probably be in the next post.

The world figure skating championships are on at the moment so I will be watching them for the next few days while I am working on some of my digital imaging on the computer. It is one job I can do while keeping one eye on the TV.

Until the next posting - cheers everyone

Digitally created images and higglety houses

2010-02-21T16:14:00.000Z

Another long gap but I have been creatively busy. I am very much into digital imaging taking and using my own photographs. I have even subscribed to the magazine Photoshop Creative which I find extremely useful for all those tips and techniques. I don't like everything covered in the mag as some of the creations are a bit OTT but I have learned a lot never the less. The downside of this is the time factor. It is very time consuming but I love it.

These are some of my digital images:

I have still been creating textile pieces too. Many of my photographs and digital images are often turned into textiles. This next image was the starting point for another art quilt. It was taken while on a walk around the city walls of Chester. They caught my eye because of the zig zag of the gable ends and the different colours.

The image was cropped, the bland sky replaced and a special effect applied.

Next, I duplicated the row to make eight houses and gave every house a lamp post. Each house was then separated from the row and further effects applied. Some were flipped. Some had a colour change and a border applied. Next I played around with the layout of the houses. I planned to stitch each one separately and then combine them back into one long art quilt. I wasn't too keen on a straight line so I arranged them in a higglety pigglety layout.

Each of the houses was then printed onto white cotton using pigment inks and an inkjet printer. They were each made into a quilt sandwich and free machined. They were all edged with machined satin stitch. I played around on the computer with different coloured backgrounds for the houses and the best one was a dark blue. I did think that black would have been the best but when I filled the background with black it dulled and took the vibrance off the houses. So dark blue it was. I quilted the background and applied the houses. I haven't taken a photograph of the finished house quilt yet but I did photograph the individual finished houses so I have created a simulation of the finished piece.

Sharing out my time with photography, digital imaging and textiles is not easy. Not enough hours in the day!! There is also family and getting some exercise and the dreaded 'housework' which tends to go to the bottom of the list of 'to do's' these days.

I am off to do some exercises on the Wii, then a soak in the bath, something to eat then on with some machining on the next textile piece.

So until the next post - cheers everyone.

More art quilts and MORE snow!!!

2010-01-31T00:24:00.000Z

Another long gap but I have been busy and not had the time nor the light to do the photography. However, I now have something to blog about. I did the photography today and took some more images of yet MORE snow!! I suspected that our share of snow wasn't over but I was hoping to be wrong.

As I often create composite digital images, I take and compile files of images that will be useful so I took the opportunity, today, of taking some more snow images. We have a block set drive and it didn't take long for the snow to begin to melt and create patterns-

It has cleared completely now - let's hope it stays away!!

Now for some creative textile pieces. Some time ago I took a photograph of a rubber molding mat, opened it in Photoshop and played around with it. I created three images which I liked.

I used these three images to create three art quilts. I made patterns for each one and using a light box traced the designs onto the fabrics. I used a white crayon on the dark green fabric. The two dark green designs were then painted with metallic paints. Once the painting was complete I made up the quilt sandwiches and free machined the designs. After the turquoise quilt was stitched, I sponged the surface with a black granite metallic paint. The three were edged and hung as a triptych.

Last summer - seems a long time ago now - my OH and I went for a photo shoot at an old derelict railway yard which is now a kind of restoration museum. Growing amongst all the rusty bits and pieces and old wagons were beautiful tall foxgloves. They grow in places like that but will not grow in my garden!!.

I took photos of them and these became the subject of my next art quilt.

I opened them in Photoshop and as usual played with all the settings, filters etc and then I began to create a composite from the different images and selections from those images. I always intended to make one of these images into an art quilt but it was after buying Charlotte Zeibarth's book that I decided to combine both of them into the one piece. I recommend her book and also her web site.

This was the original composite which I had every intention of keeping to, but as the piece progressed I changed my mind.

Each of the images - the long image on the right, the three horizontal images on the left, the two selected flower heads, the four mini horizontal images and the ten selected bolts - were all printed on white cotton. I use an A3 inkjet printer with pigment inks. There is no need to treat the cotton when using pigment inks. It is at this stage that I made the first error which contributed to my change of mind on the final composition. I forgot to flip the centre horizontal image. Once printed, I highlighted the flowers with metallic paints.

All the printed and painted pieces were then made up into quilt sandwiches and I proceeded to free machine them using a mixture of rayon and polyester cotton threads. When they were all stitched, I laid them out on the studio table and began to create the composite. It was then that I realised that I had forgotten to flip two of the images - grrrr! However, when I laid all the small images over the top of the large ones I began to realise that a lot of the very detailed and intricate free machining was going to disappear under these patches. Me being me, I could not come to terms with this so I began to redesign the composition. I came up with an alternative design and stitched all the main body pieces together first, then those patches which I did want over the top - ie the bolts and finally I joined the remaining small pieces.

The whole piece was edged with a zig zag machine stitch which enclosed a six stranded embroidery thread. I was not disappointed at all with the final piece and it adds to my list of successfully rescued pieces. It is about 60 x 70cm. I gave it a coat of acrylic gloss medium which enhances the colours and protects the surface. It does, however, change the feel of the surface but if it is to be hung then it is beneficial.

and a close up of some of the detail.

I am now on with the next piece - another art quilt but very different to this one. I will post about it when it is finished.

Until then - cheers everyone.

2010-01-04T12:48:00.002Z

Happy New Year to everyone and hears wishing you all a very creative and satisfying year.

We have lots of snow here and as usual this country is not very good at coping with it. It looks very pretty and for me I prefer to look at pictures of the snow rather than endure it. I was brave enough at one point to go out and do some photography but stayed inside my garden. I took this one just outside my front door.

I ventured a little further and found this 'snow tongue' on the mahonia. This bush is in blossom at the moment and the blossoms that were out have suffered with the ice but there are new ones coming out.

I liked the way the snow landed on the conifers looking like a 'snowfall' of snow.

In the back garden the pond was well frozen.

There are lots of frogs down under there. Brrrrr.

My OH has just gone out to the coast to do some photography and as keen as I am on photography I declined to go. I must admit that I am a bit of a fair weather photographer.

Now to the zentangles. I have always been a compulsive doodler and it seems that my grandson has the doodle gene in him too as he loves to doodle and they are very mature considering his age. Doodles are also known as 'Zentangles' and there are web sites dedicated to them. This is a link to one of them Zentangle Gallery.

I have come across a few zentangling/doodling bloggers who are also textilers and quilters too. Here are their links if you are interested - Artopia - Janet ; Finishing Lines and The Quilt Rat .

Back to my zentangle piece. I decided to make a checkerboard quilt with black zentangles on the white and white zentangles on the black but when then the black on white zentangles were complete I felt it was more effective leaving the black squares black.

The photograph isn't as it should be as my usual photo studio in the conservatory - which gives me such good light - has the roof covered in snow and is darker than I like. I always try to use natural light when photographing textiles and still life pieces. This piece was pinned to a board, propped up against my computer monitor with light coming directly at it from the south facing window. I had to use the 20mm lens as I was so close to it so adjustments had to be made. However, it does show the effect of the 'Zentangle Checkerboard Quilt'.

It reminds me of the chess board I made for my daughters wedding present. I made a blackwork board and created blackwork designs using hers and her husbands initials. A for the 8 black square on one side, C for the 8 squares on the other side and a combination of A and C for the 8 centre squares. I remember one square took 8 hours of stitching. I bought them the Lewis chess set to complete the gift. I also drew the designs on paper showing how the letters had created the designs and this was stuck on the back of the board.

I never took a photograph of their board but here is the one I made for myself and my husband using the same criteria.

Not a very good image as it was taken many, many years ago on slide film. I must get around to retaking all the slide photo pieces - when I have the time!!!! Speaking of which - it is lunch time so cheers for now everyone.

The first snow of this winter - Brrrrrr

2009-12-17T17:27:00.003Z

Today we have had the first snow of this winter with bitter cold winds too. A good day for staying in the workroom although I did venture out for part of a minute to take this photograph for my 'image of the day' which is 351 today. Not many to go to complete the year.

I have been busy lately with lots of things - not Christmas ones yet. They begin when my grandson finishes school and stays with me. I have sent out the cards which needed to be posted.

I have been spending time on my photography and digital imaging and laying out a book. How time flies when doing these.

There has been time too to create some textile pieces. They have been a mixture of art quilts, panels, books and folders.

I don't have time to show them all or go into the detail of how I created them but I am sure many of you will be able to see which techniques I have used. There is very little new out there just variations.

This is a letter or note folder. I have used white acrylic velvet and dyed it then layered it up with fibres, chips and black Misty Fuse. I free machined the scrolls over the top.

I have been experimenting a lot with making paper but not with pulp. This piece of paper is painted ready to embellish.

As I have already mentioned, I have been doing a lot of photography and one of the topics I am working on is 'Time Pieces'. My OH gave me a lovely carriage clock many years back for a wedding anniversary present and I took some photographs of it. I used one of the images, applied a special effect in Photoshop, enlarged it, printed it onto coated silk then free machine quilted it. I applied some gold paint on the numbers and pointers. I also free machined a message around one side of the clock face. Now here is a confession. The reason for the text is because when I printed the image onto the silk, I did or didn't do something and it printed to one side. I couldn't bear the thought of reprinting or cutting it down and wasting all that ink and silk so I created the text -"Put time aside to fulfil your creative passion". Neat Eh????

This little quilted panel was an attempt to use the basic technique and colour scheme of Lynda Monk and adapt it . I didn't quite get the colour scheme right and set myself the challenge of double machining the machine patterns so that they were exactly over each other. It worked but I like Lynda's colours better.

Now the colours on this little book were what I was trying to achieve. I must be bolder when it comes to 'washing' over the top with another colour. The cover was another paper experiment.

Bad news at the moment - my embroidery machine has had to go back to be repaired AGAIN. So I had to pack it all up again to be collected by the courier.

The last time I did this I took a photograph of the box and applied a special effect to it. Didn't expect to be using this image again so soon. Why do we feel such a personal loss when our machines have to go away?? I do have another one so I can still do all my sewing but........

And speaking of photography again. I did a study using a sheet of polorising filter and here is one of the images.

and another one-

I think I finished up with 90 images from this session.

I haven't time for more. Must get something to eat which reminds me - My 10 year old grandson said to me a couple of weeks ago when it was time for bed -'if we didn't have to go to bed and didn't have to eat or go to the toilet, we would have much more time to do what we want.' Hmmmmm now there's a thought.

