Monday 25 February 2013

feeling a bit stupid

yes, I am definitely feeling a little daft, These are the blueberry muffins my kids rustled up for themselves- as mentioned on last post, but the photo mysteriously disappeared from it......
And this is Julies hat- also disappeared from last post

.
And this is Yvonne brown a very kind textile artist who just spent two whole days teaching some fen ladies to create texture and surfaces,
We had a brilliant time and I couldn't wait to nip home and steal Mr shed mans soldering iron  and some emulsion paint.

We had a lot of fun playing with xpandaprint and some screens, and we made lots of textile papers too, all very painty and sticky and huge fun!We enjoyed ourselves hugely and learned a lot,  thank you Yvonne... 


texture- waiting to be painted and stitched.

scrim paper 
xpandaprint lace


wall texture, gagging to be painted and STITCHED A LOT!!!!!
Remember the porridge bag?
now the paints dry, so Iv ironed the wrinkles out and the pages feel a bit soft and fragile.
so I have  painted all pages on one side with a half and half pva solution and laid each page on a waxedd cereal packet, completely non stick and quite firm, I stack them up and put a weight on top, don't know if I'm doing this right, playing it by ear, maybe I should have painted and pvad before I cut the pages upkeep watching and we will see how it goes, now I must go and stitch something as I am getting withdrawal symptoms...
 short prayer- please blogger- behave yourself.......

Thursday 21 February 2013

feeling very stitchy.

Been feeling incredibly stitchy this week, don't know why, maybe theres a full moon coming, but anyway
I needed a cover for my tea book, so, I popped a piece of old sheet into a jug of tea, added some bits of lace and stuff and after drying, began to stitch.


 
Its starting to get quite textured, trouble is I never know when to stop, probably when I get bored, who said less is more?, rubbish, only more is more..

Other sewing, oh yes. let the smallest of the tall people read my zakka book and she set to work and made the bookmark, turning the trunk through was a bit fiddly, but isn't it nice.

On Saturday we had a really lovely time at cottenham at the textiles thingy,we saw many friends, drank a lot of tea with friends, met some bloggie friends, [hiya Pam,] and spent all morning with Lynda monk in a workshop where we foiled, painted, and burned. It was brilliant and Lynda is a very generous person, we left with a selection of samples to make book covers, a free CD and a thermofax screen, Lynda is truly a very talented woman, on top of this the fen edge exhibition was amazing, best thing I think Iv ever seen, these artists must have worked really hard to produce work of that standard -wonderful.
After this and more tea we spent some time with Sharon Osborne who very kindly explained
 how to make altered books.
just when things couldn't get any better I found both of Francis Pickerings books on art van go.    on---------yes
bookmaking,!
 Thank you to all my friends for a  
 really enjoyable day,,

this morning I opened a new bag of porridge oats- what a lovely bag,
thick nice heavy paper. nice printing - I felt a book coming on, Wendy says if you find something that gives you an idea do it quick, don't store it away, so

tore it into page sized bits

started painting.....

Iv added some calico and scrim pages, more paint and off to the airing cupboard for a short end of winter nap....
AND FINALLY. the  kids, realising they may starve to death before mum puts the paintbrush down, set to and made themselves a plate of blueberry muffins,
at last! I may have cracked it.......


nice hat jules.....