African Study

After exchanging a few emails with "the English Rose in Kuwait" I found myself getting going on the African Study book and could even be almost finished by the end of the this weekend.

During the week I have been using my train travel to work and eveings to work on pages in the book and samples.

This is a section from an African woven fabric piece. Although it is not clear from this image the fabric is made of width of weaving joined. These two designs would have started on different pieces of weaving.

I turn the design into a cross stitch design and created my own version.

I then started to look at the designs on the fabric shown above. You may be able to see a little clearer the strips of weaving which run horizontally.

First I created a cut paper version of one design. This I then translated into felt pieces which I machines down. I used the machine stitching to add the side arms much with the feel of the original. Although I did consider that these could have been a beaded fringe. Next I made a rubbing of the paper cut using fabric crayons. Each rubbing was made with two colours. The rubbings were ironed on to calico and as you can see below I turned them into a piece of embroidery.

I used chain and running stitch for most fo the work, as these are stitches which are traditional in the area of western Africa I am looking at. While I was making the piece above I pondered on other ideas of expanding the idea. To this end made a sketch - below.
Finally - I have made up 6 or so fabric samples with various types of resists on them ready to dye them at the weekend.

So you can see its coming together. With the dye work finished and a section on fashion today and tomorrow, I think it will be basically finished. Although if I leave a few pages in the back of the sketch book I could always come back to the subject if I have time ... LOL !

Ramster Exhibition

Every two years Ramster Gardens hold an embroidery exhibition. This year joined ladies from my embroiderers guild for a morning walking round , passing comments on the standard of framing, selecting those items we would love to take home and generally having a nice morning.
A great selection of work which although I had a photography pass I really can not show you all the photos. I have been very naughty a loaded six into my web shots account, along with picture of the ladies I attended with.

click here

DH drove down with me and went for a good wander round the gardens. Infact we took SO LONG he had went round twice. He has a great set of photos of the gardens... Hopefully I can get a few onto my Web Shots to share with you all =) Below are the two of the garden I took, which include some wonderful metal sculptures.

In the afternoon DH and I went back to working on the garden project. Here are a couple of update photos. As you can see the base for the new shed is finished and we have mostly painted the shed pieces with a perservative.

Friday I started to plant the new raised bed too. I have added the net to keep the birds off and stop the cat using the bed as a litter tray !

Friday was very excited to be able to buy at venue prices , two tickets to see Bon Jovi at the Dome on June 24th. The tickets went on sale to the general public at 9am, and by 9:01 the venue was sold out. EEeeekk !! Now we just have to sort out the transport =) Oh also what to do on about the Monday ... as this will be a VERY late night on a Sunday !

Our tickets to see Rush in October have already arrived and we have tickets for May to see Meatloaf =) Cool - what a year =)

I have been looking at the C&G work that is out standing. Been making sketches of African weaving patterns and even created a version of one pattern into a cross stitch chart which I am now working on to add to the book. Going to try and get some torn paper samples which represent the patterns created. Although not really sure where I am going or what i am doing other than trying to make it look like I have spent longer researching than I really have.

My module 5 box arrived home on Saturday. =( ...
The tutor comments on the extent and depth of the research for the my personnel study piece of work, but then suggests I should also add more work on colour sampling using torn paper.
As the eight page review carries on, she suggests that this is a good start but that more should be done before July. I am not sure what I need to do/have to do and what is nice to have. The tutor has been told this is my last module before July, but I am not sure she has been told I have been given a pile of other work that is sort off module to be done too !?!!!?!?!?
Some of the suggestions I would like to have time to try but I think I should finish off those pieces Opus said had to be done first before I head off on nice to haves.

Yesterday I was quite low about the comments and even considering calling the office on Monday to say that I wanted to redraw from the exhibition for this year as I will never get all this done. I am struggling to put the african book together and not even started the inuit one. They could both be interesting subjects but I feel I am rushing round them and not enjoying the learning and experiencing their worlds. Somewhere in all this I still need to create eight samples of handmade paper for backgrounds and check that I have samples in all techniques ... I know I have none of burning, wax resist, felting, foiling ... and those are just off the top of my head. So yes I guess I should look to make samples in those as part of the Africa or Inuit books, whcih is much easier to say than do....

Gardening Weekend

After the lack of movement last weekend we spent most of this weekend in the garden. Below is the current vegable raised bed slowly being transformed into a smaller raised bed and a base for a new shed to hold the gardening tools. The shed is in bits round the garden as we ran out of type 1 screen stone to pack into the base. I have just ordered some more but it will not be there until Wednesday morning =( ....
So I guess Sunday coming I will be helping DH to fill the base up and build the shedt.