Cheers everyone

Rudbeckia folder

2009-10-24T22:11:00.001+01:00

It has been a while since my last blog but I have something to blog about tonight.

A few blogs ago I mentioned a visit to Richmond castle - the one in North Yorkshire. I posted an image of a swathe of Rudbeckia in the castle gardens.

These flowers caught my eye and I took several photos of them including my favourite kind - macro.

I decided to use this image for the cover of a pad folder.

I bought some Evolon at a show this year and wanted to use it and see how it behaved. I decided to print the image onto it. Not having printed on it before I didn't know how it would print so to be on the safe side I gave it a coating of InkAid to ensure a better vibrancy of colour.

InkAid is a fluid which will coat any surface and if it will go through an inkjet printer, you can print on it. The ink does not soak into the surface and lose its vibrancy. If you have never used it, it is worth a look.

I use a dense piece of sponge to apply it to the surface. On this occasion I used the clear semi gloss precoat.

Be sure that you take note which side of the fabric you coated - which I didn't!!! so I am not sure if the coated side was the one which was printed. The colours were vibrant enough so I hope it was the right side.

This synthetic fabric is strong and can be free machined without a stabiliser. I free machined some detail lines onto the petals and then began to create a padded centre for the flower. First I tacked several layers of wadding in the centre to create a 'dome'. Next I took a piece of black felt and covered it with a layer of black crystal organza and backed it with a piece of black stabiliser. I then, using black metallic thread, stitched lines in two directions across the suface to closely represent the centre of the flower.

This was then stitched in place over the 'domed' padding.

Next I stitched three rows of fringe using a fringe foot which I have had for at least three years and never used before. I used a very unfriendly black thread which kept shredding so I had a lot of ends to stitch in. Even though this can be a bit tedious, I prefer to persevere and use these threads for their effect rather than not.

I stitched gold glass beads at intervals into the fringe. This completed the front of the folder.

The inside was created from a piece of golden yellow card which was adhered to the front using a spray glue. I trimmed the edges and then zigzgged the edges together.

I used a piece of the yellow card to make a holder for the pad. It was folded and creased - completing the folder.

A simple and effective technique.

At the moment I am trying to decide on a new project and have a couple in mind but nothing definite yet. No sooner do I think I have decided than I come up with another one and off I go again with indecision. So frustrating - lots and lots of notes and scribbles growing by the day. I need to take 'the bull by the horns' and make a start. Once I do that I will be focussed and the project will grow. Hmmmmm.

Tonight I must process my image of the day so until I have something else to blog -

Cheers everyone.

Bronze art quilt

2009-10-07T00:49:00.002+01:00

A bit of a gap since my last blog but I have something to blog about at last.

I have spent much of my time mastering the music editing software 'Audacity' and iMovie to create AV's. I have created three so far. It has meant that I have had to browse through all my image files, sorting out the images I wanted to use for them. It is only when I needed to do this did I realise just how many images I have in store.

I did a photo shoot on some antique pocket watches which had the most wonderful detailed and delicate engraving on them. I want to do another AV using these images so I am now trying to find music to go with them. Hmmm.

Now on with the textile part of the blog.

Earlier this year, I went to my town's public park to do some photography and came across a bronze plate sculpture. It was created by a local sculpture who became quite renowned for his bronze sculptures. The bronze plate was a memorial dedicated the the fallen of the second world war. As it is the 60th anniversary of that war it was rather fitting that I use this bronze plate as my tribute to those who sacrificed so much.

I took the image into Photoshop and put a special effect on it.

I decided to make an art quilt of the plate. First I needed to make a pattern so I turned the image into black and white and then applied another filter onto it to crate a more defined contrast. I resized and printed out this image.

I pinned tracing paper over this image and traced the most defined lines. I decided to leave out the scroll across the top and also the text on the scroll she was holding. I went on line and found a Latin translator and devised my own Latin words to put on this scroll. "Never forget their sacrifice"

Once I had the traced pattern I could prepare the fabrics. I had in store some wonderful very dark gold and black sheer but it was a bit too gold so I used some habutai silk and painted it with a bronze colour which when placed under the sheer gave a very effective metal bronze. This was made into a quilt sandwich with 2ox wadding and black background fabric. The traced design was pinned over the top and using a black and gold metallic thread, free machine quilted the design.

When the design was stitched and all the tracing paper fully removed - a bit of a tedious job but not one to skimp - the edges were stitched and then the patina effect applied. I had intended to use a blue metallic paint for the patina effect but eventually I used both blue and green (ver de gris) metallic paints. I gently fingered the paint over the areas I wanted to be patina'd!!

It really did look like the bronze plate in the park.

Here is a close up of the head.

I have now begun my next piece which is very different - not an art quilt - but it will have to wait as tomorrow I am off down to London to Ally Pally. We are staying overnight near to London so that we can get to the show for its opening. I have never been to Ally Pally before and it may be my only visit.

To make this an even better visit - I am meeting up with Lynda Monk (Purple Missus) and we are going to spend the day together. We have never met but have become good friends via blogs and emails. I am taking my copy of her book for her to sign and hopefully she will have her copy of my book for me to sign. I am really looking forward to Thursday. It is going to be a super day. So it is off to bed - packing to do in the morning and an early start.

Cheers everyone.

Rusty folder

2009-09-22T13:56:00.003+01:00

I wondered why I have been feeling so tired and lethargic of late but yesterday I discovered why. I have developed a throat infection and cough and it is affecting my ears too. However I don't feel so tired and lethargic now so the worst must be over. Just need to get rid of the sore throat and cough.

I have not been doing quite so much in the textile field as I have been learning how to create photo slide shows with music. They are usually referred to as VA's. I created my first one for my daughter's birthday - at her husband's request. It started out as just being a little slide show of her growing up but developed into one with music and all the photos fitting the words of the song.

With one under my belt, I decided to go further and use some of my own photography and create a VA I have called 'The Changing Year'. I used iDVD on my Mac to make the first one but I wanted even more control over this one so I have had to learn how to use iMovie on my Mac. I knew which music I wanted to use but I only had a copy of it on an old cassette so I had to go on line and find a new CD copy which I found and bought with a few others!!! Like my music.

I waded through all my photographs and reduced the choice down to 72 of them. I played with the different transitions and times and calculated that I needed about 8 and a half minutes. This meant that I would have to have at least two pieces of music and join them together. No probs - there is a free download of a program for editing music. It is called Audacity. I downloaded it and have learned how to use that and have now not only joined two pieces of music with fade in and out and removing bits that didn't fit at the blend but also selected a phrase of music and pasted it in to lengthen it by 30 seconds to fit my slideshow exactly. I found it all much easier than I envisaged although that is down to the two programs making them reasonably easy to use.

So I now have an AV called The Changing Year which runs for just over 8and a half minutes with music. Planning my next one now. Just looking for the images to fit the piece of music I have chosen.

Now for a textile piece.

When I was at the FOQ, I bought some Rusting powder so this piece is the result of trying it out.

I cut a piece of fabric, wet it and laid it in a tray and sprinkled some rusting powder over it then spritzed it with white vinegar.

I left it to cook for a couple of days until the depth of colour was strong enough.

It was washed and ironed ready to decide what to do with it.

I have been going through a bit of a 'can't decide what to do next' so eventually decided to use this fabric and create something. I decided to make another pad folder as it was the right size.

I sponged the surface with bronze metallic paint then ironed some black FuseFX over that followed by blue transfer foil.

Again, a chance to use up some sample bits - I painted a paper cast of a brooch and some Tyvek which had been imprinted with a stamp design using an iron.

I also dyed some yarn to couch over the surface.

The motifs were stitched in place with free machining and the dyed yarn was machine couched in a design picked up from the centre paper motif.

I painted some blue card with brusho and sprayed Starburst stains over that and sprinkled salt over that to create the mottled lining.

It was edged with a zigzag over stitch with a metallic thread.

And here is the finished pad folder which has turned out better than expected.

Now back to' what do I do next'???? Off to the workroom and hopefully.....

Cheers for now everyone.

Canvas file cover

2009-09-08T11:27:00.023+01:00

At last I have finished the canvas file cover. It has taken a long time as it has all been hand stitching.

I have always enjoyed doing all the different techniques in textile work and that includes the traditional as well as the very new. In fact I always use whichever technique that gives me what I want and I often combine them if that is what is required.

Because I have had this wide range of interests it means that I have a wide range of materials and 'stash' as we like to call it now. It is a good word - it sums up my hoard perfectly - another good word!

I have been doing a bit of reorganising lately - making room for more 'stash' and came across a roll of canvas the hessian coloured kind. I decided to use some of it but for what. Then I spotted the large ring files I have in store - 8cm deep ones. They are useful to store samples and small pieces in clear plastic files and being 8cm deep means you can store quite a lot. I have one in use at the moment which i made a cover for not long ago. So I decided to make another cover ready for when the current file is full.

I cut the canvas to size - large enough to make flaps at either end and turn unders along the edges.

I painted the canvas on one side with black acrylic paint. When it was dry I used Liquitex gold, green and blue interference medium and gently finger brushed it over the surface blending the three colours as you can see on the back of the cover.

Not as shiny and vibrant as in reality.

I placed squares of Irise film behind to catch the light. It also reflected the same colours as the interference mediums I was using. I would be stitching through the film to hold it in place.

Next I had to decide what to embellish on the front. I began to scribble and as you can see doodle as I incessantly do.

I could not get squares out of my head probably because the canvas is all squares. So I decided to go with a squares design. The one above was the starting point and guide and I didn't change it too much.
I sorted threads , mainly metallics - my favourites. I didn't have all the colours I wanted so first I had to dye some. Once I had my threads I began with the square in the bottom right corner. I couched the cord around a square. Inside that I canvas stitched another square. Now here's the suprise. A number of years ago I bought lots of those hanks of glitter threads you see hanging on some of the stands at the shows - cheap. On returning home and emptying out the goodies comes the - 'why on earth did I buy that!' The answer is usually impulse and it was cheap. So they are stored away probably never to be used. Well, while picking out my threads for this piece which always includes every box I have I came across this hank of very shiny glittery 'Christmassy' coloured metallic cord. The biggest suprise was that it worked. It looked right. This sent me rushing to get other shiny glittery threads which would contrast in the same way (but not quite as much!!)
I had already decided to use a burnished copper shim for the centres of the large squares so that was the next task - to draw a little square design to emboss on the shim.

