I just LOVE surprises, and the little quilt, postcard, and hand made cord (made on an overlocker) were sent to me from Doreen (Grey) in Australia. Doreen reckons she came across the little quilt the other day and thought I might like it, due to what I had put in my Profile - isn't that just great!

I asked if she would swap postcards with me, and this is the one she sent. I hope she likes the one from me, as much as I like this one.

The picture of the cord does not do it justice, it is so pretty, with gold bits in amongst the red.

South West Quilters Workshop

There is nothing quite like spending a beautiful sunny Saturday inside a Village Hall with like minded people, making painted texture - is there? I did just that yesterday. I attended a South West Quilters Workshop tutored by Janet Gibbins at Exton Village Hall, South Devon, and had a whale of a time.

As you can see from this photo, Janet had us snipping bits of different fabric off piles she had brought with her, and stitching them down onto calico, with felt behind. We then painted the piece with emulsion paint (works just as well as Gesso) then put it out into the sunshine to dry.

While this was drying Janet had us painting another piece of felt with 'blobs' of metallic paint (three colours) smearing it on with a pallette knife. We then put that out to dry and brought the other piece in.

We then painted all these bits of fabric with acrylic paint, which of course came up in various shades, as we had various colours of bits under the white emulsion. That then went out to dry.

In came the other piece, which we then covered in a chiffon scarf and stitched all round the shapes with metallic thread (that woulnd't melt when you attack it with a soldering iron!) When finished we cut our pieces out with the soldering iron, so what you see in the pic. is my piece sitting on some blue fabric. I have yet to mount it onto something.

The textured piece was now dry, and we just added some metallic paint with a very dry brush, just to highlight all the texture.

I reckon the painted texture would make super fabric Postcards... must get stitching and painting more bits.

KINDRED SPIRITS

Last Sunday I and three friends paid a visit to the Royal Horticultural Society at Rosemoor, Gt.Torrington, North Devon, for a photoshoot, with four Art Dolls we had made. The photoshoot was for publicity for an Exhibition we are planning to put on there next May 2008. We call ourselves Kindred Spirits and the theme of our Exhibition will be Myths & Legends. We have each made a doll representing a myth or legend, and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours clicking away amongst all the beautiful flowers and veg. As you can see from this picture, Sarah's fairy has a hangover, and would lie down by the water dangling her hand in it. The others were behaving reasonably well.
This is Carol's Fairy, she is a wood nymph and plays the flute (Carol Rowland)
This is Sarah's Fairy, she is the Fairy of Recyling, and has a very bad hangover and misbehaved all day (Sarah O'Hora)
This is Vinnie's Goddess called Danni and relates to the Greek Legend about the shower of gold (Vineta Cable)
This is Val's Frost Fairy (Val Thomas)
All the girls behaved reasonably well considering how tiring it is to pose for the cameras for two or more hours.
We hope to have some postcards printed, as well as the publicity that RHS Rosemoor will be distributing in their leaflets of upcoming Events at Rosemoor.
Kindred Spirits are also planning a Calendar for 2009 (well it takes a lot of thinking about you know!!) with the theme Myths & Legends, and we each have to make three pieces. I will post pictures to share with you as I get them. Watch this space .....................

I bought a Felting Needle Tool yesterday and have been playing with it this morning. I don't think I am doing it right, as the card attached to the Tool says 'no thread or glue needed' and 'both sides look good'! The first time I tried I didn't like it much (wrong fabric) and just pulled it off....! However, I had another go with some silk, and quite liked the texture and effect I achieved. It is 'punched' into black felt. A while back I pushed some air drying 'marshmallow' clay into the felt and stamped it, let it dry and painted it. Now it has some felted silk around it, but I have had to stitch it down, else it would have pulled out.

I will have another go, and try to do better next time.

WOW! Look what arrived on my mat this morning. Isn't it gorgeous. I introduced my friend Dot to the Artist's Muse Website recently, and after completing her first Challenge and posting it onto the website, she has made this postcard for me in a very similiar manner. It is so beautiful - I can't tell if it is on green felt, but the background is various shades of green organza, cut and placed and machine stitched on top of each other, free machined leaf shapes are added, then the gorgeous flowers also using organza are free machined on. Two different coloured threads are used for each flower, with a seed bead added in the centre of each. Hand running stitches have been added in a lovely curvy shape, and finally, a little printed label in the top left hand corner that reads 'the spring of creativity'. The whole thing is topped off with a green eyelet through which is threaded organza ribbons, as you can see. What about that then? Whose a very lucky lady then? Thanks so much Dot.

Chapter 2 - Challenge 1

I am very new to blogging (can you tell!) so I am having trouble making the page read sensibly from one posting to another. This is why I have changed the title to "Chapter 2 - Challenge 1" as I intend to work another piece under the second Challenge/Chapter (Oh dear! see what I mean). However, this piece is Water Lilly that represents the first part of the Challenge. The brief was to create flowers on a pieced green background using three or more green fabrics, using whatever technique suited, to then use a repetition of one to three shapes and add a shape of colour off centre to create a focal point. Reading the second chapter of The Artist's Muse, the various artists talk quite a bit about wet-on-wet underpainting - in fact one of the challenges in the book is to create painted flowers using this technique with paper of course, not fabric. I thought I would have a go on fabric, just to see if the paint would run nicely like I imagined..... did it? Nah! I have used it in my piece though, and I painted the water lillies onto this painted green background using acrylic paints. I've machine quilted the piece using a bronze metallic thread, and embellished a little with bronze beads that I hoped might look like droplets of water on the lilly pads! All the fabrics used are cotton. Water Lilly is A5 size - which is the size I will make all my challenge pieces (approx. 5" x 8" plus a half inch here and there!)

The small picture above left is the inspiration I used for my piece, cut from a gardening magazine.

Challenge 2 The Spring of Creativity

It is raining this morning, so I am studying! I am devouring the second chapter of Betsy Dillard Stroud's book, in an endeavour to find inspiration for my interpretation of Sue B's second challenge. The challenge relates to flowers, so I popped out, in between the showers, to take a few pix of the flowers in my garden. I have been mulling over how I will piece the background of green fabrics and what method I will use to apply the flower, and of course the overall design. Then it occurred to me I could use dried flowers that I pressed last year! This would be a totally different piece - what sort of background for those. I usually work with fabrics, but I might have a go at mixing medias a bit..... I'm off to play -