Secrets in the bag and round robin finally finished

Here is my effort for FAI's Secrets in the bag swap. I am paired with Flicsha and i was very lucky as she sent me the most lovely bag of goodies, including choccies and tea to drink while i made her card! How thoughtful is that! I decided to work on my imagery that I have been using for my C+G, water over the sand, as this was a good opportunity to try out different colours. I gathered up the blue metallic shot fabric and heat set it in the ove for 10 minutes at 200. I then decided I would work by hand, for two reasons, one I haven't done much hand work of late and i was desperate to feel the cloth between my hands! and two having the machine out at this time of year is a bit difficult. I seeded the rippled fabric to a bit of cheap felt. This worked really well ad I am so glad I did it as it has given me a far better understanding of how I wil integrate my heat set work for C+G. It only took going back to hand work to do that!
I was given Beryl Taylor's book for christmas and I decided I would work the diamonds in her way, so i used some of the other fabric in the bag to lace over thin card diamons. i stuffed these with some wadding and then sitched on the beads and then back stitched them to the background. On textile challenges val had challenged us to use xmas leftovers creatively, and i have a pice to follow on this, so i used a jewel that had lost it's sticky and fallen off Ellie's new barbie styling head and weaved this onto the backround with silver thread. Now Flicsha always does lovely backgrounds for her cards so I worked one diamond up for the back. It has turned out well. The pink thread i used to couch down was the only addition from my stash apart from the jewel.
This is my card from the 1st round robin, on fiberpostcardroundrobin, which is a yahoo group run by Lorraine Strohkirch. ( Who is an angel by the way) I did the background fabric, which was bubbled polyester, i bubbled it with the heat gun, like you would with tyvek. I like this because it is so much softer than tyvek. Marie and Mary then made it into a tree, I'm not sure who did which bits but, there are waxes picking up the bubbled texture, angelina, free machining and the leaf charms ( one did not make it through the british postal service!) I like it and i like what happens when you work with others on a piece, but I would have liked to see some of the original texture, it got kinda lost. Never mind that's the esence of working with others you can't be too precious about what happens to your work. I finished it with the copper zig zagging.

Snowglobes for FAI

Hello all, here is an example of the snowglobes I made for FAI.I used sweetie wrappers for the icicles, some colured papers I had done at college with salt effects. Some of the beads I made, which I have talked about in earlier posts. I used the snowflake confetti and seed beads for the shaker. I do think they look wintery.

I was also very pleased to find that a new group I had joined Arttechniques has put my FAT journal on their homepage. I was bowled over to think they thought my work was good enough! It is a very interesting group for those who have an interest in mixed media. Heartily recommend it.

By the way Merry Christmas and a great New year to all who read my blog. I recently installed a new counter and I am very pleased with it.

New journals for FAT

I have finished two journal quilts for FAT this week. I did my one based on a word, I chose "LUSH", a proper Welshism. I chose this because when i first started chatting with NJ (Listmom) I used this word to describe the work on her group. A few hours later i recieved a message that basically, give up can't find meaning of the word lush anywhere, is it a complement or an insult? It was a compliment! Lush -to me anyway means that something is gorgeous beyond belief.

In this piece I used acrylic onto coton, a first for me! I then machine quilted it, free machine, making some of my favourite, childish!, shapes. I then did a bit of hand quilting/embroidery, I used blanket stitch overlapped with thinner and thicker threads, and to be honest this is the only bit I am unhappy about. I think it looks shoved on, not integrated as well as the rest. I then beaded areas to pick them out more. I then made some fabric beads by using off cuts from another bit of painted acrylic and cotton, I watered down PVA and wrapped the fabric tightly around a cocktail stick. I really like how this piece turned out, probably because I didn't really think about it, I just did it and it evolved as I worked on it.

The other piece is this months journal quilt, based on "Christmas through the eyes of a child" and this started with a drawing done by Ellie, my 3 year old. She coloured in a Rudolph with transfer crayons, and did a grand job of it. I put it onto cotton and did some hand embroidery. I then added the red strips and free machined. I then added the buttons of mittens and hats i have been hanging onto for something nice. It's not perfect by a long way, but I love it as it is a permanent record of Ellie now, what she likes! Thanks to NJ for her inspirational themes.

Water colour

This is a piece of course work for C+G based on colour theory. The student teacher, Josie, that has been working with my regular teacher Enid did a lesson with us on colour and line. We completed a pencil task of making secondary colours with different lines, e.g. zig zags, cross hatched, wavy etc. We had to use lines of the primary colour to make the secondary. We then had to take this into a colour sample. I used the imagery I have been working with this term and cable stitched the design. I used one primary colour on the top of the machine and another on the bottom in the bobbin. I like how it has turned out, but it doesn't convey the secondary colours that well in parts, probably due to the shade of thread I was using. However it was good to work this desin in coloured thread to see how different it could look.

Feeling christmassy!

I have been feeling chrismassy lately, about time since it is December. I have made these two sets of cards for swaps on FAI. The snowflake cards were made by trapping snowflake confetti between irise film from mraks and spencer, that Jan sent me. I then quilted the film down. The stocking cards are made by pressing a rubber stamp into some soft scult after heating and then brushing it with Stewart Gill paint. I then couched this down with fly and straight stitch onto a background of cutback diamonds. the layers start from the bottom, velvet, opened up inside of crisp packet, green voile, red tafetta and red voile. Worked out very well.

Contemporary Art card for FAI

This image is of the four cards I have made and now finally sent for the Contemporary ast card swap on FAI. I used acrylic on cotton, something that I have been dying to do lately but have never got the time. I also coloured up some scrunched silver foil and coloured it with copper paint and a touch of PVA this turned out well. The last touch wsa to colour up some tyvek and iron it over a ruber stamp, as per workshop on the web, but it didn't work out too fab, think i had my iron on too hot. I then quilted the lot with free machining. I loved making these and they were so quick! Its funny how things you do off the cuff work out best.