I embossed this little design onto the shim and stitched it into the centre of the square outlining it with another metallic twist. I left the remainder of the shim squares until the end so as not to damage them during the stitching. I just wanted to see how one would look in case it didn't work - but it did.
Now I could continued with the rest of the squares. To help set it out I cut paper squares of different sizes and laid them onto the front and when in the correct position I pinned them in place.
At this point I came up with another idea. I had thought of using black felt squares with machining on them and stitching them to the surface but didn't like it when I placed a piece of felt on the surface but then I decided to stitch a machine pattern of squares on strips of felt and when I placed these on the surface I liked them so they were stitched in place.
All the large squares were stitched first followed by the next size and so on. How each was done was decided as I came to them and so the design grew.
The space between all the squares was originally to be small square blocks spread randomly around but as I began it changed into being an all over checkerboard fill using dyed glitter thread and six stranded embroidery thread. I had to keep dying a bit more and a bit more of the threads as I went as I wasn't sure how much it would use to do this pattern.
When all this stitching was done I embossed the shim and stitched them in place. I used my logo for the square on the spine. Here it is reversed.

I reversed the logo before embossing so that when the shim was turned over the logo would be prominent rather then indented.
I also stitched beads in the centres of the smaller squares and a jewel was held in place in one of the squares with knitted metal tubing/ribbon but a very fine black one.
The edges were turned under and I over stitched with a thick black rayon yarn that I had in store.
The end flaps were turned under and stitched and the file inserted.

It took quite a long time to stitch but I like the finish. It does look much more vibrant in reality than in this image. Metallics are so difficult to photograph.

I have been doing other things while making this file cover.
On our grandsons last day of the school holidays we took him to Richmond castle (the one in North Yorkshire not far from us). He enjoyed his photo shoot and the picnic.
We climbed up to the top of the castle keep and had I known how many steps there were I may have stayed below. The views were stunning to compensate.

Lots of wall texture.

And swathes of bright yellow Echinacia in the castle garden.

and patterns on the paths.

Lots to photograph.

We went down to the waterfalls which are a very special colour due to the peat content. The are very loud when you get close to them but we took some fabulous photographs freezing the spray and water in mid air.
Yesterday was such a glorious day we went to the Yorkshire aircraft museum which has lots of outside displays. Lots to photograph including this very rusty wheel centre just for Lynda.

A long post and now I am ready for lunch so cheers everyone.

FOQ and FAQ

2009-08-28T00:12:00.009+01:00

Last Thursday my DH and I set off at 6am and headed for the NEC at Birmingham to the FOQ - Festival of Quilts. An unusually easy journey down which meant we got there sooner than expected. We had a coffee, went to look for a loo and then joined the queue to wait for the show to open.
I decided to do the stands first and the quilts later. I also wanted to see if my book was on the book stands. What a strange feeling seeing it there with all the others. I found out some days later that on one stand they had sold out and were waiting for more to arrive which sounds promising. I do hope those who bought it liked it and found it useful. I have had some lovely emails praising it and one purchaser wrote what can be described as an 'essay' in a review on Amazon.
I digress. I gave most of the fabric stands a miss as I don't buy fabrics. I prefer to dye and print my own. I bought some Evolon and another large piece of bleached mulberry bark at a very reasonable price for the size. I bought some rusting powder and have already had a play with that. Some threads and that's about it.
Then I went around the quilts. There were some amazing quilts my favourite being the art quilts. The winner was well deserved - beautiful work.
I called at the Computer Textile Design Group stand and had a chat to those who were stewarding something I had done a lot of myself in the past.
I particularly wanted to see the stand of Linda and Laura Kemshall whose work I really like. I bought their book.
We didn't stay until the end which meant we could miss the worst of the traffic and had a smooth trip back home.
A friend told me that there are usually about 2000 quilts displayed but not as many this year. Not sure that I would want to look at that many.

Now for the FAQ - Finished Art Quilts.
In my last post I showed a finished and a couple of not quite finished art quilts.
I have now finished all four quilts. Here is the finished Echinacia quilt.

I found the border fabric in my green fabric box and was the left over fabric from when I made my sister in law's curtains many many years ago. It was a glazed cotton and worked well around the piece. Everything comes in useful eventually!!

The blue quilt which was a computer generated design and when I had finished the quilting I couched some black metallic twist along one of the lines working down the design then decided to add some free machined sheer fabric leaves which were on the computer affect prior to this one combining the two.

Here is a close up of the leaves.

The last of the quilts was again generated in the computer and printed on silk. It was from a photograph of some hydrangeas.

I used a simple filter on the image which enhanced the colours and features if the flowers. I must have done something else as the printed image was much lighter than this. I really must remember to write down what I do as I play with images on the computer. I tell everyone else to do this and forget to do it myself.

Once the image had been printed, I added some acrylic paints on the petals and large leaves then free machine quilted it.

It was edged with some silver grey slub silk. I rather think I would have preferred the stronger image and am wondering why I didn't use that one. Ah well c'est la vie.

I am now on with something completely different. I have a roll of hessian coloured tapestry canvas which I bought back in the days when I was really into contemporary canvas work. I have never used any of it so decided to try and think of something to at least use some of it.
I decided to make a cover for a large A4 ring file which is about 8cm thick. I cut the canvas and painted it black. Then I finger rubbed blue, gold and green interference over the surface letting them blend together. It looks really nice.
Now I am embellishing the surface which will be mostly hand stitching. I have dyed threads and yarns to go with the piece which I expect will take quite a while to finish so until then
Cheers everyone.

My first time to the festival of Quilts.

2009-08-19T01:23:00.001+01:00

I have my tickets and will be making a very early start on Thursday heading for the festival of quilts for the first time. We have to set off at 6am in order to get there for the doors opening. We just hope the traffic isn't bad or it will take even longer than that. It will be my first visit and I just hope it turns out to be as good as everyone tells me.

Coincidentally, I have been working on four art quilts recently all involving my photography and printing onto silk and cotton. The first one I finished started as a photograph of a piece of driftwood on a local beach. We were with our camera club on their summer photo shoot location which was - this summer - to Saltburn by the sea. It wasn't a very nice evening and everyone found it quite challenging. I, as usual, was also looking for shots which would transpose into textile work. This piece of driftwood was just one of those shots.

I turned the shot vertical and then began to play around with it using the filters in Photoshop. I came up with a very bold and colourful psychedelic effect which I quite liked.

I decided to print this onto cotton mainly to see how pigment inks printed directly onto untreated fine cotton. There was no bleeding - brilliant result. After the first print I put it through for a second time for a stronger colour, taking care to line it up exactly.

Next I painted parts of the image with metallic acrylic paints, mainly the blue and lime green to add to the surface texture.

I made up the quilt sandwich and free machined picking out the features of the image. I added more texture with hand stitching - seeding and French knots - and finished with a satin stitch edging.

It remains as a panel at the moment but I might use it for a book cover. No rush to decide.

The remaining three quilts are not quite finished yet but I'll show what I have done so far with one of them.

It began with a photo of some ivy wrapped around a very deep textured tree trunk.

Again I loaded it into Photoshop and created the invert image.

I continued to play with the filters and came up with this-

I decided to go with this one. I printed it onto treated habutai silk. I matched the threads using polyester, rayon and metallic and quilted the design. Here is a close up of the surface.

I am now in the process of adding surface texture and came up with another idea tonight so it will take a bit longer to finish. Watch this space for the finished quilt.

When on a visit to a university botanical garden I took this photo of an Echinacea.

And again, I loaded it into Photoshop and created this design.

This was also printed onto treated silk and quilted. I have just finished the hand stitching and it is ready to be edged. Here is a close up of part of it. I'll post the full quilt when it is finished.

The fourth quilt will have to wait for the next post as it is getting late and I still have things to do. I want to print out the floor plan of the quilt show and the list of exhibitors and traders. I shall also have to call on the CTDG stand where there is some of my work displayed and say hello to some fellow members. I didn't know until last week that I was going at all and didn't know until today which day I was going so I couldn't volunteer to steward for them. Apologies for that.

So until the next blog - cheers everyone.

Pad folders and free stencils!!

2009-08-08T02:04:00.002+01:00

It is surprising what comes in useful even from something as mundane as buying air fresheners. I no longer buy these gadget ones which need refills. You pay out for the gadget then after a while they stop producing the refills and you have to buy the next gimmick gadget. So instead I buy those solid gel ones which are much cheaper anyway. The solid gel is inside a plastic container with a cutaway pattern on the front. These patterns change every so often and I now have quite a collection. When the gel is finished, I pull off this front part and I have a very sturdy stencil. They are also good for pressing into clay giving a raised relief.

This is my collection so far.

Now for some more creative pieces.

Once again I was using up some samples. For this pad folder I used up a clay Celtic motif which was made by pressing model magic air drying clay onto a Celtic rubber stamp which was left to dry and set. You could also use Hearty clay.

I painted it with black acrylic paint then fingered gilding wax over the surface to pick out the relief of the design. The size of the motif dictated an A6 size pad folder.

I decided to use a sheet of dark olive green card. I painted the card with the olive/copper starburst stain. While it was still wet I worked the stain into the surface with a stiff brush. This roughed up the surface and also revealed the olive part of the colour. When it had dried I gave the surface a couple of coats of acrylic wax. It made the surface of the card look leathery. Something I will use again.

I used the same rubber stamp to print onto the surface using metallic gold paint. I lined the card with mottled paper and stitched around the edges. The clay motif was stuck onto the side of the front of the pad folder.

This is the back of the folder. I attached an A6 pad inside.

This next pad folder was the result of trying out some Moonshadow sprays - this one being the gossamer gold. I sprayed an A4 sheet of Tyvek. I used half of it which dictated an A5 folder.

I used some metallic patterned fabric bought a number of years ago. The fabric was quite a stiff one so did not need stabilising. I stitched the Tyvec onto the fabric creating ever decreasing rectangles using a machine pattern. Next I used a heat gun and zapped the Tyvec creating lots of holes revealing the dyed fibres that I had spread thinly underneath. The stitching prevented distortion.

The holes were embellished with beads and sequins as you can see in this close up.

The fabric was lined with card and stitched around the edges. I fitted an A5 reporter pad inside but first I sprayed the front of this with the same gossamer gold moonglow.

You can also see how I attach the pads inside the folders.

This final folder used a small square of leather. My daughter had given me the squares of leather samples she had from when she was choosing the leather for her sofas. She never throws anything away until she checks with me first.

I stamped a design onto the leather using some pva. I sprinkled embossing powder over it and zapped with a heat gun. I chose a sheet of medium weight parchment card and sprayed this too with the gossamer gold. I folded the card making an overlapping front. I tea dyed some scrim and glued it onto the front flaps. I messed about some with the scrim and finally finished up with having brushed gold metallic paint into it and applying gold embossing powder to the surface.

