Rabbit Bones

Mark making to get myself out of the doldrums led to this little piece, 9.5 inches square, which kept me occupied for most of the week.

 It is initially embellished rusted bandage and silk onto a commercial felt background with a centre of waxed and discharged fabric.

 I did more embellishing, couching and hand stitching and generally just had fun with it. I even used some glitz in the form of a copper metallic thread.

 In order to make the little ‘Os’ I had to go back to my own video for the Stitched Workshops to remind myself how to work them!

I'm looking forward to a trip to The Knit and Stitch Show in the next couple of weeks,  to seeing new work and finding new enthusiasms.
(Click for a closer view).

More September Marks

My posts are becoming more and more wordless. Everything feels a bit blocked at the moment. Today I did some mark making just to work on something, and here are some images produced. Wax and bleach discharge.

 I do have some Jacquard Discharge Paste, but having tried it once again recently, I have decided I just cannot stand the smell. It is one for the rubbish bin. I don't like the smell of bleach either but it is far less unpleasant.

 By the way, and I am sure that as sensible people I don't have to warn you not to try this, but I did; I tried discharge paste on a sketchbook page, completely forgetting that I had previously stuck in an encaustic image -- ironing the page, as you can well imagine, made a terrible mess of the wax on the previous  page. Funny in retrospect.

Pattern from Ethnic Embroideries.

Trying to keep awake today, for some reason I really only feel like sleeping. Despite that I have been practising a bit of pattern making for a U3A course I am running next week.

 We will be developing a design from ethnic embroideries and then going on to do some shisha work.

 What struck me most was the contrast of tufted areas with geometric patterns and neat areas of straight satin type stitch. I made a print block using this idea of contrast.

An Italian online journal has featured some images of my work. The journal is  all about pattern and prints so worth taking a look at the editor’s selections here.

September Marks

 Here are a few pictures of some of the fabric I have piled up waiting for inspiration to use one day soon. 

They are a mix up of wax, discharge, acrylic, tea, rust and lots of messy fun on the way.

Some small embellished 'cushions' and bandage waiting for the right moment.

We had a lovely sunny weekend in Leamington Spa. Here is a link to a blog about a lovely little shop  in Leamington with lots of interesting bits and pieces that you usually don’t see other than on the internet i.e. Washi tape. Don’t know when I will get round to using it but I had to have some; I did resist the toy cameras, but only just.

Welcome to new followers that I have not been able to get back to.

Completed Nuno Felt

This small piece of felt, which measure 8.5 by 5.5 inches, is now finished, other than perhaps deciding how to display it. I have used merino wool tops on a muslin base.

 Embellishing, with machine and a little hand stitching added. I like the colours, it is quite tactile and I am particularly pleased with the edges, which don’t really show up properly in the photos, close up you can see the tiny threads of muslin which appear after embellishing.

Thanks for your comments on the slideshow, sorry Margaret that I could not get back to you 'personally'.

It will be the last week of my drawing class tomorrow. The discipline of sitting and drawing for two hours has been good. Something I would find difficult to achieve at home. I had to add a piece of paper at the top to get the handle in; my sheet of paper never seems to be big enough!