Dale's Workshop - Lesson 3 (and some postcards)

This week we did 'weaving'..... I decided to use some printed chiffon, variegated blue/green silk and very dark green polyester velvet (as above). I tore the chiffon and the silk into strips and embellished them alternately into the velvet, then I cut the piece into three quarter inch strips, diagonally, then wove them together.
I then embellished the woven piece together, and embellished it onto a piece of dark blue felt. The cord weaving around the piece is made from very thin strips of the chiffon, twisted together.
I have realised over the last three weeks that the pieces we are making certainly need further work to become 'a finished piece', and this weaving is no exception. Next week we are embellishing pieces of knitting, so perhaps .............

I have received some love postcards recently:

This beauty is from Debbie (my friend Dot's Sister) who is actually on her way to Australia with her family to live. She made this for me while staying with Dot, who lives in Falmouth, as you can see. Sailing boats, sea and sand. Wonderful.
Very remiss of me - this one is from Joanna, and is my Calendar Girl Card for the month of July. Joanna used ink and fabric paints to re-create the flowers and vase from the calendar inspiration, and the background is angelina. Gorgeous!
This fabulous one is from Lynda (purplemissus) and is my Calendar Girl Card for the month of August. It has three layers of rustdyed using the caustic soda and ferrous sulphate method. Bottom layer is handmade paper, then tyvek, then the flower which is made from lutradur. You can see all the wonderful cards the ladies have made by clicking on the Calendar Girl Logo on the right of my Blog.

Naughty but Nice - another Altered Book

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Dale's Workshop - Lesson 2

This week we are working on scrumptious backgrounds... This is red felt (I have yardage of this - can you tell!) layered with fusible web. gold foil, snippets of various yarns with red chiffon on top - then thoroughly embellished.
This is some of the same piece but hand stitched with thick cotton thread, narrow ribbon, thick shiny thread, some unwound dressing gown cord(!) etc.
This is a patterned piece of chiffon, top half is embellished on white felt, the top right hand side also embellished from the back - the bottom half is on black felt, with the right hand portion embellished from the back.
This is torn strips of organza embellished into a weird piece of fabric (you can see at the sides - thickish polyester of sorts) It is embellished until it all lies quite flat.
This is some of the same piece but has been embellished from the back as well, and then strips laid across and just embellished down the centre - the edges are still free.
The Challenge this week was to work a landscape using a photograph (either your own or from any other source available to you)

This is a photograph of a sunrise I took last November from my back garden, so I thought I would have a go ......... The colours are not bright enough of course, as the wool tops I have kept disappearing into the felt! Anyway, I embellished in layers onto lilac coloured felt, then added some torn painted fusible web along the bottom and ironed on some cut threads from the brown unwound dressing gown cord (see first piece above) to represent the bushes and trees, and finally added some machine stitching to create some twigs onto the branches. Job done! The finished piece is 6" x 4" postcard size.

Dale Rollerson's Workshop - Lesson 1

Tuesday the 12th arrived at last (actually Dale sent the first Lesson out Monday evening UK time) and I was finally able to get stuck in. I did a sample using lumpy wool, then fibres on felt and embellishing front and back then I embellished torn strips of silk onto red felt (see below) I then covered it in emerald green chiffon and embellished again .... The piece below is red felt embellished with pieces of torn silk and dyed scrim pulled into strange shapes as I embellished it. The piece below is similar to above but has red chiffon embellished over it and half of it has been zapped with the heat gun.....

This is a piece of red dyed scrim with lots of different colour wool tops pulled out very thinly and laid on the scrim in layers (first layer going one way second layer going t'other, so to speak - four layers I think) I then embellished it from the front and then the back. This piece is wool tops laid on an undyed piece of scrim and embellished front and back, then overlaid with a lemon coloured chiffon and embellished again, then zapped with a heat gun. I did get a bit carried away - hence the nice pale brown colour in places - just as well you can't smell it!
Below is my completed Challenge piece ...........

The samples I used for this was the background of torn strips of silk, having zapped it first with a heatgun. This released a lot more of the colours through the green chiffon. For the flowers I used the sample of silk and scrim scraps (no chiffon) and of course Dale's pattern. Once cut out, I embellished each flower from the back to give it a red centre, and then decorated each centre with 'metallic' bits from recycled necklaces. I was surprised how the red felt background gives the flowers that red edge - and are very dimentional.

I have really enjoyed the week and look forward to Lesson 2 - thanks Dale.

More Embellisher playtime ...

I've had a great time over the last couple of days ....... I embellished a few bits of lace onto a piece of white felt, and then zapped it with the heat gun, front and back ..... when I do it again I shall leave more space between the laces so the felt can disintegrate easier!
I then painted it with BLACK fountain pen ink, which dried blue. I did think it would dry a grey colour, maybe. Perhaps I should have watered the ink a bit ....
I then painted a yellow on it, and got this suggestion of green. Quite nice - make a pretty book cover maybe?
This is a piece of hand dyed silk I embellished onto felt in a random manor, leaving odd spaces. It is amazing how this texture reminds me of my swimsuit, when I was little!!
This is silk, wool and nylon tops pulled out into wisps and embellished on dark green polyester velvet. I am enjoying this ..... looking forward to Tuesday!

Babylock Embellisher play time .....

My friend Janet offered to lend me her Babylock Embellisher to have a play (can you believe that!!) so I signed on for Dale Rollerson's 6 week On-line Workshop beginning 12th August. (Janet doesn't yet have a Blog - but I'm working on her!) I picked up the machine a couple of days ago and this is my first piece, using red polyester velvet and wool and nylon tops/rovings (not sure of the jargon yet!) The reverse side looks interesting too - as do those holes I carefully embellished around (only kidding!!)
It is time again for a postcard for the Calendar Girl swap, and my partner this month is Doreen in Australia (who actually introduced me to Dale's Workshop) so I thought it apt to use a bit of my first piece in her postcard .....
The background is dressmaking pattern tissue pva'd to fabric then overlaid with cotton curtaining and painted to death! The leaves are fabric paper (a la Beryl Taylor) and the tulip shapes are the holes from the above embellished fabric. Click on the Calendar Girl Logo on the right of my Blog - you can then see all the beautiful cards the other ladies have made so far this year.
Can't wait for Dale's Workshop to begin - will keep you posted!

A couple more experiments ....

I've had a lot of fun this week trying out texture on kitchen foil, the idea for which I saw on Carol McFee's Blog. I made quite a large piece, using 50/50 pva glue and water, sticking the foil to a piece of cotton fabric, then covering the foil with crumpled tissue paper. I then painted Golden fluid acrylic yellow all over, then burnt orange, a blue, and finished with a green interference. Above is the result.
I then rubbed a third of the piece with copper Markal using a stencil brush, and the above is the result...
Then I painted a third of the original with purple Procion dye, and the above is the result. I still have a third of the original. It is quite stiff because of the tin foil and the pva glue, but the piece will make super backgrounds for postcards etc. and even motifs for other things. Thanks Carol.
And yet more Bark ...

This technique I found on Lynda's Blog again. Crumpled brown paper on fusible web on cotton backing. I painted it black then grated metallic wax crayons and sprinkled over and ironed using baking parchment to protect the iron. I then painted it lots more times (with brown, blue, green and finally yellow!) till I now think it's done! It is amazing how supple this is, and should be very easy to stitch on.