Next I stamped bronze metallic triangles over the surface which I didn't like so I went over the top of this with sponging which looked a bit better. Still not happy I applied some pva to the corners, sprinkled and melted gold embossing powder and stamped the same design on the leather into the embossing powder. The leather was then glued onto the centre front flap. The result was not what I set out to do and I am still not happy with it but it looks OK - better than in this photo. It will take an A6 pad.

Having completed quite a number of pad folders I decided to have a change and I am now working on a series of art quilts.

As the weather has been so nice I have been working in the conservatory and found myself watching the butterflies feeding on the budlia bushes. In fact I have been studying them more than getting on with my sewing. I have managed to take a lot of close up photos of them and here is just one of them - the peacock butterfly.

Finally I would like to thank all those who have sent their congratulations on the release of my book and to those who have sent lovely emails praising it - very much appreciated - and to Lynda (Purple Missus) and Mags (Digital gran) for their kind promotion and praise on their blogs.

I think that is about all for now. It is late and I need to get to bed so cheers everyone.

Bookmarks by the score

2009-07-29T21:51:00.001+01:00

Now that the excitement of the book release is over it is time to get back to some serious blogging.

Everything is a bit quiet out there in blogland as many bloggers are taking a break from blogging. I do hope, however, that they still have a look and a read even if they don't comment and blog themselves at the moment. Having a lot of blogs to follow can eat into time and that is something we do not have enough of. We would all love to have more hours in the day, I know I would and it is true - the older you get the faster time passes. No sooner have I got up in the morning than it is time for bed and I am a night owl not going to bed until well into the early hours. Trying to fit in all the things I love to do (not including the dreaded housework and for me cooking!!! I might add) is getting harder.

OK now to the creative stuff.

Today I spent the day preparing my images on the computer and printing them onto silk ready to create some art quilts. I brought two rolls of freezer paper back from America for this but after using it for three prints some up to 30 x 60cm I find that it does the job and I will continue to use it - well I have to now that I have so much of it - but I prefer using 505.

Last week I continued to make more little pad folders using the same criteria as the ones on a previous blog ie. to use up the many samples I have stored. I will show a couple of them as I can't find the images of three of them so will have to take them again in daylight tomorrow.

This one used the technique I used on a previous book - that of creating a rough patina finish. I painted a piece of card with the metallic bronze paint and while it was still wet splashed it with green patina fluid and sprinkled bronze patina embossing powder over the surface. When it was dry I zapped it with a heat gun.

Next I burnished some copper shim and embossed a design onto it and machined this onto the front of the folder. I also made four embossed shim corners. I lined the folder with some mottles paper and stitched around the edges.

This is the front.

This is the back.

And this is a close up of the embossed shim.

As many of you out there have done, I too bought Lynda Monk's book and used one of her techniques for this next folder.

I made a number of stencils to use with this technique and to use with paint too. I always get carried away when I do these things and actually finished up with a lot of stencils.

I painted some twill fabric with white gesso then using one of my stencils and molding paste created the raised acanthus leaves on the front and back. When they were dry I painted the surface with acrylic paints. The colours were determined by having to try and use up some of the Alchemy paints which were now going off in spite of regularly adding water and mixing them. They do tend to dry out after a while although I have had them a few years now. Some of them have dried up altogether so I have ground them up and I mix them with some acrylic medium to use them for textured surfaces.

Anyway that is why it is the colour it is. I fingered some silver metallic paint over the raised design. The fabric was lined and stitched around the edges and a wrapped cord was made to fasten. The back is the same as the front.

I will retake the photos of the others and blog them another time.

Yesterday I completed a batch of 20 bookmarks. They arose out of the need to use up off cuts of card which had accumulated from making the little folders and there was still more serendipity paper and samples to use and I did a little bit of experimenting too.

It was the first chance I had of trying out my purchase of Starburst stains. I also used some of the acetate stencils I made a while back and managed to use some of the stamp impressed Softsculpt from a couple of years ago. They took a lot longer to make than I envisaged as making decisions about how to do each one and how to use the bits etc took so long. In fact, making the decisions always takes longer than making and finishing them!!

Tomorrow I will start on the over painting of the printed images.

Earlier this year we tried to get rid of some honeysuckle which had become quite rampant in the garden. We thought we had removed it all but apparently not as there were flowers ready to open on the top of the hedge. I cut one to photgraph it as it was too high to reach and too windy to get a good shot.

I think it is much nicer to photograph when at this stage than fully open.

OK that's about it for tonight. Need to sort out the paints.

Cheers everyone.

Book release

2009-07-21T00:28:00.003+01:00

I couldn't resist posting the news that my book 'Embroidered Jewellery' has been released at last.

I received my copies from the distributor and see that it is now showing 'in stock' on the book retailer sites.

I will get back to my normal posts soon.
Cheers for now.

New for old

2009-07-12T02:54:00.000+01:00

A fairly productive week as the weather hasn't been too brilliant in fact it is raining at this moment.
I have continued to use up some of the serendipity papers and sample bits of paper casts, heated tyvek and impressed clay.
I made some more pad folders similar to those of the last blog. As well as using up sample bits I also used recycled fabrics for the backgrounds.

For this folder I used a paper cast - soluble paper over a rubber stamp, painted gold and the urn highlighted with red metallic wax. It was laid over some tea stained scrim over some dyed fibres over a piece of serendipity hand made paper. I used a variegated yarn in the colours of the serendipity paper and created a border of overlapping sorbello stitch to hold the fibres in place. Beads were stitched randomly among the stitches. Four large beads were stitched at the sides of the paper cast.

The background was a piece of recycled skirt fabric bonded to pelmet Vilene lined with mottled paper and edged with satin stitch. The serendipity paper was glued onto the background fabric.

The next pad folder used up pieces of heated Tyvek impressed with flowers from a rubber stamp. I painted the flowers with metallic acrylic paint using colours in a piece of serendipity paper and arranged them onto that piece of serendipity paper backed with Vilene. Bits of metallic net were placed under the flowers which were then free machined in place and beaded. The background fabric was a piece of recycled trouser fabric. My OH had hated these trousers which were very trendy in the 70's because the fabric was very itchy. It has been in my fabric store for many years. I liked the colour so kept it and it was perfect for this particular piece.

The serendipity paper was glued onto the fabric which was then outlined with dyed twisted yarns couched down. The background fabric was mounted onto pelmet Vilene, lined with a plum paper and satin stitch edged.

The next folder also used a piece of recycled trouser fabric. It was a piece of grey twill which I coated with gesso. I painted the gesso with a bronze metal paint. While it was still wet I spritzed some green patina fluid over the surface and then sprinkled some bronze patina embossing powder over it. I left it to react and dry then I used a heat gun to set the embossing powder. When it was dry I machined some digitised Celtic designs onto the surface using a variegated Madeira metallic thread which was similar to a green patina. Next I used some heated fusible film under a Celtic motif which was made by impressing a rubber stamp into some air drying clay then painting it with bronze paint and highlighting the surface with verdi gris metallic paint.

The fusible film was stitched in place using spacer beads and bits of couched chain from an old necklace. The clay motif was stitched in place with tiny bronze beads.

I glued a piece of dark green card to the inside of the folder and edged it with the patina coloured metallic thread. This folder turned out far far better than I had hoped for. I really like it and intend to play and experiment further with this surface technique.

Continuing with my recycling theme -

When I arrived home from my break I treat myself to some new skirts. I had to make space for them in the wardrobe so I cleared out old and no longer worn skirts and dresses. I cut up those which had fabric that was recyclable. It included one of my favourite dresses and so I decided to make something straight a way to use some of this fabric. I made a bag.

It is a large shoulder bag. The front and back panels are quilted using the floral design on the fabric. It has a zipper to close it and a wide reinforced strap. I made tags to hang from the strap and another tag for a zip pull. This turned out well too. I really like it.

Now I am ready to begin some new pieces. I spent the day designing and making stencils from acetate sheets. I know I have a lot of stencils 'somewhere' but can't remember where to find them at the moment so now I have some more to add to them when I find them!!

We spent most of yesterday finding out that the wireless router was caput and borrowed another spare one from my daughter. It must have been breaking down for ages because our internet is so quick now without all the hiccups and the network to the back room computer also works now without slowing down. Wish we had blamed the router rather than the internet sooner. What a difference.

It is late now so it's off to bed.

Cheers everyone.

Serendipity bits and pieces

2009-07-01T01:28:00.012+01:00

For the last couple of weeks I have been using some of my serendipity papers and test sample bits and pieces.
I have created such a lot of these serendipity papers that it was time to use some of them and reduce the pile.
I also had a large collection of sample bits and pieces (model magic clay samples, heated tyvek samples, paper cast samples etc) which had built up over the last couple of years and needed using up so I sorted out all I had of both and began to see how I could create small pieces of mixed media from them.
This first piece used up a paper cast of an ammonite. I also used some of the left over dyed wool fibres. I made the textured creation into a padfolio using painted pelmet vilene as the base. I was able to incorporate a little bit of heated tyvek pressed onto a rubber stamp and some zapped acrylic felt with impressed model magic as a resist.

Beads and textured yarns were added and a twisted cord as a closer.

This close up shows more of the textures.
The next piece used up some model magic clay which had been impress onto a Celtic rubber stamp. It looked a bit like a shield broken into pieces so that is the theme I used. I painted the 'shield' with granite black metallic paint and then finger brushed silver metallic paint over the raised surface.
I used a piece of serendipity paper for the background and a piece of impressed tyvek painted black.
I used the Celtic stamp and stamped four of the design onto the paper which were then over stitched with black thread. Further hand stitching, beads and sequins were added.
I made some coils using silver wire and machined them in place with part of the design from the tyvek piece. A few bits of silver mesh were placed under the broken shield pieces. It was mounted on a piece of burgundy textured card - Broken Shield.

The next piece used up some samples of model magic clay spread onto Kunin felt which was then impressed with a rubber stamp and then left to set. It was then zapped with a heat gun. The clay acted as a resist.
I used another piece of serendipity paper as the background which also set the colour scheme for the piece.
I layered up the felt pieces on dyed fibres which were embellished with eyelash yarn, hand stitching and beads.
I wrapped three pipe cleaners with long haired yarn and couched them down the outsides and the centre of the piece.
Some large gold leaf beads completed the piece which was mounted on green card.

