Dreaming Spirals

DH is in the process of making me a design board.  Following instructions on Quiltart and on Mrs Mel’s blog, we went to buy a piece of 8′ by 4′ insulation board.  It was interesting getting it home in the car, particularly as we had two of the boys with us!

Here it is sitting in my studio.  By the way, the latter is relatively tidy.

He has now put a wooden frame round it and glued it in place, although he thinks he will have to use a different glue because that one isn’t holding too well.  He is then going to put some supports on the base with little wheels attached so I can move it round.

Here it is as it is at present.  He is off tomorrow so hopefully it will progress then….

I haven’t been doing too much in the studio lately but today, inspired by an article in Stitch Magazine by Ruth Issett on using metallic powders and Jacquard Pearl-Ex powders (amongst other things), both of which I have and don’t use much, I made a few stamp blocks in preparation.  I glued fun foam on to mountboard in various patterns and a few other things like string:

There is a big one here too…

Hopefully in a few days I’ll have done something with them, once the PVA glue dries.  I put it on quite thick to make it nice and waterproof as well as ensuring that the fun foam stays on.  We made quite a few stamps out of this during City & Guilds and I still use some of them, particularly a spiral one.  Sealed with acrylic paint, it is quite sturdy!

[Read more →]

It’s half term this week so I haven’t had much time to post.  Haven’t done much else either because I’ve been down with DS2’s lurgy from last week and I haven’t felt like doing much…

So let me titivate your senses with photos of the silk sari fabric which DH brought me back from India.

Actually this is a pashmina …

I love the gold edging on these..

This one is very fine, almost chiffony.

This piece is my favourite.  It is mostly green, with that red tie dyed piece at the end.  I love the way the red and green dyes have been allowed to merge into one another at the edges.  Here is a closeup of the tie dyed piece:

I’ve been looking at websites of how to wear sari fabric now… I think it’ll be a while before I dare to cut any of this lot up!!

[Read more →]

Hurray, hurray! It must be the season for revamping websites - Leslie Morgan and Claire Benn’s website, Committed to Cloth is live again! And there is lots to look at.

Leslie and Claire run the Virtual Studio at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham and wrote the book Breakdown Printing which I used to guide me in some screenprinting early last year.

They are an inspiration.

[Read more →]

I’ve just finished doing a revamp of my website to make it look more like my blog - not completely, but more than it did before. I haven’t added much extra content yet, although there is now a sitemap with a descriptive (and hopefully useful!) summary of every webpage. I haven’t quite finished loading the new format to ALL the pages as there are about 40 of them to do and I keep finding errors on each page! But the main ones are done and I am slowly putting into practice something of what I have learnt on the SEO course. And I hope to update it and add more pictures and details when I have time.

I have made the html and css much more streamlined and, hopefully, efficient. It astonishes me how little I knew when I wrote the original! And I have added a lot more of the code to the CSS sheet instead of the main pages so that I can easily change the colours or style in the future without having to alter every single page.

Please let me know if anything doesn’t work on your browser - I’ve tested it in quite a few but there are always glitches…

If you would like to swap links with me, drop me a line.

[Read more →]

One of the things I’ve got involved in since Christmas has been organising the crafts for Health Help International.  HHI is an organisation started by Ron Prosser, a local man who went out to Zambia a few years ago and was so appalled by the conditions he found there that he decided to do something about it.  It started by sending medical supplies and helping to set up medical centres there.  Since then they have also got involved in India, where DH went for 11 days a couple of weeks ago.    Amongst the things they do to raise money is to sell local crafts, and so I have been helping to organise these and develop this area a bit. 

They have a sewing studio in Zambia for disabled women and while DH was away I was busy making samples out of my African fabrics for Ron to take to Zambia when he goes in March for the ladies to make more of the items.  

There is a table runner:

A matching table mat:

A cushion cover:

A scarf, which I had made previously:

And a bandanna.

I still have one of those wallhangings with pockets to put things in to make.  I’m also helping set up a website with Paypal to sell these things as an alternative way of making money, which is why I needed to know how to remove backgrounds from objects in Paint Shop Pro. 

[Read more →]

On Wednesday I did a bit of painting. 

First, I decided to try and get the feel of trees by painting some canvas board and putting clingfilm on, pulling it vaguely into the shape of tree branches.  I used a mixture of acrylics and watercolours on acrylic canvas.

Here it is drying:

I didn’t realise that red was as red as it was, if you see what I mean, but hey, artistic license!

This is it now it is dried and I’ve taken the clingfilm off.  I think this is the best way up for the trees.  I will add some paint and crayon to it, I think, to make the trees stand out but I think you can see vague outlines.

I had some paint to use up then, so I decided to do the same thing with some lutradur.  Instead of putting the clingfilm on top of it, I put it underneath it and weighted it down so the clingfilm would stay put.  This was because the paint tended to soak through and collect underneath. 

Here it is, before I covered it:

And here is the result:

 I don’t think the clingfilm made much difference here…  (the colours are more true on the bottom photo).

 I also then painted some more lutradur with blues and greens.  I dribbled a lot of water on it and in places this is leeching the paint away on to the drop cloth. 

In this photo you can just see the book I was using for guidance - Mary Todd Beam’s Celebrate Your Creative Self.  I love this book.

Here is the blue piece when it dried:

The colour is a BIT stronger than this photo shows but not much.  As you can see, the area where I dripped the most water on it has lost most of its paint. 

All in all, a fun exercise!!

[Read more →]

A quick question: does anyone know how to remove backgrounds in Paint Shop Pro? I want to remove the background from photos of various objects (like you get in a sales catalogue) and can’t figure out how to do it. Well, I can sort of do it but PSP doesn’t seem to act consistently… I’m sure it’s because I’m not a competent user!

Instructions for dummies, please!!!

[Read more →]

Yesterday we had even more (unforecasted) snow and it took the kids (and DH) a couple of hours to get home from school….

It came down quite heavily from 8am till about 1pm.  The kids went sledging after they got home and I walked up the hill to see them - it was strange and wonderful walking through a white wonderland at 5pm with hardly any cars and a frosty, crisp atmosphere. 

Once again I couldn’t stop myself taking photos of the trees:

I came across Anselm sledging (on a teatray!) - the photo is blurred but I think it looks rather artistic and abstract!

After this I discovered the night time flash setting on my camera:

Alas, it has been raining on and off all day and a lot of it has gone now and what is left is all wet and slushy - ugh!

[Read more →]