w...

...decided just to make it w for Wednesday. Not very original, I know. I think if I'd kept up with triple 'w's' then it would have been 'wasted work Wednesday'.Not much of anything done today so I thought that I'd post a few pictures. from the other day.

 These  were taken the other evening. Some lovely colours.
 

These are a few of my heart cards or at least they are copies of what will become cards. I have no idea at the moment about how to use the printed paper sheets. I'm sure something will come to me if I just give it time.

I need to go now as I'm falling asleep on the blog!

Byee!

x

www 7....

...this weeks Wednesday work...wow, three 'ws' . I have to say that Wednesday started well. Met a friend for tea and bacon rolls, loads of chatting then cream cake and cup of tea! We were there for quite a while!

Didn't start this until late afternoon, break for tea then a bit of work into the evening. Just more of my usual strips of fabric, mostly silk and a few hand dyed pieces a bit of a break from the sheers, I've couched on a selection of fancy yarns. I knotted one of them first which you can see below.

Nothing new, just some of my heart shapes cut out to make into cards. Not quite sure if I've got them right or not, it's a while since I last made them.

I've added the usual button and a few little kisses (cross stitches). I've even cut out a flower shape from lace. I don't normally do hand stitching on my cards as they are usually free machined. These I felt needed a little extra touch hence the kisses.

Sorry if these photos don't show up well, the light was going, I took some at the window with the remaining light (don't think I've used any of these) then used the flash on most of the others. Think the last one was taken under my light rather than with the flash.

I'm off to finish some more....no changed my mind I'm off to bed, falling asleep infront of the screen!! 

Byee.

x 

www.6...

Ok so here is my Wednesday show and tell. I wasn't sure if I should show this or not but I decided that I'd just go for it. The next two photos are todays view from my studio window. Yes I know that I'd been keeping it a big secret. I think  it's because I'm not in it very often which I know is really bad but hey, that's life. I'm trying very hard to go to it at least twice a week. I was there yesterday and today for 4 hours each. Not very much but enough, not sure how much work I get done especially with such a great view. Maybe because I've made it public I'll make a greater effort to produce more work. It's more of a painty place than a stitching place although I do have an old sewing machine there and an iron so there is really no excuse...

  The next two photos are a piece of cloth I painted yesterday. I decided to wrap it round a plastic container with thread round it to hold it in place. I then dry brushed on another colour, the darker one. The first picture doesn't show much as the cloth was really too long for it to work properly. The second photo shows the area that worked a bit better. I've used acrylic paint for this.

 Now the next five photos show todays work, working Wednesday. I took them on my phone, loaded them onto my computer and turned them so they sat straight. Right then, why are they all at the side and upside down then? Sorry haven't got a clue and don't know how to fix it so you'll just have to get a warped view of it. Hey this could be 'warped Wednesday work'! Trying in vain to get the three 'w's' featured...oh well. :o)

I'm sure that you can figure out that there is a bit of a landscape, seascape theme happening here. I'm preparing some ideas for my ladies stitching class on Friday so that's all for now. Let's not get prepared too far in advance!!!!

I'll leave you with a couple more views from the studio window...aaah....!

x

www 5.....

...remembered it was Wednesday, just! I'm intending working a bit more on all this but I thought that I'd be better to post something while I remembered.

 
I've enjoyed working with some of my hand dyed fabrics. I love dyeing them but never use them much, maybe this is the start I need.

Here are some of my dyed pieces. I love how they all go together. Please ignore the spotty ribbon and the commercial fabric!

I've decided to stick with the strips of fabric on this one, similar to how I normally work. When I started it I thought that I'd make a large piece of fabric to make a whole bunch of heart cards. Now I'm not so sure, I may try a bunch of daisies on this like in a previous Wednesday post. It's quite a long piece so I may even cut it in two and try both ideas. As I said I'm going to do a bit more work onto this so I'll let you know what I decide. I may post the results on Flickr...or maybe not...depends on how far I get with it.

x

www...4? I think!

Busy tidying, not my usual pastime I must say. Well it's more of de-stash time...it has come to a head. Stepping over things just to get into my room, then there's the clearing the table before I can start to do any work. Driving me nuts!