The next piece used a piece of serendipity paper cast which had been moulded over a plastic vent cover. I decided to cut the squared design into squares and create a design for a book cover. The squares were arranged onto brown velour (a recycled velour sweater from years ago) and outlined with metallic twisted cord. Beads were added to the squared surface.
It was made into a book using pelmet vilene lined with a bronze paper. I used a ribbon yarn to edge the book and make the wrap fastener.

The last piece for this blog used up some samples of model magic clay impressed with leaf rubber stamps and heated tyvek over the same rubber stamps. I also used another sample of the Kunin felt and clay resist. They were all painted with a green/gold metallic paint and highlighted with a Krylon gold pen. I simply put them into an arrangement and couched them down onto a piece of serendipity paper. This paper had been pressed onto a plastic net bag - the kind you buy oranges in - and so had the net design embedded into the surface. It was made into another little folder.

I am finishing off another two pieces but they will have to wait for the next blog.

As usual I have a couple of images from a walk we did a couple of days ago. I saw these wild roses in the hedge along the path up to Roseberry Topping - our highest local peak. We didn't climb to the top. We settled for half way.

On our way back along this same path we spotted this Painted Lady butterfly on the thistles.

I spent most of today working on more serendipity pieces but moved everything into the conservatory with all the windows open to make the most of the lovely weather. It was so nice to work while listening to the birds singing and the water fall in the pond. Hmmmmm.

Ok that's all for now.
Cheers everyone

Back home

2009-06-19T01:54:00.004+01:00

I am back home from the States and finally back to normal and up to date and that includes 'the ironing' too.

We left Florida with the temperature at 94degrees. It was warming up after being one of their wettest and coolest spring/early summers. Having said that - it may have been one of their wettest but it was still very hot for us and now that it is warming up - too hot for us. We did have plenty of dry weather but a lot of thunder storms and some spectacular lightning flashes.

We stayed at our daughters villa and how nice is this at the bottom of the garden?

We were able to sit in the hot spa and watch the wild life especially in the evening when the fish were jumping and the birds catching the fish.

On the day after we arrived we went to Discovery Cove so that the family - not me - could swim with the dolphins. I stayed on land and took the photos. A very expensive place BUT fabulous. The gardens were full of exotic flowers and plants which was great for me. I took lots of macro images.

Look at the colours of these leaves.

And these huge flowers in pink and scarlet. I took lots of images for future inspiration. It has taken days to process them all but all done now.

They had lots of showers around the park for cooling off but how colourful they were.

We are not theme park goers but we did take our grandson to Sea World - his favourite place. He goes there many times when he is in Florida so he was able to show us around. We were glad of the shows to get out of the heat and rest the feet. He loves killer whales and we were able to see his favourite whale in the huge observation tank close up. The glass walls are very thick so the photo isn't too good.

This is Tilicum and he is a huge whale.

It was my husband's birthday while we were out there and we went to Kennedy Space centre on that day. We had been before but we lost all our photos when our computer crashed a few years ago. We went back there to take all those photos again. The shuttle was on the launch pad as it was due to be launched a couple of days after our return to the UK. I looked for unusual shots as well as memory shots.

I went to JoAnn's to see what they had but they had nothing in the range of materials I usually buy - very traditional and card making. They did have Jacquard Lumiere paints cheaper than here so I did buy some of them. Walmart has reduced its range of craft and embroidery goods etc so this time I spent hardly anything. Prices over there this time were not that much cheaper than here - increased prices and exchange rate. Pity.

I did buy two small sets of storage drawers which I have been looking for. I was able to get them into one of our cases by filling all the drawers to save space. Wish I could have bought more. They had lots of different sizes but I couldn't get them home.

The flight home is best forgotten. Needless to say we will not be using that airline again.

While we were waiting for the transfer bus to pick us up at the airport we saw this thrush scavenging inside an empty crisp packet for the crumbs!!! It wasn't bothered by us being there.

While I was over there I did manage to do some hand stitching and did as much as I could but as I tend to work on a 'go with the flow' basis and make my decisions as I go along it wasn't easy to work without my stash. When I arrived home - within hours - I had painted some background fabric with gesso ready for new pieces. I quickly finished a mobile and today finished this texture piece.

It represents the colours and textures of the rocks and pools of the Northumberland coastline at Craster. It is a layered piece using numerous techniques.

My grandson came for tea today and to make his mum's birthday card so while he was doing that I was on the other side of the table and started working on a new piece. It is beginning to grow and hopefully I can continue with it tomorrow and will have something to blog soon.

Until then

Cheers everyone.

Nautilus Quilt

2009-05-20T02:23:00.002+01:00

It has been a while since I posted. That is because the piece I have been making has taken longer than usual.

I have wanted to do a piece using the nautilus shell as the design source for a long time and now so that is what I have been doing.

I used these two images which show special effects on the open shell.

One of them was sized, changed to black and white and a pattern printed. Then I cut twelve pieces of Habutai silk 13 x 13cm. I stretched each one onto a frame and traced the design with a soft pencil. I planned to paint six light colours and six dark colours so I used gold gutta for the light ones and black gutta for the dark ones. I always repeat the resist on the reverse to ensure there will be no bleeding of the paint. Once the resist was complete I began to silk paint the colours. I had to work quickly in order to get the silk paints to blend into each other. Although I used the same colours on all the shells, they were not painted identically.

By the time I reached number twelve, I have to admit that I was a bit fed up of repeating them. I even toyed with the idea of reducing the number of painted shells to either nine or eight but - true to form - as I had already cut twelve pieces of silk I couldn't waste any so twelve it was.

Once all the shells had been painted I ironed a soft Vilene stabiliser onto the back at the same time as setting the colours. Next I cut the border pieces using black silk. With hind site, I should have stabilised these too with iron on Vilene to reduce the stretch and distortion. They were all joined together, the seams ironed and then a quilt sandwich was made.

I free machined the coils and then couched Japanese gold thread over the top on the light shells and black metallic fingering over the coils on the black ones. I also stitched French and bullion knots around the coils. Each shell was then outlined along the seam line.

Finally I free machined coils all over the black borders using black metallic thread. There was some distortion and lessons learned but it is very colourful.

Here is a close up of the two shells and borders.

Another idea put to bed!! On with the next project.

I am continuing with my image per day and there is a wealth of photography in the garden now although I do use other sources for my images including digital composites. Here are a few of the garden images.

This bee just would not turn round for me and it isn't as sharp as it should be - didn't use the tripod!! tut tut.

This too was hand held - not too bad considering it wasn't there very long.

One of my favourite flowers. I only know it as the 'Monkey flower'. They are so prolific and such brilliant, vibrant colours. They keep flowering and flowering all summer.

My family are over in Florida at their villa for a few weeks but we are keeping in touch with Skype. It is amazing that we can see each other and talk for free for as long as we want. Apparently the weather there is wet and thundery at the moment which isn't going down too well with my grandson. He was showing me the water guns they have bought which hasn't gone down too well with me as I know what I am in for when we get there. We will be going out to join them shortly so I won't be blogging for a while.

I have been putting some hand sewing together to take with me. I am not taking too much as I want space to bring things home although the exchange rate isn't as good as it was last time we were there.

I am giving a talk to an embroidery group in a couple of days so I have been preparing for that too. I hope the weather improves as it is quite a drive up into the Yorkshire Dales so we are hoping to be able to do some photography on the way making a day of it.

That is all I have time for so cheers for now.

Busy, busy and busier!

2009-05-06T02:59:00.000+01:00

Time for another blog with a bit of a mixed bag.

I have been busy doing a lot of different things at once which makes life a bit hectic.

First of all I will show a couple more of the pieces that I have finished recently.

On the last but one blog I mentioned a panel I had finished but would show later - well here it is.

It is a mixture of a number of techniques. It began with painted bondaweb ironed onto some purple fabric. Then I spread some dyed fibres over the top and ironed them in place. Next I ironed two skeleton leaves over this. I made a quilt sandwich and then I used sari ribbons and some ribbon yarn and machined them in place with machine patterns. Not sure about this piece but it is colourful.

After this piece, I began work on two pieces and this file cover was one of them.

I began by spray dying some calico.

I wet the fabric first then just sprayed the different colours and let them bleed into each other. Then I gave the surface a coat of acrylic varnish so that the stamped motifs would be more vibrant. This was good for the metallic paints but not so good for working with as the surface was stiff and difficult to work and stitch. A softer varnish next time!! I used part of a Celtic stamp and stamped the design randomly over the surface using four colours. I sometimes used a couple of colours together on the stamp and let them blend together to vary the effect.

I used the whole of the Celtic stamp to make a paper cast of the design. I varnished this and then painted it with a dark bronze metallic paint and then..... I used one of those sumptuous gilding waxes that Lynda (Purple misses) blogged about.

I just couldn't resist buying some. They are very creamy and have a lovely polish smell when using them. Mmmm. Love them - a bit extravagant of me though. I fingered the dark gold over the relief of the paper panel which was to be stitched into the centre of the front.

Next I used the design on the stamp and created two designs which I then digitised on the computer with the machine software and then sent the designs to the machine to stitch out. Here is where the stiff varnished fabric was difficult. The thread kept breaking so I had to resort to a much larger needle in the machine. It was also very stiff to manipulate under the machine while stitching. Lesson learned. I used three different threads to stitch out the two designs. As you can see on the finished cover, I stitched three designs down the spine. I also free machined my name on the front too.

The metal panel was machined in place and French knots added to look like studs. I also couched a metallic thread around the outer edge. The edges were turned under and the flaps stitched ready for the file to be slipped inside. Voila - a cover for a file which I will endeavor to fill with small pieces of work.

While all this was being done I was also working on the last chapter of the first draft of my next book which is now complete. It will, of course, need a second draft but the content , the sample pieces and images are all done so it shouldn't be a big job.

I have also created the visuals for a talk on my embroidered jewellery so I could delete all the many files of the jewellery from my computer. There is back up on disc but I no longer need it on the computer so a clear out.

I have, as usual, been keeping up with my image a day which is made much easier now that there is so much going on in the garden. The bluebells are now open and on a drizzly day I got this photo of the raindrops on the bell. You can see the reflection of the leaves on a bush nearby in one of the drops.

I didn't notice this until I was processing the image on the screen.

The Welsh poppies are also opening up and there are going to be a lot of them!

I think I mentioned that we have a wren making a nest. Well here it is inside this drum.

Sometimes we think it has been abandoned and then he or she turns up again with more nest material so we will try to keep an eye on it in case eggs are laid. Sometimes the wren tries to fly in with a twig too wide for the hole and finished up on the floor. Quite comical.

