Recent Swaps

The Calendar Girls 2009 swap for this month. The inspiration was provided by Carol Taylor for this month (see below)

This is my interpretation of Carol's picture, that I made for Doreen in Australia. The background is green velvet, and there are various pieces of net, chiffon, cotton and slivers of velvet, which I manipulated with difficulty into various shapes, using free stitching. Doreen was delighted.

This is Jenny's interpretation of the same picture, using her embellisher. She has felted chiffon, silk and wool into felt to create a beautiful postcard for me. Thanks again Jenny - I love it.

You can see all the other cards the ladies have made and swapped this month, using the same inspiration, by clicking on the Calendar Girls 2009 Logo on the right of my Blog. There are also links there to all their Blogs.

More Recent Swaps

I received these fabulous beads from Pam Jones in Port Talbot this month as part of the swap in Unlimited Textiles, the group I belong to. (Pam doesn't blog - we will have to work on her!!) She tells me she made them by wrapping silk around a knitting needle, followed by kunin felt and beaded wire, then blasted with a heat gun. Pam then threaded them with silk ribbon tassells and attached them to a ring. Thanks again Pam - I think they are gorgeous. I sent some tyvek and felt beads as my part of the swap to Chris Mathieson in New Zealand, but didn't take a picture, and again Chris doesn't blog, but she did like the beads!

The other part of the swap was the Quiltie (5" x 5") with the theme 'Gothic'. This is the one I made for Jan Holehouse in Cheshire. I stamped the background with a stamp in the shape of a church window that I made from a polystyrene meat dish, and added painted tyvek to depict stained glass. Free machine stitching and applied 'melted' netting finishes it off.

This Quiltie was made by Meg Lamey in Albaquerque, New Mexico for me, and depicts a rose window - only 5" square - isn't it gorgeous. I don't have Meg's blog address either - wish I did!

Sketchbook stuff .....

I recently purchased Maggie Grey's Book Textile Translations, in which she suggests trying some doodles in your sketchbook, so .......... I must admit I was pleasantly surprised how they turned out, due mainly I am sure to having painted all the pages in my sketchbook with brusho paint, and on this spread I used a white gel pen. I thought the doodles looked a bit like lace.

The pages themselves are rather thin paper (should have bought one with watercolour pages!) so I am trying to use 'dry' medium instead of more paint. Here I spread some gesso with a palette knife (still a bit wet though) then embedded some painted tyvek pieces into it. I then added 'dry' paint to the gesso when it was dry, and on the red side some oil pastels. On the gold side I added some markal.

I also had a go with the oil pastels to draw from a photo I took in Dubrovnik last year. The painted background seems a lot more 'user friendly' than a blank white space!

Even more re-cycling ....

Each year I organise a five day Retreat for the South West Quilters, and this year I invited Jennifer Trollope to show us her technique 'Revelation Burning'. She was using this technique to make a Tiffany Style Lampshade and the requirements included a candlestick style base and a four sided or coolie type shade. I didn't really want a Tiffany style lamp (nowhere to put it!) but I wanted to do the technique, so I raided my loft and found this solid teak base, and I purchased a white coolie type shade from the charity shop. I needed to cover the base before the Retreat, so..............

the first thing I did was rub it down with sandpaper and stick crumpled strips of butchers paper, cut out lace motifs and string over it (in a delicate pattern of course!)

I then painted it with white emulsion, and when it was dry ...

I painted it with copper and brown acrylic paint.

I was now ready to make the lampshade.

This is a pic. of the fabric I used, draped over the shade I bought, and before I 'altered' the base. The 'revelation burning' technique is achieved by layering fabrics, stitching and using a soldering iron to reveal the motifs - in my case the leaves on my fabric. I made lots of seperate leaves to stitch around the bottom of the shade, instead of the beaded fringe the other ladies put on their Tiffany style shades.

It isn't quite finished (it takes me ages .....) I just have to sew the leaves around the bottom of the shade, where you can see the pins. I also touched up the laces on the base with bronze paint

I have to finish it by the end of April to take it to the AGM along with all the others ......

They really did look gorgeous at the end of the Retreat, and every one was very different.

Three of the ladies made me postcards from the fabric they used for their lampshade, by way of a thankyou for organising it ........ aren't they just lovely?

The postcards - and the ladies!

I shall have to show you the postcards in the next posting, I can't get to add more pix. in this post!

PS. I've managed to get them in under ...........

These postcards really do show off the technique of 'revelation burning' a treat.
Desira made this one for me from the fabrics she used on her lampshade ... Lynda made this one, using some of her Japanese fabric from her lampshade ....

and Maggie made this one from her Paisley fabric - all those beads as well! Gorgeous or what?

Swaps - recycling sort of?

I belong to a group called Unlimited Textiles, and last month I participated in an Unfinished Symphony swap. We have two partners - one we receive from and one we send to, and the idea was to send a piece of anything, and your partner would finish it for you. I sent this piece of felt I had made to Claire and look what came back!

I was absolutely amazed - all that stitching, and she had made it into a Purse, and she had included a bundle of Oliver Twist Threads. Claire tells me she cut a postcard sized section out of the front of the felt, turned the rest over and using merino tops and wool threads, she integrated the two pieces using a Clover needle felting tool. She then added more stitch, mostly in wool and some stranded cotton before using the felted lines to cut the shape of the flap.

This is the back of the purse - it measures 5" x 7"

I have subsequently made a cord for the purse from some of the Oliver Twist Threads. I am delighted with my Finished Symphony - thanks again Claire

Now I must apologise to Ati for this miserable picture of the beautiful piece of felt she sent to me. I can't find the original pic I made anywhere, so have taken this back off the web page but I can't produce it any bigger here! It was about A4 size.....

I completely altered the look of Ati's piece by painting it first with Gesso and then various other fabric paints. The felt was quite thick, so I chopped it up to displace the embroidery on it, turned it all around the zigzagged it back together. butting up the pieces. I then cut out a Postcard, and ATC and some inchies and finished them off. I am pleased to say Ati was delighted, but again my apologies for the miserable pic.!

This is a gorgeous Quiltie (5" x 5") I have recently received from Alis. I asked Alis if she would swap 'vintage ladies' with me, and she made this beautiful Quiltie she calls Daydream Blues. The background is of felt, organza and painted nappy liners all free machine stitched, then zapped with a heat gun. Then a chiffon scarf laid over, more machine stitching in flower shapes, and multiple beads added for centres. Thankyou again Alis, she really is lovely.

This is the Quiltie I made for Alis, which I called Vintage Blossoms. The background and the 'blossoms' are coloured with transfer dyes. The blossoms are actually cut out from flock curtaining. The lady is a photocopy of a pic. using the laminated technique - pva-ing the pic to a sheer, letting it dry, and wetting then rubbing it off from the back (hopefully leaving the image behind!) I then added a slight pink wash. I am happy to report that Alis was delighted.

More recycling ......

WOW! What a surprise that was, waking up to this snow today! Look what's happened to the birdbath the doll was sitting on last weekend .....

I shan't be going anywhere today - not in the car anyway!

When showing you the doll in my last post, I suddenly remembered a little bit of rubbish that was also in that 10p box the lady popped in my bag when I bought the Pierrette Doll. Poor little thing had a hole in her head and no legs....!

Thanks to a couple of pipe cleaners, some wadding and some goat wool, she now has some legs and some hair!

Tut Tut Tut ... the things I waste my time on! The buckle at the front is l" wide, so you can see the doll isn't very big. What do you think of her?