Photographs

Hi all.  Here are some photographs sent in by busy people.

Cath has been printing.  They look like cotton reel prints to me.

Diane has done a smaller hand embroidered version of her Victoria Falls picture and made it into a bag

Here she has been doing a straight stitch sample

These two pictures are both sides of a bag, printed with a thermofax screen then quilted mostly with free machining and one automatic motif. 

Susan has been catching up with her straight stitches.

Well done the three of you of you, you make us all jealous.  

New Work

I thought you might like to see what I have been up to this last week.

First I have made a box cover for my artists trading cards.

Then I made two more cards to put in it.

The one on the left is using Anne's portrait that was on the wrapping paper round my book that I bought from the exhibition.  The one on the right is using my fabric from India along with a good luck bracelet I was given while on holiday there.

A few weeks ago I did some screen printing and was going to bring it to the meeting to put a second colour on it, so on Wednesday I decided I would get on and finish it.

The top three pieces were printed first with red and the black on the centre and right hand side pieces. The green piece underneath is a thermofax screen.  Similar principle to a screen print but the design is fixed into the screen so you can use it over and over again.

I then got out my jelli plate and did these prints.  Who knew that the potato masher had such a lovely design (prints on the right).

This is my clean up baby wipe which will make a good background piece sometime.

The other piece of screen printing I did I then photocopied and cut it into pieces and moved it around to try and make other patterns.  I think my zig zags were a bit far apart but I could make something interesting from this.

Challenge of this Week!!

Has anyone got some lightweight Tyvek that they don't know what to do with?

Here is a way to make some nice beads with it.  You will need a heat gun for this.

Cut some strips of Tyvek about 6 inches long and as wide as the bead you want.  Don't make them too narrow as they are more difficult to tie.  Start with something about 1.5 inches wide.

Paint the strips with a different colour on each side.  I used both Koh-I-Noor and Inktense paints and they work as well as each other.

When dry, put a dab of glue on the end of the strip and roll it tightly round a knitting needle and secure with the glue.  I used a number 7 needle.

Using a length of metalic thread, secure it round one end of the bead, wrap it round a couple of times, then wrap the middle of the bead and finally the other end. Secure the thread by threading through a needle and then under the wrapped thread and loop.  It must be metallic thread as this won't melt under the heat gun.  

I used this one from Madeira but it did tarnish a bit under the heat.

This Madeira thread is better. It is a three stranded gold.

Keep your bead on the knitting needle and then zap it with a heat gun.  The Tyvek will melt between the threads and tiny bits of colour will show through from the reverse of the paper. 

Hope you can see these OK, I was quite pleased with them and will do some more I think.

Keep Stitching!!

March update

Hi everybody.  As we have had to cancel our March meeting I am using the blog to keep in touch with as many of you as I can.  I suggested that we can share pictures of work, etc. and already two people have sent me some to put up.

One of our newest members is Liz who has sent this wonderful piece of a 14th century Ethiopian monk.

The next pieces I received were from Lesley showing some work for the Africa theme and some stitch samples.

You are all so industrious when you have been able to go out.  I expect to be inundated with pictures once you are locked in all day.

If you would like something else to do, here is something I did at a workshop a few years ago.  I think it was with Shelley Rhodes.
Cut 15 - 20 pieces of cheap white paper (I think we had newsprint) approx. 5.5cm x 11.5cm and also a piece of shiny paper from a magazine cover.

My pieces had a hole punched right through the middle but you don't have to do that. Print, paint, stitch, stick - do anything you like on each page but don't spend more than a few minutes on each one. You can do one at a time, all at once or in batches whatever suits you.  I made notes on some of them so I knew what I had done.  This first one was a monoprint.  I think I was doing a bigger piece and I just placed this piece of paper at the side so that the print went onto it.

I spent longer on this one as it is wire stitched to the paper.

This is the reverse of the wire showing the stitches.  The other page is a torn off piece of monoprint with a strip of fabric stuck over it.

The paper from the magazine is folded into three to make a cover to hold all your pieces in.  They seem to keep quite well, I haven't had any trouble with bits falling out.  I have found a few empty pages in mine so I am now going to fill them up.  We can bring these to our meeting when we return.

Keep stitching and don't forget, you can click on the comment box at the bottom and type in a comment or question.

February Meeting

Am a bit late doing this, it will soon be our March meeting but better late than never.

We were all very shocked and saddened at the sudden death of Barbara Douglas, one of our original members.  She was very supportive of the group and hardly ever missed a meeting.  Her work was beautiful and she embraced modern techniques as well as traditional embroidery.  Our thoughts are with the family.
Another quiet day still getting over Christmas and the wild weather we have been subjected to.  It didn't stop everyone beavering away at their work.  We have started a new stitch to work with and this time it is straight stitch.  Hoping to see lots of different ways of working with that.

Jan dyed her fabric by standing tea bags on it to dry and so creating these lovely patterns

This was one of Anne's dried leaves that she painted and touched with gold then waxed to keep it flexible.

Another Ann was tacking together this lovely quilt.

Diane has done this lovely depiction of the Victoria Falls

I think this was Christine's work.  Love the eyelashes!