Had to have a go!

Saw this on Carol Clapers blog and had to have a go! Funny as I do love Purple!

What color is your soul painted? Purple Your soul is painted the color purple, which embodies the characteristics of sensuality, spirituality, creativity, wealth, royalty, nobility, mystery, enlightenment, arrogance, gaudiness, mourning, confusion, pride, delicacy, power, meditation, religion, and ambition. Purple falls under the element of Earth, and was once a European symbol of royalty; today it symbolizes the divine. Click Here to Take This Quiz

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Hia all, i'm home!

Aphrodite's Bath
Tomb of the kings
Latchi beach.

Hia all, just a quick note to say I am back from Hols. I had a great time and a great birthday, thanks to all who have wished me birthday greetings. I haven't forgotten the ATC draw, but will need a day or so to get my head straight! WhileI was away my blog had it's first anniversary and i thought i would just say thank you to all the wonderful people i have met and am now fortunate enough to call friends as a result of blogging. The internet is a wonderful tool, and an amazing way to find people of a like mind. Hope you like some of my holiday snaps!

On Holibob's

Will be away for 2 weeks, hope you all have a lovely time too! See you 31st of August.
While I am away my blog turns 1 and I turn 32. I will have things to say on my return on these topics no doubt.

Here are the ATC's I sent out for the challenge on Unlimited textiles group. this group has just been opened up by Alis and Jan, and so the first swap was a get to know you swap. I have been working in purples and yellows of late and so I used my scraps up. I used the method described in the artists muse, chapter 3. I put my wonder web down and then added the pieces, and didn't move them once I had layed it down. I added some tulle over it then, and cut back after stitching. I hand stitched in yellow then. These went out to Sandy and Lynda, and I have one to spare if anyone would like to leave a comment I will draw a winner after i get back from my holiday on the 1st of Sept.
A few weeks ago I found this blog http://michelleward.typepad.com/how_cool_is_that/2007/07/incoming.html
and so I thought when I was sending out my ATC's in envelopes inspired by this challenge. Here are the ones I did:
This was the quilty I made for Claire. This was part of the same swap. I have never made a quilty before but they are a lovely size to work on. I added Prarie points, another thing I have never done before and beaded bits. I think I will do this with the other big sample I have as it will be another edge treatment for C+G.
And this was Claire's envelope. i think this made things a bit more special, at least I hope!

Note to Kartklan

Hia, just a quick note to Kartklan - who left me a comment. Thanks so much for such a lovely comment, i could not reply as you haven't enabled your profile so i thought i would post a reply here in the hope you spot it. A signature is a group of pages (I have done 4 in each),basically 4 pieces of paper folded and then these are sewn to pelmet vilene down the crease, I did 4 signatures of 4 pages to make the sketchbook. Hope this makes more sense, if you need to know more, leave me a comment with your email and I will contact you like that!

5 sleeps till my holiday!!! Yey!!! ( We do everything in sleeps because of Ellie)

Lots today

Morning all! Here are the fruits of my labours over the last few days. I finally finished the sketchbook, allthough now i wonder if it is too nice/big to take on holiday (A4 size). i love how it turned out. however attatching the front and back cover were not that easy. i decided to put mount board inside to stiffen them and of course this made it harder to sew.

Here are the signatures. I added pockets to the front and back cover to keep my pens and pencils.

Here is the back cover. I found lovely shell buttons and letter beads in Jac's crafts in Swansea.

