What I have been doing.

Well this is what I have been up to. I have woven the dyed fabric I had done the other day and now I printed over with all home made stamps. I have made the diamonds and the colour stamps before and you have seen these in the recent stuff I have been doing.Today I tried adding in a flower shape as I do so love daisies and gerberra's, I had them in my wedding bouquet. I also used some of Ellie's blocks to print dimamonds and dots within them.
And the point of this piece, which is another variation on a theme is to make a Traci B style book. I used the other piece of dyed fabric to latch hook a spine. This is going to be my sketchbook for Unit 3 Colour, for C+G, I am going to take it away with me to work into. When I get back I will make a second mandala on the topic "SELF" to go with the one that I did a few weeks ago on Friendship. I am going to go with red and green again as this is what I used for friendship, and then the two will make a pair.
Can't wait to do the signatures!

THE MOST LOVELY PRESENT - EVER!

I got the most delightful gift in the post today and it could not have come on a better day. I have been suffering with my "anxiety" the last few days, panicing at everything, generally not coping as well as I could, when this little treasure arrived. My dearest friend, Jan Lewis, who as I have said before doesn't have a blog but is getting one soon! sent me this fab book cover and a bundle of other goodies too. I had a little cry after I opened it sa i was so chuffed that she sent me such a lovely gift. You see Jan and I have never met, she is one of the first people I met online, but she is one of my dearest friends. We chat on the phone and online regularly and she is a surrogate Aunty to my daughter, who shares the sma ebirthday as Jan's own daughter.(Note Jan I said Aunty!!!)
This was the contents of the book, a lovely sketchbook and two ATC ish cards, one with trapunto quilting effect. The fabric is inspired by her rubbings from the floor of Petersborough Museum and is the basis of her work for her new exhibiting group called Meniscus. I am so blown away to be one of the first to get hold of a piece of this work. I hope your exhibition will be a thriving success
Did you notice the little tag that serves as a bookmark. What a treat, I can't thank you enough Jan, it makes my work look amateur!
PS, I have been nobbled for my play day tomorrow again as my sister from London is coming down and only has tomorrow available for a visit, I am not going to say what day I now plan to play in the hope of third time lucky!

Play day cancelled!

My play day was cancelled today, Craig was due to go on his fortnightly trainning course but when he got there it was cancelled! So no play for me as he can't stick the mess on a mass scale that I was going to create! I have worked on school policy documents instead for the forthcoming inspection, boring! Here is something I have been playing with this week for my colour unit:It is another woven pice for my sample book, this time in purple and yellow, complementaries. The colour is a little washed out as I took the photo outside, it is much stronger in reality. I am going to do a blue and orange and then look at other techniques for the harmonious.
I tried a piece of tulle on this one, to explore the effect of sheers on colour further. Never mind Tuesday might be a goer for a playday as Ellie is in nursery again for a leaving party for a member of staff and Craig should be in work!
Can i thank everybody for their comments here over the past few weeks, i can't tell you how much the feedback means to me, you are a very generous bunch and I am very grateful!

Dyeing ready for play day

Ellie is off to nursery tomorrow and so I have been laying the ground work for lots of play last night and today. I managed to get two pieces of cotton, two polyester mixes and some wool of some description, I think quilters use it for the middles of some quilts maybe? in to dye. I also made my first silk fusion last night too. I had ordered the fibre and medium from Joggles months ago with no idea of a project, but I have to make a light for one of my C+G resolved pieces for design. It will be for my colour unit so I thought you don't get more vibrant than this!

I don't know if it will work but I plan to try using paper punches on it. I am going to make some sort of woven structure from it as it has to link with my mandala piece that I showed you some weeks ago. Here is the cotton drying on the radiator. I did the jar dyeing with two colours this time as advised by Mags .
This is the wool blankety stuff, i think I may do some embellishing on it, and it may become the front cover of the sketchbook for the unit as it is so bright and vibrant.
The polyester mix came up very wimpy indeed, I will use it for samples no doubt, perhaps with a little more layers of paint and stamps it will be ok?
Hope those of you caught in the dreadful weather in the UK are all safe and well and not suffering too much. The stories have been so dreadful, hopefully things will get back to normal soon for everyone. Three weeks and counting to my holidays now, first time abroad for Ellie and the first hols we have had since having her, so can't wait. I will be missing lots while away though, my blogs first birthday and my own 32nd birthday! Nevermind can't wait!

Finished wrap

I thought I would retake some photo's of Lynda's card as the others were poorish quality. Hopefully these are better.


Here is my finished book wrap. I am so pleased with it. I think I am going to keep this one after all and make it one of my experimental samples for C+G.
This is the inside of the wrap, I used Sue B's coffee dyed fabric to line the wrap. I added a strip for a pad and a pocket on the side. I wanted to incorporate some tags as that is the challenge for Textile challenges this month. So I decided to tea dye some tiny tags I had got in the sale. Then I decided tat the pad I had to go inside was too brash (being covered in Tesco's logo!!) So I tea dye some cartridge paper. I stamped with copper paint and added 7 tags with vintage written across them. I held these down with buttons glu gunned down.


I really enjoyed this piece and think I have produced a really nice piece of work. I am playing with some purple left over fabrics at the mo, maybe a little free give away coming soon!