DH has Monday and Tuesday off to do a little more work in the garden and work on his hobby too. As the stone will not be there before Wed, I guess he'll be working on building a second raised bed for more veg and digging over a new spot for a set of fruit bushes. I have ordered 2 tonne of top soil for the new raised bed but again this will not be delivered until Wednesday.

Its going to be busy on my drive way on Wednesday ... Two tonne of soil and two tonne of stone .. hope the lorries do not arrive at the same time LOL !

While I had the camera out took a few pictures of the flowers out in the garden. The blue bells are looking great this year and all grow under one of our apples trees. The trees are all in bud too =)


I did have time to tackle a little stitching although nothing on my C&G work. I have mostly finished a quilt for the Quilting Arts door way competition. So sorry no photos , but keep your fingers crossed for me. Hope to post if off on Saturday. I also spent time thinking about how my gardening gloves which are falling to pieces could become a piece of art. But more of that when I have some time free.....

The Zimmers "My Generation"

Even if you never normally watch YouTube this is one video you should watch.
Its brillant and has a message for us all.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zqfFrCUrEbY

I hope they make it to the charts =)

Final Round Up and a few THANK YOUS !

The final day of the bank holiday was spent digging over the veg patch, doing lots of relaxing and stitching on a Round Robin Spot Sampler. Pictures once I finishing it ! So in all a great weekend.

Yesterday an envelope arrived with a postcode I could not quite make out although the hand writing look familliar ... OMG ... inside was an ATC from my friend LV. The central bar is a sample work she is making for a wall hanging to created branches she has "dyed thick piping cord with tea, and encased it in tubes of Lutrador, that was previously painted and stitched, and then the whole lot was zapped with a heatgun".
Last week LV sent me a photo of how it was going and I mentioned I wished I could reach out and touch it ..... =) .... and now I can !

Yesterday's mail also contained my latest fabric stash from eQuilter.com .... Their weekly email adverts are far too tempting and I will have to limit myself to the number I read. But these pieces are great. The top left does not show the waves of gold between the red and green. The top right has lettering within the images, thought this would be good for some altered fabric art.
Lower left is a backing for a cushion with Inuit children on the front (nothing to do with my C&G work). Finally bottom right, this was bought as I thought it might be of use for the C&G work. The whole piece is covered in native images.

Dianne... Thanks for your comments over the last few days. I have tried tieing the wood samples in for now, although I may try the hot glue idea !!! Also thank you for the Inuit clothing links =)

Bank Holiday - Part 4
~ More Raffia ~

Another sunny day =) Spent time working on a final sample for the Natural sketch book using raffia. Being inspired by Lynda's work .... I create a sample where the raffia provided the texture only.

First layer of raffia where stitched down to a piece of calcio and covered with gesso.

Close up above of the piece after the gesso dried. Then added natural colours. Browns and reds.

Once the paint had dried I then rubbed some Treasure Chest classic over the work.
Love the effect ... so Thanks Lynda =)

When I was not messing with paints, I started to work on the two country sketch books which are outstanding. I have selected West Africa and Inuit tribes. Spent a few hours researching on the web and skim reading through the pile of books I had from the library.

I was even able to make a start on the West Africa book. Above the start of the weaving section. I am not 100% sure how these books should look. The description in the C&G book says that there should be a mixture of photos, sketches and photo copied images. The raffia work will fit here as they use raffia as one of the materials for creating cloth !

The Inuit book will start with a quote I found
"The people of the sub-Artic have no word for ART"

While searching round the web I found a link to the collection from Manoush in someone's blog, which included this coat in an inuit styling ! Cool !

Bank Holiday - Part 3
~ Garden and stitch ~

Saturday should have been our material collection day for all the garden projects. Instead due to the size of weight of different parts, we ordered them and they will be delivered next Friday. Poped into Petersfield for lunch at our favourite cafe , I wanted to visit the art store as I now could plan a little more art and we ended up sorting our both our mobiles ! Thus I now have the rest of the holiday to fill up with art. We did take a visit to the garden centre. They had tomatoe plants in so took the chance to buy grow bags, plants, seeds (for the new beds once they are built) and gravel. Spent Saturday afternoon planting up two tumbling tomatoes on the bench, potting on 24 lobilia plants, sorting out more pots for the patio and various other little bits and pieces.

Here is DH finishing laying the roofing felt on his shed, which is now the only planned job to get finished =)

I did make a start on creating the sketch book for my Natural collection. Here are the first two pages !
Then spent the evening catching up on all the back to back episodes of Xfiles I had videoed during the week. Yes - its old , but Living TV have been showing the series from the begining. I have seen about 70% and its mostly the older ones I missed.

