art challenge day 3 - textiles in seaside colours

and one of my earliest image transfers

older work for the facebook art challenge

1. St. Ives colours 2. beach streams 3. shells and beads
4. down onto the beach 5. hearts 6. stitched watercolour pebbles
 7. stitched paper pebbles 8. in springtime 9. spring flowers

have a very happy Wednesday ♥

mish mash

the thing is ...

most of the time I have many projects on the go

but I do like to complete everything I start

even if, frustratingly, it's not as quickly as I'd like and

sometimes there may be no apparent semblance of order

things may appear to be a muddling mish mash

a collection or mixture of unrelated things; a hodgepodge

but this can be a very refreshing way of working ...

refreshing

1. || 2. living at Canteras Beach 3. stitched 4. Noel Betowski - painting detail 5. tTextiles & fabrics & cloth 6. the EZ 7. white brown and blue vase (4) 8. . 9. dream of cool summer stars 10. . 11. petit dessin 6 12. St Ives Cornwall 13. free texture 14. sailing day 15. cold waters 16. raindrops

it's the way I work ...

and I'm sure many of you do too ...

quite often I have a specific train of thought going on

but one thing leads to another before the first thing has met fruition

and, before you know it, there's a big pile of UFO's

(unfinished objects)

 the only way to manage this way of working

is to accept that some projects serve their purpose at the time

and reach completion

and others are either best left to be revisited at a later time

or, perhaps, will never be finished ...

they may be cut up and used in a new project

 and this can be a very positive thing

... a way of connecting your work

especially if you work with recurring themes

acceptance is liberating

this happened to me recently on one of my Crow Days with Jo ...

 when we  met up for our usual monthly get together to "play"

we decided to have a go at making faux chenille samples

so I prepared my painted papers the night before

choosing to work with the colours in my photograph above

(my usual St.Ives/seaside colours)

 I used pages from my local paper - The St. Ives Times & Echo

in particular the art pages about

William Scott's exhibition at The Tate

  

as well as some pages from a daily tabloid and some bondaweb

 I coloured the pages so the text can still be read and enjoyed

and ironed some of the bondaweb onto the painted newspaper pages

 the painted papers were then mixed with layers of chiffons

on top of a base of stiff interfacing/pellon

and machine stitched in straight lines through the layers

then cut with a pair of scissors through all the layers

except for the interfacing base which holds it all together

 then I fluffed up the edges with a rough nail brush

to distress the chiffon fibres and reveal some of the text

although I really enjoyed playing with these samples

and was pleased when assorted St. Ives and sea related words

were serendipitously revealed ...

I can't, ultimately, see a purpose for this technique in my work
(that's just my own personal opinion)

so I'm not sure the exercise was wholly successful ...

and I came to this conclusion rather quickly

so I only stitched and cut up a small piece of faux chenille sample

you can see some good examples for end use
in Kim Thittichai's book "Layed Textiles"

so ... what to do with the rest of the layers? mmm ...

leaving the newspapers, chiffons and pellon in a random order

I folded them over and double stitched down the middle

to make little newspaper books

I only made two as my sewing machine decided to have "attitude"

and refused to stitch through the ironed on bondaweb

(something you may find of interest before you attempt this)

anyway ... when I opened them ... I was surprised at the
serendipity of them ... of the randomness of the papers and text ...

this pleased me very much

(and when I got home I began working into the pages)

 on my desk

preparing the base layers and beginning to decorate the pages

using pieces of fabric, scrim, lace and paper from my erosion bundle

the next stage is to embellish the pages with things I love

such as St. Ives related things, words I like and hand stitching, etc.

 this is how the front cover is looking ...

