A few more knots.

This week we practised Bullion Knots and I found a few of my samples, including  a whitework one which reminded me of the time that I planned to try to learn Mountmellick Work, a traditional Irish Embroidery, but did not get very far. 

If you have not tried this stitch it is quite addictive, but  takes some practise the first time, and then needs a warm up before you get back into some kind of rhythm each time.

 Many tutorials online now, but I found the method in Tracy Franklin's book on whitework to be the easiest to follow. It may be available in your local library as I know it is in mine.

                                                  

Small and mini.

I made some small books with pamphlet stitch using some of the gelliprints from a previous session.

Finding just the right button.

Thanks to inspiration from Ines Seidel  one of my groups has made some paper bowls using brown paper, book pages, tissue and pressed leaves. Now we are making objects to put in the bowls such as paper flowers from book pages, and next week I hope we will make some mini books.

 All you need are some old book pages and something suitable for the cover; I was fortunate to be given some snake skin and I have some offcuts of leather so we are all set.

 I used glue to stick on the cover but in the past I have stitched in the pages. I really,really, need to tidy my 'mini' studio, but all that cardboard, those given treasures, boxes of buttons, bits of leather, they all have their day; but I am running out of space.

Gelli,lino and Stitch

I had another go at linocut with a gelli plate background. I also cut out some pieces and added some stitch, easy to take it to the sewing machine as I was working on strong watercolour paper.

 I decided that rubbing with the back of a spoon works better for me than using the Speedball baren.

In the one below I added some bling, which is not usually my thing.I cut out the image and added it to

a piece of my handmade paper with machine stitch.

Gelli Plate and Linocuts

I had the idea of making some lino cuts and using these with the Gelli Plate, I am sure it is not a new idea but new to me. I think it has some potential, especially using some of the background ideas from Carla Sonheim.

 Some of these were made on pages taken out of my sketchbook and I need to proceed in a more thoughtful way and on better paper.

 One advantage I noticed is that the background using acrylic dries quickly and can then be layered with the printing inks (or vice versa), whereas when I made a linocut background and then put another print using water based printing inks on top it took a long time to be dry to the touch.

In the one above you can see that some of the ink transferred to the plate from a previous print to which I had added a background.

Bye the way 'hello' to new followers and thank for reading.

Sketchbook Challenge Moon and Stars

Sketchbook Challenge Moon and Stars, a photo by stitchworks-jackie on Flickr.

See The Sketchbook Challenge for Novembers theme of 'moon and stars'.

Gelli Prints

Thanks to Roberta Warshaw  I heard about Carla Sonheim's  gelli plate workshop and have enjoyed working through it this week.

 I learned a good deal and would certainly recommend it. Here is some of the work in progress and a few prints that have been worked on.

 She makes the point that only a few prints out of a batch will be ‘almost’ completely satisfying and stresses the fun part of the process.

For those of you interested in Needle Felting you may like to take a look at my article in the November/December issue of ‘Cloth Paper Scissors’.