Finished off a JCS Xmas RR (which is below) while I was watching the TV and started to work on the next area of a Spot Sampler RR which arrived last week. Also yesterday a UFO RR arrived of a wizard so will need to look at that for the next couple of weeks.

Bank Holiday - Part 2
~ Can you use tree bark as fabric? ~

Yes , you read that right tree bark ?? Its one of the strange things that had been going through my mind yesterday afternoon while I was cleaning out and replanting the pots on our patio. DH was on the roof of his shed putting the new roofing felt on so wanted me to be around should he need help !!

So dug out DH's drill and made a start. I mean I figured that some how I would need to make the holes first. An electric drill just made it quicker. So below you can see my first two pieces with holes all ready ...

So first tried using normal embroidery thread. It worked !
Next tried garden twine.... Colour a bit too in your faceFinally to the old favourite - raffia =) Then I tried joining the pieces in a different way, by placing the hole over each other so the bark over lapped. Here I used raffia and tied each join off. Made a few beads to see how small a piece of bark I could drill and it would NOT fall to pieces. Here is the back of the hanging above before the beads were added.
Next I wondered if the bark could be a true piece of embroidery rather than just joining pieces together, could I stitch over it. Thus here is my bark cross stitch in thread and raffia...AND a spider created in a varigated thread =)
The problem is how do I add these to the sketch book. I can not really glue them down. I guess I could use the holes and tie them on.... !?!? Errmmm May just look to put into plastic bags and staple those to the pages !!! Any ideas welcome !

Now the sketch book needs a cover - so created a few buttons ...

and stitched a cover. I'll be adding eye lets along the top so I can tie this to the front.

Bank Holiday Fun ~ Part 1

Bank Holiday Fun ~ Part 1

Well today is the first day of four days at home. I plan to work on my C&G projects which must be finished for July when I'll be entering the final exhibition. Already recieved all the documents about the exhibition from my school ... BUT still have a few things to complete.

* Two research/sketch books of the art and embroidery covering two different countries
* Experimental folder using natrual fibres to embroider with
* Make the Lily and Frog hanging - See blog entry for Oct 28 & 29 2006-
* Create 8 samples of handmade paper to be used to display as backgrounds
* Ensure I have worked samples for all techniques

Thus I finally after LOTS of time spent running round in circles not knowing how to start the experimental folder using natrual fibres, I finally bought some raffia and got going !
Below are my first two samples where I have used the raffia as a thread and couched some flower petals/leaves (see flower picture later) then added some random stitches between. There is a close up below.

Then tried a few canvas work and cross stitch , stitches. There is a close up of these below. Using the raffia as a thread you really have to watch what you are going with each stitch. The raffia needs to be pulled through carefully and gently as it will snap. Also you need to stick to small lengths to reduce the number of times it has to go in and out.

Below is the flower/plant whose leaves/petals I used to couch with. I am not sure what it is. I had three of them in a bunch of flowers. Once they opened they dried out and seem to be holding their shape ?!?!? Anyone know what these are called ??

Next I have been looking at creating texture with the raffia. Using a techique I remember my Embroiderers Guild being given a talk on - I have been knotting the raffia then using varigated cotton to couch it to a calico background. The thread is Weeks Dye Works - Harvest. Love the textures coming out with this. Again - added a close up for you.

Finally - tried machining over the raffia. First sample used water soluable sheet to do some very basic machine embroidery over a layer of the raffia. I forgot to take a picture before washing the sheet away. Here it is hanging on the blind cord in my kichen drying out.

Once dried the glues in the water soluable have given the piece a 3D shape - which I hope this picture shows.

The other job for the weekend - DH and I have sorted out a garden project which as they say we will have good weather should start to progress. The plan is to build a second set of raised veg beds and build a small shed for the gardening tools. Below is how the bottom end of our garden looks as of yesterday. As you'll see we already have one raised bed. This is too big ... you have to walk on it to reach all the corners which is exactly what your not suppose to do with a raised bed. Thus ... we will be picking up another railway sleep today to cut this bed into two. One half we'll dig out and put all the soil into the second half - which we need to do as the soil level should be to the top of the sleep. The empty half will then be filled with stone/gravel and the new shed will stand on there. We will build two more beds down the other side by the fence. These will be long a narrow as should be. We'll order top soil to the fill these two new beds. DH also plans to put new felt on the current shed to stop it leaking... the current shed is 10x14 and is really the railroad room. Thus the new shed will allow DH to move the bikes, lawn mower , garden tools etc out to give him more space.

I'll try to up date this at least one or two more times over the weekend !