it will have a gorgeous blue mussel shell attached when it's finished

it's just placed there at the moment so that I can work on the pages

 now these I can see will have a purpose

one will be a mini journal filled with thoughts of St. Ives

the other will be a comments book for my show in November 2013

and I will share the pages later ... as I work into them

 anyway ... my point is that the faux chenille will always be a sample and will not progress to anything other than a sample which I will stick into the newspaper journal ... that leaves me with the newspaper journal ... an "as yet" unfinished project ... but an ongoing one ... as you know how long hand stitching takes ... and it will be revisited on an "as and when I get time" basis because I've got more pressing projects to complete first ... such as things for my shop, custom orders and tags ... so this is how it goes ...

you will be getting a mish mash of stuff from me ...

meanwhile ... back to our Crow Day

it was a Wednesday so it was time to photograph my jar

week 6 of the jar project

27th February 2013

[my jars for weeks 4 and 5 will be on Love Stitching Red]

I took my jar to Crow Day at Jo's studio at Krowji in Redruth

I used the mussel with the barnacles as my subject

and placed the jar on some of the painted bondaweb

through the glass it looked like a "watery" beach

and then I placed the jar on some of the painted pages

about the Tate exhibition ... love those distortions

William Scott and Peter Fraser

and then looking at the same page through the bottom of the glass

  mmm ... lovely colours and distortions and light

if you read down to the bottom ... thank you so much!

I  hope it may have inspired you a little to "play"

thank you always for visiting

and for reading my rambles ♥

Texture and interest - leaves and ferns

Back to showing you a few samples from one of my sketchbooks - these were made a few years ago now on a bit of a leaf / fern theme


















The sample at the bottom is rubbing over textured wallpaper with wax crayons on cotton fabric. The wax highlights the pattern and acts as a resist, then I went over the top with watered down acrylic paints


















A rough monoprint onto cotton

















Monoprinting made by painting onto a flat surface and pressing the fabric onto the paint to take a print. "Monoprint" usually means you only really get one good print, but I managed to take another print from the same paint which I really liked because it was more subtle. I outlined the shape with machine stitching


















For this sample I painted onto bondaweb, cut the shape out and ironed the painted bondaweb onto white cotton, then added some very simple machine stitching


















A machine stitched fern shape made using variegated quilting thread and the zig zag stitch setting














A collected fern, pressed then trapped between cotton and plastic, then stitched round to secure


















Sun printing















Finally, this is me playing with my stitched monoprint picture in David Hockney photo collage style

Bondaweb Felt and Stitch

Here I am exploring colour - still using the lime green, pink and purple but introducing silver again. At this stage I was trying to decide what I will use for my finished piece, which will be an embroidered bag. I'm fairly sure the bag will feature fly stitches, beads and sequins. Just need to decide on the colours and technique I will use


















I painted some bondaweb and added some felt tops to the paint while it was still wet, then ironed the paint and felt to some silver metallic fabric. I added fly stitches, french knots, beads and sequins to this sample















Detail

Layers of sheers, painted bondaweb and stitch

Painted bondaweb ironed onto a silver metallic fabric. I like the patchy effect











I layered some sheer fabrics and heat distressed chiffons. I painted a piece of bondaweb with antique gold irridescent paint, after it was dry I ironed it to the sheers. I added another sheer layer, then machine stitched on top with silver metallic thread

Triangles

Knitting with wire, beads and sequins














Copper mesh on dyed cotton with couched threads. Copper mesh can be manipulated into three dimensional shapes and being wire it will hold it's form














A collage of triangles in different materials and types of paper including magazine paper, painted kitchen towel paper, Tyvek, scrim, cotton, cellophane sweet wrappers, painted papers and textured papers












Plastic with threads bonded to it with bondaweb. On top of this I stitched a piece of plastic mesh/netting from a bag of logs

A page from my sketchbook ...

Various samples

• Top - a piece of chiffon that I dyed myself
• Left - machine embroidery sample
• Below Left - small piece of felt with fly stitches in a variegated pink thread
• Below right - Trapping fancy threads between chiffon and metallic mesh using bondaweb