Card for Lynda

Here is the final picture of the card I made for Lynda. She had sent me one of her scrim cards, for mine very own! I loved it and so worked extra hard on hers. So a few posts ago I showed you this card, in it's first stages, woven and printed. I then over layed organza and free machined over. I blasted with the hot tool and hand stitched. I tore strips of the tea dyed fabric and added as a fringe, and then added some pearlised buttons to give it a vintage feel. I just heard she liked it and am sooo chuffed!

Work in progress

Here is a glimps of what I am working on at the mo. Using the weaving technique I have been playing with tea dyed fabrics. I fused it to bondaweb this time and it made the weaving much easier to handle. I printed with the Vintage stamp I made, and also a diamond foam stamp I made and a 3 block lino leftover block. I layed different brown sheers I had in my stash over and then FME and blasted with the heat tool. I felt it was a little too dark and didn't show the tea dyed fabric to it's best advantage and so I cut back areas and I am happier with it now. I am totally loving this technique and i plan to do a good few more things with it.

Here's what I did!

Here's what I did for the card swap. I had to finish some of the edges as the sample was bigger than postcard size. But I did keep 2 samples for my C+G file and i will have to finish these next. They will retain the raw edges. i did retain as much raw edge as possible on the postcards however. Hope the recipients like them now!This was another sample done in the same technique. I have attatched it to a tag so that it full fills my challenge on Textile challenges yahoo group, i will record what I did on the back and this will go into my C+G file too. It looks fab in the tag. I have some washers that i want to add to this for Anna's challenge but I haven't figured how best to attatch them yet.

Thanks to all of you who wished me to get well, I guess all these internet vibes helped as i feel much more human today - snivelly but human!

Colour composition

I was hoping to show you these once they were finished, but I have come down with the flu, and feel rubbish, so it will have to be works in progress. I am in a trade on Joanna's Surface design group on colour composition, and because of it being the end of term I am behind! Which is surprising for me as I hate being late. I decided to use the Angie Hughes technique that my friends did with her at a workshop recently. I coloured some calico with acrylics and then tore them into strips and wove them together. I then printed the word colour with two lino blocks I had cut, one I did backwards by mistake, but it worked out well.After printing them I layed strips of organza over and free machined. I used curtain interlining to give it some stability.
Then blasted it with the heat tool, and did some hand stitch.
My next dilemma is whether to edge them off with satin stitch all neat or leave the raw woven edges in place, I'd love to know what you think.
Hopefully I will feel a bit better over the weekend and be able to finish them.

Well , I am worn out but what a week! Firstly I got these lovely gifts from Jan. I can't tell you quite how much I love these. They are my inchies from the recent Textile Challenges swap. But Jan is not one to send only what is required, and sent me the most superb little bag and matching ATC as well!I chose purple and turquoise and they are just fab, made from some sort of plastic, clear maybe bubble wrap I will have to ask her what. They are just great. Jan doesn't have a blog (But should hint! hint!) but has recently joined a textile exhibiting group called "Meniscus".

Here is why I am tired anyway! On Wednesday night I didn't get in till 12! It was our school's leaver's ball and we had a blast. Here I am with some of my lovely pupils.
Kristy(Textiles)Vicky Bevan(Textiles)
Prom king - James Florence
Prom queen - Tara Gittins (Child development)
Jess, Kira and Amy (Child development)
Kristy and Mathew (AKA TRACTOR!!!)
Jade, Zoe (Textiles) + Amy (Child development)
Catherine, Natasha, Danni, Hayley, Jodi and Sam (Cath,Tash and Sam of my textiles class, Danni from Child development and haven't taught Jodi and Hayley for 2 years!)
The gorgeous Natasha, who I called by the wrong name for which I will be eternally sorry - She was so gracious and so lovely about it - and she shouldn't be as I have taught her for 2 year 3 times a week, but in my defense these nights are so hard because all the past pupils and current pupils are a blur! Never mind she is so gorgeous, what a colour - not many people could handle it but she looked so glam and years older!
I loved every minute, what a great night, super kids, a really fab ball.Can you tell i am so proud of them!

Trials

I have been playing with a technique that my girls on the C+G had relayed to me from a workshop they did with Angie Hughes
They did it while I was at work - poo I hate work! Basically you weave strips of fabric, print on and then cover with organza and free machine. then you zap back bits etc. Check out her blog on the link above, she has made a book wrap. I am trialling this as a postcard for Lynda
in preparation for making another padfolio for Patsy. I am using the tea dyed fabric I dyed a few weeks ago.
I cut this lino block, it was nice revisiting lino and kinda fits with Carol's challenge to use something you haven't for a while. Although I have plans for some silk fusion soon, as i bought the kit and have never had time to do it yet!
While I was at it I started cutting myself an alphabet to use all the time and used the left overs to make little stamps.
All in all a productive evening.

More of the exhibition

I could not upload all the photo's at once so here are some of the others work. The above was made by my friend Cath, and is a book cover.
These two gorgeous pieces are samples by Deb. I love them both but especially the top one.
The poppy below was made by Grace. It is so delicate and crumpled like a real one. i love how she has made the petals fall like they are degrading.

The bag above was made by Robi for her sketchbook, and is based on the edge of her garden. the colours are so zingy. I love pink and lime together. Below is Sue's corset, it is really textural and fab. I love the tags that say "If only". Very Sue
I have more to show but I will upload them later.