My grandson had a good week last week. He won a trophy for his golf and achieved his silver award for survival in swimming. He has asked his grandad to build him a 'trophy cabinet'!!!

Tomorrow I am going to start my next piece which I designed today from an idea I have had in my head for a while so looking forward to that. My OH is going away for five days to the Ise of Man. He crews and engineers for a rally team who are quite successful. weather doesn't look good though. It may be a wet rally.

So... I have time to myself apart from the usual sleep over on Friday by my GS.

Cheers for now everyone.

'Embroidered jewellery' has arrived!

2009-04-25T20:34:00.000+01:00

I have just received an advanced copy of my book hot off the press.

It is due for release on 3rd August (according to Amazon).

It was really nice being able to handle it and flick through the pages as you do at the shows.

I do hope it does well and embroiderers like it.

Cheers everyone

Lace versatility and a walk in through the woods

2009-04-21T00:16:00.004+01:00

Finally I now have Windows installed within my Mac so I can now use all the software which isn't compatible with Mac. My embroidery machine software isn't compatible with the Mas so needs Windows installed to run. I installed all the embroidery machine software and connected everything - switched on the machine and then opened the module which enables the computer to talk to the machine. They weren't talking! Horror, fear, panic, despair, sinking feeling in the stomach. After much checking and even swapping machines over with no success, I decided to contact a friend for help and even put out a plea for help on the Pfaffie site. I lay pondering in bed instead of sleeping - hate going to bed with a problem unsolved - and as a result decided to try one of the installations on the disc which I had ignored as I didn't think it was relevant. The next morning, I took out the start up manual and the disc and yes, I should have installed this driver as per the manual. Once installed, the machine and computer were talking. Moral - read the instructions and follow them. I was thrown because I had been connected by serial port previously and so didn't need the driver but now I am connected by USB I needed to install the driver. Grrrrr. I had to then quickly get in touch and cancel my requests for help and own up to my mistake. I have now transferred some machine patterns over to the machine which I have used on one of the pieces in this blog. Phew!!! All back to normal now thank goodness.

Following on from the butterfly book I went in search of some more suitable lace to use for relief work - preferably offcuts or samples. I found the kind of lace I wanted on the web listed as Venice lace much of which comes as motifs - the kind that is applied onto wedding dresses - and is of course, expensive. I tried to find heavy lace net curtaining which is where the butterflies came from but again nothing. It must be out of fashion now. I did find one suitable heavy lace curtain in a local curtain warehouse - the shallow kind which hangs from poles half way up the window. I bought a metre of this and have used it to make a number of pieces. I will have to resort to designing and digitising my own heavy reliefs.

The first piece I made was a notelet folder. I used the same technique as for the butterfly book cover - pelmet Vilene and crumpled tissue paper. Again I painted the tissue surface with black gesso. Next I cut one of the motifs from the curtain and stained it with a burgundy Starburst stain. This was stitched onto the gessoed surface and then I painted the whole surface with a coat of burgundy metallic acrylic paint. When this was dry I brushed a light coat of black orchid silver Starburst Stain which toned down the shine slightly.

This net curtain had lace loops for hanging so I used one of these loops for the fastener of the folder. I used a silver leafing pen to highlight the relief of the motif and the fastener. The edges were over sewn, the bottom 5cms were turned up to create the note holder and stitched in place. I used a black press stud to fasten.

A very easy and simple folder.

The next piece I made used the bottom half of one full panel of the lace. I stitched it to some stabilising backing first. I stained it with some dye, then painted it while wet so that the different colours would blend. It was highlighted with a gold leafing pen and finally embellished with sequins and beads.

The next piece was very much a 'go with the flow'. The size was determined by the size of the piece of calico I had. I cut three of the motif and arranged them on the piece of calico. Not wanting to waste the squared part of the net (see above) , I cut them up and arranged them on the calico. A design was beginning to emerge. Now I needed to colour and texture the background calico. I decided to use painted Bondaweb. I chose my colour scheme and with the help of my grandson, wetted then painted the Bondaweb. I had a narrow length of Bondaweb which I wanted to use up so I used this piece and made up the difference with a newly cut piece from the roll. Only after it was painted did I see that the two pieces were not in the same direction. When Bondaweb is wet and painted it ruckles in the direction of the roll. Th two pieces were not in the same direction so when they were dry, I cut the two pieces in half and rearranged them into a quartered pattern. The Bondaweb was then ironed onto the calico. I arranged all the pieces of cut lace over the surface again and decided it still needed something else. It needed stamping. I sorted out a string stamp I made a few years ago and had still not used.

I used the same colours as for the background and stamped the string daisies over the background. Later that night I used this stamp as my image for the day and I played with it in Photoshop and created this digital image. (Two birds with one stone!!!)

Back to the piece.

Next I stained and painted all the lace pieces, arranged them onto the backgound and pinned them in place. The ladder pieces were stitched in place first using machine patterns. I cut petal shapes from synthetic web - angel fabric I think it is called - and stitched one petal of each flower. Then I made up a quilt sandwich and free machined the large motifs in place followed by outlining all the flowers. I used dyed and painted baby pasta for the flower centres. I pondered for quite some time about quilting in between the flowers and which colour to use. Eventually I decided to do the quilting.

Not wasting any part of this lace curtaining which wasn't cheap - I stained and painted the off cut zigzag edges and machined them around the edges of the quilt. The loops from the lace were stained and painted and attached to the top edge. Last of all I cut and painted a length of dowel for the hanger.

It looks a bit pink and blue here but it is more burgundy pink, purple and ultra violet. Couldn't get the right light to take the photo. It does look much better in reality. It is about 50 x 30cm.

This is a better representation of the colour palette.

I did complete another piece today but I will keep that for a future blog.

It was the most glorious warm and sunny day today so we went for a walk through Kildale woods and did some photography. I have spent much of this evening processing all the photos we took. Thought I would share a few with everyone.

There had been a lot of tree clearance on the hillside but they have left all the cherry trees which were standing on the top of the hill against the blue sky.

Lots of new born lambs around too. Ahhh!!!

I am ready to begin designing some new pieces and I am also looking forward to a delivery of goodies.

So cheers for now everyone.

More art quilts a la computer

2009-04-07T17:04:00.002+01:00

In my last post I showed how I transformed a desk diary into a note book. Well I am still plodding through the pages painting and doodling out the dates and calendars. I can only do so many pages at a time as I have to wait for the paint and gel pens to dry. Some dry quickly but others take ages so it is going to be a elongated project. My grandson booked the colours for his birthday. I have to use gold to paint out the dates and silver gel pen for the doodle.

While I have been doing this I have also created and completed two more art quilts.

As you know, I use photography and the computer a lot when designing and these two pieces were created initially in the camera and then in the computer.

The first quilt used a photograph which I have already blogged about some time back but here it is again.

It was a close up photograph of the leaves on one of my house plants. I put it into the computer and played with it. I liked this effect and decided to use it for a quilted piece.

The image was sized to fit onto an A3 sheet of paper. The A3 sheet was to be the carrier for the treated silk onto which I would print the image. After a trial run in greyscale draft print I mounted the silk onto the carrier and printed it using an A3 inkjet printer with a flat feed. I wouldn't attempt to print such large pieces on silk without the flat feed.

When printing onto silk, I always boost the saturation of the colours as they tend to print out paler than you see on screen. However, even with the saturation boost it wasn't as vibrant as I wanted it to be so I positioned the printed silk in exactly the same start position and then - after fooling the printer into thinking it was a clear new piece of paper - I put the silk through again with all my fingers crossed that it would overprint exactly. IT DID!!!!!! and the colours were bright and vibrant just as the screen image.

While the silk was still on the carrier I used metallic acrylic paints and painted and highlighted the main central set of leaves leaving the background unpainted.

The silk was then made up into a quilt sandwich ready to stitch. First I machined around the edges of the painted leaves and down the centre vein of some of them. these leaves were to be left like this so the stood out from the background.

The rest of the image was free machined following the edges of all the different colours. When complete it was edged with black silk. I call it Psychedelic Leaves.

It is more vibrant than this image shows. Not the best light for photographing unfortunately. And, I should have ironed it too.

Here is a close up of the stitching.

The second quilt was the result of combining two photographs of the Piris in my garden. At this time of the year the new growth is bright scarlet and this one hangs over my front pond.

I put then into the computer and played with the special effects until I came up with this one which I liked.

The next job was to select and combine the images into one long one. This image was three images blended together.

As with the previous quilt, I printed the design onto coated silk, painted the foreground reds and pinks and quilted it leaving the painted leaves unstitched.

This quilt is about 60cm long and 24cm wide.

This is a close up of the stitched surface - a lot of free machining.

Now I am ready to start some new pieces but not sure what yet. I bought a roll of pelmet Vilene a couple of days ago and quite fancy making some more book covers. We shall see.

I managed some gardening yesterday and planted up some tubs. While sitting in the conservatory having a coffee we noticed a little wren pottering around. It disappeared into the hole of the drum we wind the garden hose onto and it didn't come out for some time. Eventually it did come out and pottered around some more and then took some dried bits of grass into the hole. Yes, it is building a nest inside the drum. While it was out I went and took enough of the hose to do the watering off the drum. It will have to stay on the floor until the nesting is over. A Dunnock was also pottering around and the wren gave it short thrift. Very aggressive. The dunnock is bigger than the wren but it still chased it away. Cheeky and brave!

It is the Easter school holidays so I have my grandson for company for a couple of weeks so not sure how much time I will get to sew or paint. We want to do other things while he is with us.

Time to log off until I have time for another blog and something to share.

Cheers everyone.

Altering a desk diary into a note book

2009-03-28T23:10:00.004Z

As I had hoped, I DO have something to show, so a new blog.

I was given a couple of desk diaries by my son in law. He is given lots of them every year by different clients and some of them are very substantial and expensive hard backed books - too good to go unused. I was given them to see if they were of use to me.

I didn't need another diary for this year but as I said too good to go unused so I decided to convert one into a note book.

First I made a cover for the book which you can see here.

I used pelmet Vilene as the base. I mixed some diluted PVA and sized the Vilene before I glued some scrunched tissue paper all over the surface. I used old dress pattern tissue - thanks to Lynda for this idea. I have a huge stash of this.

Next I cut some butterflies and flowers from a scrap piece of net curtain. I really must make a visit to a fabric and curtain store and source some oddments of nets and lace. They are such a useful source of relief designs.

I free machined these onto the surface of the 'tissued' background. There are also some of the flowers down the spine of the book.

