Stitched paper piece the first

I began stitching my chosen papers last night and am not happy with it at all but I am going to persevere for a couple of days and then if I still hate it I will put it in my sketchbook and ignore it.

These are the thread colours I have chosen. I like to use the six strand threads as you can vary the thickness easily and can blend the colours together to get more subtle tones.

I am tearing sections and putting pieces of paper and tissue with stitching on underneath to get depth. I struggle with paper as it is stiff, crunchy and flat.

 

 

 

The decision is made

I have chosen which printed papers I am going to stitch first. Although I may just have to stamp my feet in protest if I can't find the right colour threads to match or convince Kim I didn't hear her say they should!
When I was putting my papers together to bring home this combination just happened. I am finally learning to go with the flow and not to overthink things.

Happy Days

Well the last few weeks have  been interesting. Whilst clearing out my son's room of my craft clutter I have discovered all sorts of bits and pieces. I have been good and cleared a quantity of stuff and donated it to new homes. The room is now ready for my son's return at the end of August and I have concentrated my crafting area into textile stuff only.
I have just spent another weekend with Kim and my ExTex 3 buddies in Redditch. Two intense days making printing blocks and then printing papers and fabrics.

 

These are a few of my printed and overdyed designs.

 

I just need to make a decision which one to sew into for my homework!

 

These pieces below are last months homework

 

These are make from felt which has been cut out and the black swopped with the white and vice versa. I then stitched both pieces so they are the same as each other and on the reverse. It was very fiddly but was a useful exercise to complete.

 

One of my designs appliqued onto white cotton using bits of fabric, braid, ric rac, cord and lace.

This piece was made by ironing Bondaweb onto a piece of white cotton fabric then tracing my design onto the paper side of the Bondaweb and cutting out the pieces and ironing them on to the black cotton. I found by using the peeled off paper as a template I could accurately place the smaller pieces.

I stitched this design sitting in various hospital waiting rooms with my parents over the last month. It is quite surprising what can be achieved instead of just sitting about waiting.

I absolutely love being tutored by Kim because she inspires me to try out my ideas instead of going round in circles, gives good advice and makes me laugh!

 

 

 

Chaos and Happiness

Well in the space between blogs a lot has been happening! My youngest son has lived away from home for five years since he went to uni at 18 and is now coming back for a while to save money to visit his girlfriend in Beijing next year. This is lovely as he is good fun but..................where on earth do I put all the stuff I have accumulated in his room! I have negotiated the bottom of the wardrobe for my overlocker and half the top for two large boxes of fabric but the rest has to go somewhere.
My daughter has decided we are going on a 10 day trip to Boston, Massachusetts in September which is going to be a great challenge as the longest flight I have been on was for three hours and apparently when we go to Cape Cod for three days we are hiring a car and I am driving! I have stocked up on Rescue Remedy and am practising relaxation exercises to stay calm.
My eldest son, also still at home, brought his new girlfriend to lunch last Sunday and then took me to see How to Train Your Dragon 2 so that was a perfect day.
I am also ploughing through my Extex 3 homework but as usual I have more ideas than time so I shall persevere.

I'm Off Again!

I have had a marvellous weekend in Redditch on an Experimental Textiles course run by Kim Thittichai. Even though his is my second journey along this route there are many more side alleys to explore, dead ends to get stuck in, mountains to climb, rivers to cross and fellow travellers to get to know, fantastic discoveries to make and maybe cake too!!!
After painting an imaginary journey with black paint on a long strip of paper, sections were traced off and transferred to my sketchbook to be painted. One of the tracings was copied onto a large sheet of paper and flipped and mirrored to create a large very interesting design. I have outlined the pencil lines in black to see the effect and then I will be painting it to create a black and white design. I can already see some other designs appearing so will make smaller tracings and repeat this exercise
after dealing with my mother's latest crisis - bees in the chimney!!! Of course these will not be normal bees but a new killer variety from foreign climes and she won't get a wink of sleep until they have been evicted. How she knows they are there is a mystery......... maybe she does have a witches broom after all!

A section of my journey

 

Outlined flipped design

 

The original traced design when painted

 

 

Silk Paper Making

I recently had the chance to do a local workshop on silk paper making. It was easier than I expected it to be and used up all sorts of bits and pieces I have been squirrelling away for years. I now have loads of sample pieces which I can practice stitching into. This piece is simply gummy silk wetted with water between pieces of net and squished then left to dry. I went for an airy piece but haven't decided how to stitch into it yet.

Grace's Quilt

I saw the DC Originals Comics range of fabrics on the Frumble website and new it would be perfect to make a quilt for Grace. I cut up the faces panel and bordered them with black fabric set at angles to hide the names. This made me think of film strips so I carried on with plainer red and blue fabric from the same range and edged the strips with black. I foundation pieced a large red pointy star shape with a blue background for the centre block and used large pieces of other fabrics in the range for the other blocks. It went together quickly was quilted in no time. Grace loved it!