The next thing is a mini dotee doll for Ellie's nursery owner, Hannah. She does a lovely job with the kids and Little monkeys is a fantastic nursery, so I wanted to give her a little treat. She was asking Ellie about her little doll yesterday so I thought I would make her one for her keys. It has a little bead at the bottom with a "H" on it. I put the 50p on it to help you see the scale.
Lastly Carol Clasper gave me the Nice matters award, I was blown over! She has been such an inspiration and a big help to me always sharing her tips and advice with me. She would be number one on my list of people to give the award to, but since she already has it share the wealth I say! So as hard as this is here's my pick of 7:
1. Jan of Creative threads blog - she is my bestest best internet friend. We met right when I started finding things on the internet and she made me the lovely journal below. She helps me moderate Textile challenges, and for that I am very grateful.
2. Lynda of Purple Missus blog - Lynda has always been so giving to me, always free with advice and helpful critique. Thanks Lynda - talking to you is always so much fun, Lynda has a wicked sense of humour!
3. Mags of Digital Gran blog - Mags is my only welsh speaking internet friend and we do so enjoy chatting in welsh, Mags keep my written Welsh in practice, ropey so it is! Diolch Mags am fod more caredig a fodlon i helpu.
4.Carol of Textile Tales- is a constant source of inspiration, a feast for the eyes. Love your work Carol, and am greateful that you allow me to ask about your techniques.
5. Dot of My life, my values my art blog - she is the inventor of the Dotee doll, they have made me very happy the last few days, and I am grateful for Dot sharing the method with me. She is a very giving person, and is going through a house move at the mo and I hope this award will brighten her day!
6. Judy of Judy Scott blog - for Judy's art lifts my day. She always uses such lovely colours, a variety of media and is totally inspirational. not to mention the award will blend beautifully with her vintage style!
7. And lastly Di of FaeryDi's blog - Di always uses the loveliest of colours and makes me happy! I love her art work, the textures she creates. She is an inspiration.
Well if i missed you out I am sorry, but to be honest i could go on all day. Hope you all have a lovely rest of the day.

New Dotee doll for a very demanding customer

I made another Dotee doll for Ellie, my little girl. Now she was VERY specific about her doll, here were her list of demands

1. Must be purple
2. Must have pink too.
3. Must have eyes open, green.
4. Must have purple eye make up.
5. Must have pink lipstick.
6. Must have a hand bag.

Not too much to ask if your 4 I guess. Well she was happy, and if she's happy so are we all here!
(I took a lovely photo of her and the ellie doll, but Dad doesn't want her pic on line, and I understand that!)

Dotee doll

This month's challenge on textile challenges is to make doll's, of any kind. I have been watching Dot's blog for a while and loving her art therapy dolls. They are so cheery I just had to have a go. While working on the red and green theme I thought I would start there. What I love about these are they will be a most fab holiday project as you only need the smallest of fabric, threads and beads. You can stuff them with cotton wool and so I will be able to buy this even in Cyprus easily.

You can embroider and bead as much as you like and so it is a fab transportable little project. I am going to make some for the girls I am going with, my friends little girls. And of course Ellie has got her order in now, she wants purple and pink, and was very specific in her instruction of purple eye make up and pink lipstick. I apologise for the poor photo, I am taking this late on as my Mum has been over all day, and I was very exited to post. So thanks Dot, for such a wonderful idea. I now understand how people get hooked on this.

***UPDATE***
*** I changed the photo this morning and so is much clearer now*****

Next stage on book.

To start this post I wanted to show you the tags I made from the mop up paper from the table the other day. I got loads out of it, so will have a fab stock for sending things away now, I need to add the strings now and some detailing.


Here are the signatures for my book, all sewn in now, I only used 4 of them as the full 6 would have made it a bit too large. Which means I have 2 signatures to use for something else.

Here is the front page all stitched and embellished now.

Some close ups here.


And lastly for all you rust dyers, I saw this at Swansea's Waterfront museum when I was there the other day. They must have used some of the rusty artifacts from the museum, the panels were about 6 foot long and hanging against a window so make it a bit hard to photograph, but they are great and show lots of rusty cogs and chains. Thought I may dabble with rust for my Industry unit next term.

Play day at last!

This is what I did on my play day! I made the signatures for my sketch book! I painted from 10.30 till 1.30, and I am pooped now! I think the drop cloths which are at the back of the first picture are the best things! I think I will make tags from them.

Drop paper, I think this is more interesting than the prints!

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!