 So here are a couple of photos of my start. Sadly there seems to be more notes of 'keep' on these magazines than there is 'out'.

I just had to stitch the other day, withdrawal symptoms kicking in. I had some room at my little table-top ironing board (Ikea x) and my sewing machine so I made myself a background piece of cloth. Just my usual style, nothing too complicated you understand. Strips of fabric machined down onto a felt background with some further details on top.

 Unusual for me but I decided to do some hand stitching as well as my usual free machining (free motion embroidery).  The above photos shows the pink felt base fabric and the stitching on the reverse.

Above are some shots of the work so far and as I have done some of the hand stitching today I've included them in the 'Wednesday work' post.

The flowers, I have daisies on my mind at the moment so I think that's where they came from. The work is so much more colourful than in my last post. Maybe it's a reaction to all the neutral work I've been doing lately.

I do love a bit of colour. :o)

I hope to have more to report about the clear-up by next Wednesday.

Bye for now

x

www3...woops!

Ok, so it's Thursday, I forgot to post. In fact I actually forgot to take some photos yesterday. So here are the two out of four that loaded. I took them this morning but the work was done yesterday...honest!

I know, I'm not showing much, that's because it's in its early stages and it's for an exhibition...I hope.

I can tell you that the above piece has a mixture of fabrics, some painted with gesso, some printed (can't really see that in the picture), the beige is an old linen and some builders scrim as well as my all time favourite, calico. The lace and the linen came from a super charity shop. That's where I found the linen thread which you can see in the top photo. They had labels on them saying that they were Irish linen. A bit of a scoop I'd say.

Managed to load the other two photos. Above is another snip of what I was working on yesterday.

This photo shows some of the crochet mats that I found in that same charity shop. I hope you can see how fine the white one is on top. I don't know how they managed it and it is beautifully worked. I put the pen beside them to help with size.

Anyway, that's it for this week I hope to be on time next Wednesday.

Bye for now.

x

www...3

...working Wednesday work...ok so I'm going to run out of W words!
I really didn't do too much today. This was all done as I waited for the washing machine to finish. A little trial that didn't go where I thought that it would, which I suppose is what we should expect. I've not got these pictures in order but I can explain as I go along. 

 Nice Kit Kat wrapper...this is the large one from the multi wraps, silver inside. Anyway these pieces show the wrapper a bit shrivelled and painted. The background fabric is calico which I smeared some yellow acrylic paint on first.

 As you can see in the photo above I have used the painted piece to print onto the fabric.

 This one above is getting back to the beginning, my first thoughts. I originally decided to melt the foil wrapper with the iron. NB. protect the iron & the foil with baking parchment. It is literally a case of laying the iron down onto the baking parchment with the foil  below and quickly lifting it off. It is that simple! You may want to repeat it but you start to lose the shine of the foil and it can flatten rather than leave all these nice cell like shapes. Don't expect them all to work, I probably got about half that worked ok.

Some of the pieces were great like the one above...others not so.

These two photos, above and below show the before and after print. I used a metal scraper to put on the paint and rubbed over the back with my hand. The foil is pretty robust so it shouldn't come to much harm. You could use an old credit card to scrape the paint on if that's what you have.

Back to the beginning again with the one below. After melting I thought that I would glue the foil onto the fabric. As I started to colour the surface of the foil and the fabric the foil started lifting a little. I eventually got fed up and removed the foil and was left with a lovely glue shape on the surface. I will add a bit more colour to it when I get a chance. I thought that it left a rather interesting shape so I tried it again and it was rubbish. Probably a bit too impatient me thinks anyway it didn't work so I'll give it another go sometime. 

All these things I've been trying are not new it's just that I've come across them by accident. If I'd thought about it I may well have tried out these techniques but that really wasn't in my mind when I started. Basically a quick creative fix that turned out quite nicely thank you.

Just as an aside and not that great a photo but this was a huge bumble bee that landed at my feet when I was hanging out my washing. It was a lovely day and really quite warm in the sunshine. I ended up spending the rest of the morning in the garden. A fruit pancake and a coffee, something to read and a comfy chair...then some hard graft in the weeding department.

Lovely!

X