I painted the whole surface with black Gesso. I bought the black Gesso recently and I am so glad I did. It is so useful.

When this was dry I sprayed the surface with Mystic Malachite Moon Shadow Mist. Gorgeous colour and effect.

When this was dry I finger brushed Golden Interference Oxide Green (BS) onto the raised surface of the butterflies. This oxide green interference is the exact same colour as the Mystic Malacite - one is in liquid spray form and the other in paint form.

I used a Krylon gold leafing pen to highlight the inner butterfly wings and its body and also the raised flowers. I added beads to the flower centres and a cluster of beads for the thorax of the butterflies. It is a good idea to wear finger protection as stitching through this surface is tough.

I machined all the edges with satin stitch and a matching rayon machine thread. I placed the book onto the cover and turned the ends in and stitched them to hold.

I would be dividing the book into sections for notes on different things so I wanted to make some way of finding the sections easily. There was already a red ribbon book marker attached to the book so I decided to make some more and make tags for them all.

Again I used pelmet Vilene and cut out raindrop shapes.

I cut more of the flowers from the net curtain and machined them onto the raindrop shapes. They were treated in the same way as the book cover.

I mixed some bronzing powder with a medium and dipped the edges of the raindrop tags. I also highlighted the flowers.

I attached the tags to the red ribbons.

Now that the cover was complete, I began to alter the inside. I needed to erase the dates and calendars on all the pages.

I painted them out with acrylic paints using as many different colours as possible. I had to do this a few pages at a time to allow the paints to dry so that they would not stick together.

When they were dry I used gel pens and doodled a different pattern on every page.

I have not finished this task yet. Still a lot more pages to paint. It is also a challenge to create so many different patterns.

These are just a few of them so far.

I can now begin to to use the book.

I am continuing to create an image a day and spent some time photographing one of the pieces from my Lewis chess set. I love the knight.

I had a little play with this image using some special effects and came up with this.

I would rather like to use this effect and at the moment I am trying to work out how to obtain this metallic effect. It looks a bit like hammerite paint!

This image I created recently for my image a day is very tempting and I have the foundations of an idea how to interpret it.

I love the colours

Now I must decide what I am going to do next and I will blog again when I have created something else, until then

cheers everyone.

Daffodils and a bag.

2009-03-19T13:27:00.001Z

Time for another blog.
We are having the most glorious weather at the moment. Very warm sunny spring days.
I am using all the spring growth for my 'images of the day' and could not resist the daffodils which are bursting into bloom all over the place including my garden.
I have to confess that on this occasion I had to cut and bring one of the daffodils inside to photograph. The position of it was too difficult to get a good photograph and the breeze too inconsistent to time.
I was then able to play a little with different settings on the camera and positioning the flower head as I wanted it.

As usual I couldn't resist a play and using the images I took created this little composite.

As I haven't created a lot of textile work while I have been writing my second book, I thought I would show you the piece which I use as my avatar and it appears sometimes on blogs and other textile sites I have joined.

The piece is a panel which hangs on my wall at the moment but I liked it so much that I decided to repaeat the technique and make a bag.

The background is a purple satin. I stretched it over a frame to embellish the fibres onto the surface. This helps to prevent shrinkage which usually happens when embellishing. The fibres were embellished much more for the bag than they were for the panel as the bag would be more vunerable to catching the fibres while in use. Once the background was covered with dyed fibres, I dyed and teased out some curly mohair fibres and radiated them out from a point on the top left side. These were couched in place with hand stitched herringbone stitch.

I made the patch by teasing out some more dyed fibres and placing them on a piece of card. I sprinkled some embossing powders into the centre and placed the card on top of my toaster to melt the powder. When the powder began to melt I quickly pressed a wooden stamp into the hot melted powder to create the sun impression. The whole patch was then placed onto the embellished background and couched in place with hand stitching and beading. I also added some pieces of dyed silk pods which looked like little buds. These too were embellished in place and then further embellished with beads and stitching.

I made up the bag and made a handle of wrapped threads and cords.

OK - textile part over.

Now I need to decide where I am going next. I have lots of new materials and goodies which I have bought recently to play with and I have a thick folder of sketches and ideas to work through. Hmmm - a child in a sweet shop springs to mind!

Well I am off to the workroom now so cheers everyone until the next blog. Hope to have something to share then.

A long lapse

2009-03-08T22:13:00.002Z

It has been some time since I blogged so I thought I had better let everyone know I am still around.

I have been busy with my next book so most of what I have been creating I am unable to blog so I have no textile work to show.

I do have some news and that is that my book is now on most of the major book sites - Amazon, WH Smiths, Waterstones, The book depository and a few of the American sites that I have seen so far. It is on pre order as it is not available until beginning of August which is news to me as I understood that it was to be released at the beginning of September. It was quite a buzz to see it there on the book web sites.

Instead of textile and embroidery work I thought I would share a few of my 'Images per day'. Some days they are there jumping out at me but some days I have to look hard for inspiration or create a digital image.

This first image was taken at the side of the River Tees a couple of days ago. I did go to take the swans on the river - which I did - but these catkins caught my eye and I have used this image instead.

After a few glorious days of warm sunshine we were hit with a covering of snow during the night. The next morning these crystals of snow were just beginning to melt and drip off the leaves so I rushed out and managed to take some of the snowy leaves. However, while taking these photographs I noticed this large water drop hanging from one of the leaves. I didn't know how long it would be before the drop fell but fortunately I caught it just before it fell. The next drop was no way near as good.

At the back of my bungalow the frogs had stirred in the pond and the males were very active so much so that today it is full of frog spawn. This photo is of one of the 'happy' frogs.

In the side garden the flowering currant is well on the way to flowering so I must go out again and catch this bud fully open.

This next image is the result of some experimenting with some film I shared with Val Campbell Harding. It was very expensive but she managed to talk me into going halves with her. The colours are amazing so I am glad that I did.

My daughter has been having a clear out and she always checks with me first before she disposes of anything textiley. I had knitted her a top with some coral pure silk yarn. She doesn't wear it any more so did I want it. It is a bit tight - well very tight - on me so I will have to sit and unpick it to use the yarn. It is far too nice to discard. It should overdye too. A little job to take away with me.

This next image was created on one of those days I didn't have a photograph to take. it is a compilation of some painted Bondaweb ironed onto a background fabric. I scanned in some skeleton leaves and then isolated them from the background so that I could use them to overlay on an image. the painted Bondaweb was for another piece of work which was completed some time ago but I quite like this image so I may actually reproduce this as a textile piece.

So there we are. A bit of an update and some images to look at.

Back to the book now. Once I have broken the back of it I can then get back to some textile work and share my time between the two.

So cheers everyone until the next blog.

Photos, snow and sew

2009-02-18T01:53:00.003Z

Well the snow has gone but when it fell it fell thick and fast. I am still creating an image per day so as the snow was falling I went outside to find a photograph. I didn't get far as the snow had built up on the leaves and stems of the climber outside my front door and made the perfect image. It was just as well as my boots and wellies were in the car in the garage so I had slipped my feet into my OH's motor bike boots - very big and heavy so it was difficult to walk far. The snow was still driving and I was getting covered in snow as I took the photographs using several different setting. This is my favourite.

In the back garden the bushes were laden with snow and I refrained from going outside to photograph it. I simply opened the conservatory door and zoomed in from there.

In spite of all this snow, the snowdrops are flowering and became the subject of another of my images per day.

To avoid going outside I looked for an image inside. The sun was falling on the leaves of one of my plants so I took a photograph of it. As I can never resist playing with images in the computer, I did just that with the photograph of the leaves and this was the result. I loved the colours. and sweeping shapes.

I have spent lots and lots of time getting to grips with my new mac computer but I have still managed to create some textile pieces. These are mini panels to add to the project I am expanding.

For this panel I used metal shim and embossed some fish which were then overlaid with dyed fibres and threads. The background was my first use of texture paste which I like very much and will use a lot more in the future.

I had to make some copper wire spirals for this piece and they were stitched onto a weave of painted scrim.

This one didn't turn out as I had hoped. The darker fish underneath didn't show up too well and I had to keep playing and adding to it but this is the best I could get. I may still do more to it as it will bug me until I get an effect I want.

This one used some of the serendipity Tyvek I had in store and fitted the project subject perfectly ( sorry can't say more than that). It was a 'go with the flow' piece and the base fabric a recycled skirt.

These are simply technique samples to go in a folder and they are fairly quick to make.

Now I am planning the next series of pieces but I have my grandson with me this week - half term- so it will be next week. One piece of good news. The publisher sent me a PDF of the sleeve for my book. It looks really good. Hope it catches peoples eye when on the book shelves.

It is getting late now so time for bed.

Cheers everyone.

MY new BIG MAC!

2009-02-09T23:49:00.003Z

I don't have any creative work to show as I have been busy with my new computer. It arrived in a big black box.

I upgraded the hard drive and the RAM so it is a very powerful system. It is also a very heavy piece of equipment. However the new keyboard is just the opposite. It is very small and light.

Once we began to set it up we discovered that some of my other equipment is no longer compatible. Even though my scanner is only about 4 years old there is no update driver for the latest Mac so I have had to buy another one. Then I discovered that my graphics tablet which I have had for a long time but which works perfectly well is also not compatible so .... a new one of those too. The speakers used the old 9 pin serial connection so they are redundant too. Not bothered about them as I have some very dinky ear phones. Just look at this redundant hardware!!

The computer I have replaced has replaced an even older computer in the work room and I have cleared it out and am loading my grandson's software onto it. I can also still use it in the workroom. I am putting Windows on the Mac and running a dual system for the software that will not run on a Mac- namely my embroidery machine software. That will keep my mind focused.

I still have a long way to go but getting there. It has interfered with my other interests especially my image per day so today's image was created by playing with yesterday's image - the keyboard.

I am getting used to Photoshop CS4 on a Mac which is somewhat different to CS3 on a PC. It is simply practice and time - LOTS of it. The trouble is - I am missing my sewing and mixed media work so I think I will take a day off and go into the workroom tomorrow and give the Mac a rest except for my emails and image per day!! I hope.

So I have stopped pulling my hair out and have calmed down from thinking I had made a big mistake. On a lighter note - when my grandson heard us talking about the big Mac he piped up that he had been allowed to have a big Mac for doing so well with his silver swimming award!!!

Now I would like to express my deepest concerns to my Australian blogger friends and the terrible disaster they are enduring. It is hard to watch the news without tears in the eyes and a lump in the throat.

So that's all for now -

Bye everyone.

Hanging around!

