Faerie Bag

I'm off to Ireland shortly to visit with my family. Whilst I'm there my cousins daughter will be celebrating her 6th birthday. Well you can't go to a party empty handed so I made her a faerie bag. Hopefully I will be able to find a little faerie book to put inside it too before I go.


The bags itself was made from a woolen blanket that I had felted and dyed, and is lined with cotton fabric. The faerie was taken from Jillian Sawyers book 'Faerie Lights'. The bottom of the bag has boxed corners to give it a square shape base.



The tag was made from felt, I made a silver cord to attach it to the bag and added some sparkly buttons, a star and a butterfly to the bottom before attaching it to the bag handle.

Creativity, Fun & Laughter

Have just had a fabulous fun filled weekend with Dot and two lovely ladies, Maggie & Linda that we meet at Beer Quilters Retreat earlier on in the year. On the menu was burning using a soldering iron and heat gun, free machine bowls, laughter and chit chat!

I made this book cover ( using Anette Emms technique ) by layering felt, a piece of rust dyed fabric, strips of lace, newspaper ( tea dyed) foils and old sheet music & covering the whole lot with a piece of sheer. I then free machined into it using tree bark as my inspiration. Once I was happy with the overall appearance I then burnt into it using a hot air gun. Finally I applied markel stick to the areas i had burnt away. Lastly I added a a silk band with free machined leaves on it so the book could be closed securely............what am I putting in it......my recipes!

I really enjoy building up 'fabrics' to use as the basis for this sort of project, may have to do a few more!

I also made a cover for next years diary......it is made using free hand cut curves ( Alicia Merritt) so I was able to show Linda & Maggie how to do this simple but effective technique. It has simple felt machine appliqued flowers on it.

Lastly we had a go at making bowls. This is a fab way to use up all those little scraps of fabric and thread that have been cut off. Chop all the bits up and sandwich between water soluble fabric. Free machine into it and then place it in water long enough for the fabric to dissolve away but not to wash out completely. You need the stickiness to give the bowl shape. Place the piece over a bowl or similar to give its shape and allow to dry.

Once dry beads, feet, silk rods etc can be added.

A WONDERFUL FUN FILLED WEEK

I have just spent a wonderful week in Devon with a very special like minded friend. We had a fab time making a mess ( me more than her) with screen printing, mono printing, laminating and printing using all sorts of blocks, both home made and bought. I am really pleased with the fruits of my labours!

I bought Ruth Issetts book Print, Pattern & Colour at the Birmingham Quilt Show and have been devouring it over breakfast for the past couple of weeks. These are my completed pieces. I really enjoyed this method of printing and adding colour and could have happily carried on for ever, or until I ran out of fabric!

This is the book cover I made to go over one of my sketchbooks with one of the pieces of fabric. I had quilted it previous to stamping and dying it so see what difference it made using Ruth's technique. It worked just as well either way.

We had a go at screen printing, something I had not tried before. I had found this image of a tree on an old Halloween decoration and loved it so photocopied it to use on a screen. The fabric above was mono printed using anaglypta wallpaper, then the flowers were printed on and finally the tree was screen printed over the top.

The tree on a piece of mono printed fabric donated by my friend!

We also had a go at laminating, new to me also.... from the book by Leslie Morgan, Claire Benn & Jane Dunnewold. I had chosen sunflowers as my theme.

The image on the left is in colour and the one on the right is also sunflowers but in black and white, both were torn collaged pieces of paper on sheer fabrics. I really like the black and white one as it is very soft to look at.


And finally, a couple more prints that I did!

This one is a freehand cut stamp made out of funky foam.


This on was made using commercially bought stamps.

And finally.................

One last screen print that is unfinished......................

Am really looking forward to our next week/weekend together.

Triptych Finished At Last

Well I have finally finished the three mixed media boards to go on the lounge wall. Just got to wait for hubby to get the drill out now!

More Silverclay

This is the other half of the Angel Wings that I made. One half was for me, and the other half was for a friend who is very special to me and without whom my life would be far less rich. She has now received it so I can post the picture of it.

Silverclay

My sister & I have had a lovely day playing with Silver clay making jewellery.



It was hard to get a really good photo because of the light reflection in the bowl. Anyway, it's got small flower with a Sapphire in the centre and a ball with silver sprinkle dust on it in the bowl and the band has a wavy edge to it. Some parts of it have a very shiny finish whilst others have been left burnished to give a bit of contrast.




The pendant above is an angels wing with the word dream. The feathers were etched into the damp clay and the lines were darkened after firing with liver of sulphur. ( Think 'stink bombs here !! ) The letters were impressed using rubber alphabet stamps.



This is the pendant my sister made. It has a dragons head on with mountains in the background. Its beautiful.

What a truly wonderful way to spend a day together.

TRIPTYCH PT 3

I've added a few more shapes to my canvas boards now and a little bit of black and white tissue. Have decided not to add any more as I am quite pleased with the textures and shapes I have created.


I have given the three boards an initial dry brush coating of cream acrylic paint, then another dry brush coating of the same colour emulsion paint as is on the walls.


Finally I have again, very lightly dry brushed over the raised edges with a slightly stronger tone of colour to match and add a bit more depth an highlights to some areas. I like the fact that you can still see some of the colour showing through from the papers etc that I have used to add texture to the boards.

These are my pieces of fabric ready to be cut up into their shapes and edged. Embellishments still need to be added before they are attached to the boards.