Things for the kids

Well it's that time of year again and i need to do better than last year, where as I made them tags, this year i am making Corsages. Year 11 leave on friday and I wil be very sad to see this lot go. I love my classes, and although I have a few more grey hairs than before ( god they think they have all the time in the world!) they are a joy to teach and a delight. I love to hear them going hell for leather free machining or that wooooo noise when I brng a new technique into the classroom. So corsages it is this year, i am using some lovley vintage fabrics i won in a give away from Paula., and the tutorial I found on Molly chicken's blog, it is very quick and easy to do, thanks Molly. Hope to be back on blogging form by the end of this week. Hope your all well?????

Still bogged down by course work.

Well it was getting out of hand here and i couldn't find anything, so lovely DH bought me a few extra boxes and i set out to tidy up the mess and now everything is labelled and easy to find, now all I need is the time to use any of it! I have decided to put off qualifying for my C+G this year, I only have about 2 pieces and about 5 samples left to do but with all the GCSE marking I won't get there! But it has worked out wel and as my lecturer is finishing next year and so it will be nice to finish at the same time as her.
To prove i have done something, here is the canvas I painted last year. I added the turquoise and purple inchies to it. I love it now.
Close up's, we know you love close up's.

Hopefully by next friday it will all be over with the dresses and the course work and I will be able to take a photo of the work my class has done and the girls are wearing their finished frocks.
I will have to show you Leah's bikini's, they are amazing! Hope your all well, see you on the other side of this week!

Angie Hughe Klimpt workshop

Today Fiberpaperarts, a local group I am a memeber of, made up of girls from my C+G mainly, and is a yahoo group, had a workshop with Angie Hughes. She inspired us by getting us to work with Klimpt as our inspiration. We started of with a combination of bondaweb and misty fuse and foils. We foiled through stencils and added sweety foil with bondaweb on the back for chunkier details. I cheated a bit on the inspiration, and although it is reminicent of Klimpt, I had in mind my colour unit and the fact that I have started work on personal symbol's for my colour and culture unit. So I added diamonds instead of squares and managed to get a bit of foil that Chris had left that had had the word colour foiled out already so I had a lush negative, see the bottom corner. Here is my first step.

I thought that the black line I left in the centre looked like a stem, and as I had used a daisy flower in my book, I decided it was fate!
My first attempt wass pants, and on advice from Angie, I went back to it and made the petals more pointy, and it looks much better.
I was going to cut this to make a bag as my resolved piece, but it is so nice I can't bear to, so I am going to start a new piece with these lovely pieces of inspiration for a guide! What a lovely day, realy really fun.

Link for people looking for hand painted fabric

No time to paint some fabric for a special project??? You quilters out there will love this. My friend Deb is selling some of her hand painted cotton on Ebay here. I blogged about going on a workshop with her here. Here are the photo's of Deb and her stuning quiting. and the blue is a piece of fabric I painted with her on the day. Her prices are just fab, at about £2 per fat Quater, she also has project packs in colourways. Deb does stunning art quilts, go check her out!

Resolved piece for design

I finished my resolved piece for the design element of C+G. I have been working on the story of the welsh miner's wives and the role they had to play in the lives, families and commuities they lived in. I decided finally to mount these standing an the step. The step was important to the welsh Mam, in demonstrating that cleanliness was next to godliness, a place to wait for husband or children before dosing out a bit of discipline, or for a good old gossip. So here they are having a gossip.
and briefly incase anyone sorta wonders why I am not posting as much in the next couple of weeks it is GCSE marking time again, and so I am a bit Ducks at the mo - you know head down tail up!

Vintage arch for Patsy

I have been aving a wonderful time over the last few days working on an arch for the Textile challenges year long arch page swap. This month I am sending to Patsy. She requested tea dyeds lace and neutrals, along with vintage images. I usually never quite know what to do with vintage pics, despite ikeing them. So I found this one and it as in lovely sepia tones and I thought to myself what is this lady up to. I decided she was waiting for her lover. Then I had to think where would she be waiting, well it couldn't be a bus stop could it!!!!!! I decided on trees.
If you click on the pic you will see all the background is woven of Coffee dyed cotton, the last of some I got from Sue Bleiweiss a while ago when she had a give away. I fused the woven strips which included a stip of lace to the background. I had already fused the picture in place. I cut through the weaving to reveal, reverse applique style the pic. I then free machined the trees, which are a shot silk, and the edge of the lady in place.I hand stitched then in a tonally similar thread, again click to see all the hand stitching that covers the background, including the little bird up in the trees.
I bound the edge with a frayed strip of the cotton and then added the strips and buttons. I wantedthe page to have weight from the buttons and to have something sticking out of the page so that when Patsy binds her arches into a book she will have them sticking through. On the back I decided I had had such fun with the little bird I would carry this on. I hand appliqued the bird and hand stitched a tree and 3 little flying birds. With a brown fineliner I wrote the thought that started this with, "and she sat beneath the tree and waited for him..."
Such fun, just hope Pasty likes it now. If she doesn't I'll keep it!!!

Look at my lovely post.

I got 3 lovely parcels all the way from Oz today, they must have kept each other warm along the way. The first is a lovely purple arch from Hannah. I love it. It is just my colours. I love it Hannah.
The next ATC is from Britt, and to my great pleasure she has added some bobbin lace. Now my mum makes lace and will be really interested to see it. Thank you Britt.
The next two have hot footed from the Grey household. The first is from Doreen and the later is from Ebony. I love the colours and lush surface that this photo does not do justice too.
Now isn't Ebony's spectacular. I really love it, it feel nice in your hand, quality you know. The dots on the background give it such a sophisticated feel. Love it. Now let me blow you away by telling you Ebony is EIGHT, yes that's right 8. Now as you all know I teach in the comp (11-16 year olds) and I see a lot of art work done by young people but this is the most beautiful, grown up, quality piece of work I have seen for a long time. It will have pride of place on my desk at school, thank you Ebony so much.