2009-01-31T02:06:00.000Z

Well the deed is done. I have ordered my new computer and monitor. I have to be patient now and wait for its arrival. I think it will be a couple of weeks as the computer is a custom build. Meanwhile I will continue adding and expanding my old project with new techniques.

I have just finished two hangings. They are a compilation of numerous techniques. Each part of this hanging is a different technique and uses different materials. They all represent the different aspects, features, colours and textures of a place I visited.

The materials used include tyvek, Angelina fibres, fusible film, printed photograph, stencilling , wrapped and shaped wire. When you enlarge the image you will be able to see the different techniques that have been used. They all have work on the backs too so that it is seen when the mobiles spin.

The second hanging used the text. The letters are digitised and stitched onto satin. The back of each mobile is painted and stamped craft Vilene. I made the stamps from Funky foam.

I used the text mobile to create my image of the day. It is a composite of this hanging from two sides.

I did have one parcel arrive this week - some soy wax flakes which I bought after reading and seeing Tracy's blog. This is another technique to play with.

The beginning of the week was quite pleasant so we went for a walk along the river at a nearby market town. We saw lots of these handsome chaps swimming around on the river.

The end of the week has been bitter cold and we were absolutely knithered standing on the school yard waiting for our grandson who is sleeping over tonight. Looks like we are in for a very cold spell - I shall retreat to my studio until it warms up. Hope to get lots done before the computer arrives because then I will have quite a learning curve ahead. I am changing from a PC to a Mac.

It is getting cold now that the heating has switched off so to bed.

Cheers everyone

Life just gets busier!!

2009-01-21T20:51:00.002Z

Time for a new post. I am trying to write this while watching the ice skating - its the European championships which is slightly easier than trying to free machine and watch. Never could do one thing when I can do two at the same a time. Such a lot happening this week - my head is swimming.

Where to begin. Well - I have been toying with getting twin monitors and while researching this a computer friend of mine let me borrow a big wide screen monitor. Awesome. So much space to work in. Now I am thinking a single BIG monitor. I am also seriously considering going Mac. Whew!!!

I packed up my sewing machine and it was picked up by a courier to go for a service and to sort a couple of faults which have arisen. Horrible feeling seeing go off in a van. I took a photo of the boxed machine and made it my image of the day yesterday. I played with it a little in some filters to get something I liked.

I put a very big notice on the top 'Fragile Take great care'.

There were blue skies and no wind today so I went outside to take my image today. The sun is, at last, high enough to shine over the house roof and into the back garden. It lit up the jasmine. Some cheerful colour against a backdrop of last years dead remnants.

And here is some remnant of last years flowers in the hanging basket. I don't mind seeing last years dead tangles in the tubs and baskets.

I have just finished this piece to expand an old project. It represents the colours and textures of a place I visited but that is all I am prepare to say about the source.

The base fabric was sponged first, then covered with teased out dyed silk fibres.

These were covered with a black nylon sheer to hold it all in place.

I used the sweeps and curls of the fibres as a guide to free machining over the surface. I digitise a Celtic design and machined it over the patches of fibres. The surface was then zapped with a heat gun and embellished with beads and dyed baby pasta rings.

It is ready to be stretched over a frame to finish.

Another big decision made this week. I booked flights to go to our daughters villa for two weeks. It was only after it was all booked that I realised - TWO WEEKS away from my sewing and workroom. Planning ahead now. Trying to come up with ideas and prep for hand and finishing work to take with me. A friend suggested I take my machine as she does when she goes to see family in Australia but I will have a lot of heavy camera equipment with me so couldn't manage a machine as well even between two of us.

Hooray! my favourite skaters have just won!

My daughter has just arrived for her dad to to something on her car. Good old dad. How useful they are.

I can get on with the machining now that the skating has finished so bye all.

Cheers.

Busy beginnings

2009-01-12T00:34:00.002Z

It has been a very busy start to the new year. I have been creating work to expand a project I did a few years back adding some new techniques and materials which were not around at that time.

Today I was multi tasking - machining the panels for a box while loading music albums onto my new iPod. I didn't realise how many CDs I had and had not listened to for a long time. Once they are all loaded onto the iPod I can listen to them in my studio while I am working. I just love all this new technology.

The other piece of technology is that of my embroidery machine which stitched out ten Celtic motifs for me today. I digitised the motifs as I needed so many of them. I usually free machine a 'one off'. However, after I had machined the first side I changed my mind about the colour and spent several hours unpicking it. I have a friend who manages to get her husband to do her unpicking or 'reverse stitching' as she calls it. This motif was a quadruple stitch so it was very difficult to unpick. Here's how it looked after unpicking and restitching.

There are four panels like this and a different one for the top and inside the lid.

At the beginning of the year I made the commitment to take at least one photograph/ image every day and began on New Year's day. I have kept to that commitment and have taken image number 11 today. They do not have a theme or anything - just whatever comes to mind each day. Today I did the washing and before I put the linen bin away decided to use the pattern on the front for an image.

I simply tipped the bin onto its back and took the photo. Pity I needed the light on as it has created a slight shadow of me taking the photo. There's a 3 dimensional textile piece in there -'maybe'.

I am quite surprised at the diversity of the images. Some are indoors and some outdoors. It depends a bit on the weather too. I did a still life study on a cup of coffee yesterday as it was so bitterly cold outside. Problem was that the coffee was cold by the time I had finished taking the photos. Turned out well though.

On Friday I had a special delivery in the post. The final layout for my book arrived. This one is how it will go to the printers. It will be sent for production today - Monday. I have to create the index for it now. The publisher has done a great job on the layouts. It looks very stylish. Can't wait to see the actual book.

My OH went to the NEC on Friday - he engineers for a rally team- and now I have a stack of photographs to process for him. They will have to wait. Too busy at the moment.

The conifer hedges will be getting their annual cut today. It is later than usual - they must be busy too. I wouldn't have been able to take this photo if they had come at the usual time of year.

This is another of my daily images. I got a bit wet taking this but... needs must.

That will have to do for this post. I need to do some more indexing.

Cheers everyone

2009-01-03T15:09:00.003Z

Well, here we are three days into the new year and already it is flying – sloooow down time please!!! How I wish!!

I didn’t make any New Year resolutions but I did make one commitment and that was to create an image journal of at least one image a day. I say ‘at least one’ as opposed to ‘one’ because when I start to take photos I always take quite a number and then find it hard to decide which one I like best so there may be days when there are several images although they will be on the same subject. I have just taken my third day image of the mahonia in flower and with lovely sunshine on it too. Not sure if I will be posting them yet. It depends on what else I have to post. They will probably appear as a weekly block or something along those lines. WTS

Back to the creativity which is what my blogs are usually about. During the ‘festive’ season I have managed to create quite a number of pieces (about 9 I think- I was on a roll and that cannot be suppressed for anything.)

One thing I was wanting to do was to use some of my serendipity samples which have accumulated over the year while painting other things. They were piling up - numerous pieces of both silk and hand made paper just waiting to be used.

I will cover four of them in this post. They were created very quickly.

The first one used a piece of serendipity silk.

I had been browsing a book about Asian art and some of the Japanese flower paintings caught my eye and so influenced the subject for this piece. I decided to create some delicate poppies using appliqued sheer fabrics. The flowers and leaves were cut out using a soldering iron and using a sketch like free machining drew the flowers and leaves catching down the sheers. then I machined the stalks etc and finally quilted the piece following the shapes around the flowers and leaves. For the backing I used a piece of recycled dress fabric and when the quilting was finished I realised that the backing toned in quite well with the piece so I turned the edges of the backing over onto the front to make the border. Et voila!!! quick and easy.

The second one used a piece of serendipity hand made paper. I made this paper years ago and had sandwiched a piece of net inside which gave the paper not only reinforcement but a textured pattern. It too was painted enough to use.

This time I rummaged through my left over bits box and found some mohair which I had dyed and made into a fabric. It was left over from making the lid of a box. I also had a length of the same mohair which I had dyed for a workshop I gave last October. It had the same range of colours so I wiggled it over the surface of the paper and held that down with some black nylon sheer. Next I free machined over the surface to hold the fibres in place, then zapped with a heat gun to remove some of the sheer. I placed the left over piece in the centre - well actually, I moved it around for a while first until I decided where I preferred it. I cut some red metallic mesh and put that underneath then decided it was all too red so I painted the left over piece with a gold leafing krylon pen. I found a large wooden bead bought many years back which I also brushed slightly with the gold and placed in the middle. It was couched in place and some red beads stitched into the holes/spaces. I also stitched more beads around the other couched red mohair to accentuate the curves. They were brushed with gold too. the next job was to decide on a background for it. Eventually the one which appealed to me most was a piece of pearlised metallic purple card. I attached it to one side of the card and voila, another quick and easy piece.

The next piece used up another piece of serendipity silk.

This one was not as easy to decide what to do as it had with the previous two. The colours were mainly green with some copper in there. Lateral thinking - green colour - green leaves, so that was going to be the subject. I had collected some samples of embossed papers from the local DIY store to use a stamps (picked that one up from Sharon). I chose two of them to stamp onto the silk which I ironed first - (can claim some domestic work can't I????)

Leaves need flowers so I used a wooden carved block and rubbed the design onto the silk with a copper oil stick. Then I quilted it using metallic threads to pick out the features. It still needed something so I decided to free machine an offset repeat of each leaf design over the top. A few copper sequins for the flower centres completed the piece. I mounted it on a kebab stick painted copper and hung copper sequins down some copper fingering for tassels. I also used the last of my sheet copper leaves which I had made for some of my jewellery ( which you can see in my book in September - plug, plug) and hung them along the bottom. Et voila, another piece.

The final piece used another piece of serendipity hand made paper.

Looking to do something different I decided to cut it into strips and weave them to create a chequerboard effect. Another rummage discovered some paper casts of the wooden block used in the previous piece. I painted the flowers red and the leaves a bright metallic green. I used just the flower of the block to stamp the daisies in the centre of each of the squares. Beads and stitching created the flower centres and I used some puff paint along the edges of the squares and after heating painted them gold. This piece too was turned into a hanging again painting a kebab stick for the hanger and painting four large beads which matched the daisies. Another completed serendipity piece.

I think that is enough or you will be suffering from overload.

I am ready for a cup of coffee now. My OH is at mt daughters trying to fix her oven door which won't close properly. If it is fixed we will be invited for a meal so an incentive there although he would fix it for her anyway.

While I have been writing this I have been thinking about the next piece I propose to do so while it is still in my head I will go and start or I may forget.

Cheers everyone.