Experimental Fun

A few years back I salvaged this piece of disgustingly (to me) coloured fabric. I thought it might be good to play with some experimental drawn thread work on it. It sat in the cupboard for a long time, then about a month ago I needed something to take to my creative stitching group, so out it came, along with some coloured threads that I thought would go. On the day, I just threaded a needle & started stitching, letting the needle go where it wanted. I soon discovered that the fabric would pull to a certain extent, so a piece of experimental pulled work it became. The most fun I had was with the eyelets.

I'm not sure what I will do with it yet, it might somehow get turned into a little notebook cover. Time will tell.

Photo Play

Another one of my textile inspired groups is Stitchin Fingers. This group is such a wealth of information with it's member list of over 2,000, & has specialized groups covering all kinds of textile inspired topics. A while ago, I joined another one of these groups called "Digital Designers", who chat about & play with graphics programs. This morning, with thanks to this group, I have been playing with Photoshop and all it can do. I have used Photoshop before, but mainly for cropping & resizing photos, & sometimes rotating & straightening them. Once, I had to change some pics to black & white for a particular purpose & found that very easy to do.

Some of the book pages I made a few years ago used images I had manipulated in another photo editing program, but it's been a while. Back then I learnt about layers, and this morning I have learnt to take the layers to a different direction, and about things to change within each layer itself.

My play this morning has taken this pic of one of my begonias,


to this...................

My mind is boggling, and all I need now is time to play more. Many thanks girls for all the inspiration.

An Exhibition

Those people who know me well know that I belong to a few different textile inspired groups, one of which is called "Stitcher's Plus". We are a group of creative minded stitchers, and have been meeting & stitching together for over ten years now. Recently, we put together a collection of our works into an exhibition. Below are the pieces that I had in this exhibition.

First up is a book cover. This was the piece of Reticella that I worked for our tenth anniversary calendar. The piece has been sitting for quite some time waiting to be made up into a finished piece. I needed a book cover, so a book cover it has become, & how fitting that it should be a cover for my lace journal.
Next is a piece of Teneriffe Lace that I inserted into a handkerchief. Inspired by pictures of teneriffe lace that I have seen on the internet, I have been playing with different designs using the technique. This was one design that I found, & had to work out the method by myself as there were no instructions. Not my design, but definately my stitching, and was great fun using the brain to work it all out. It was relativley easy once I thought about for a few minutes.

Piece three is my first piece of Reticella which I showed you all here. This piece has been in two other exhibitions, and will probably go in at least another one or two. I am extremely proud of this piece.

Piece four,"A Summer Sanctuary", has also been exhibited twice before. The challenge proceses involved can be read here.
Next is a bag that I made from a challenge we were handed invoving faces. The face has been created using applique & FME, then pieced into the front of the bag.

The back of the bag has been pieced using the Flying Geese pattern & the whole bag has been machine quilted. This face has become my internet face & anyone who knows me personally will tell you I look nothing like this. A bag I use a lot.


Then there was my scarf. Made with a daisy wheel using a fancy knitting yarn, then crocheted together. Very slinky & warm.

Finally, my "Bugs In Boxes". These were another challenge & both consist of a painted canvas backgrounds which have been threaded with various yarns . Both also consist of couched yarns for the tree branches & leaves made from hand dyed fabric that has been FME'd with a metalic thread. The caterpillars in the top one are stuffed rouleau tubes featuring surface stitching, while the butterfly on the second one has been digitized & stitched onto water soluble fabric.



The exhibition is now closed, but for some more pics please visit our Stitchers Plus pages.

Wild & Free"

This page was created for the book called "Wild Side". I felt it was a bit dark but wasn't sure how to lighten it up without starting all over again. I created a spiral design with the words "wild & free" & various sized paw prints in my drawing program, & imported it into my digitizing program. The design was stitched onto gold fbaric which was layered over a background created by joining strips of black & green fabric & digitized leaves. Once stitched, the excess gold fabric was cut away to reveal the background. All the layers were then added to another background of brown felt with added brown fabric leaves.

This is the last page in this book series. On reflection, it was great to go back through them all & see just how much I learnt. My main aim when entering this Book Page Round Robin was to learn about my digitizing program, but I learnt heaps about my drawing program & the power of photo editing programs, about layers & effects & merging two or more images together. I learnt not to be scared of computer programs, but to experiment & see what they could do. I also learnt not to be scared of FME, it was not as hard as I had always thought.

The pages have long since gone to their new owners, I hope they have as much fun looking at them as I had creating them.

Regenerate & Recycle

A different shaped page this time, this one for a book called "Regenerate & Recycle".

I started with a pile of plastic rings, the kind that come from milk containers & soft drink bottles once the seals have been broken. I dumped the rings on my scanner to create a pic, which was then manipulated a few times in my photo editing program. The final image ( which looked nothing like the plastic rings any more) was printed onto white polycotton & then layered with net & organza & FME'd.

Pansy Passion

My "Pansy Passion" page was for a book called "Purle". I had thought of using the iris flower for inspiration but settled on a pansy instead. Once again I played with a lot of photo manipulation. The pansy pic went through a number of effects including distortions, rotations, stretching & adding twirls. The final image was printed onto textile transfer paper, ironed onto white cotton, then embellished with layers of shot organza, net, chiffon, FME & a button. All was appliqued onto yellow felt.

Money Tree

"Money Tree" was the page I created for the book called "Nonsense". How much nonsense was this? We would all want one, but we all know that such things are complete nonsense.

I started with a hand painted background which I layered with brown satin & brown lace. A tree picture was digitized in outline only, then stitched through all layers. The brown layers were then cut back to reveal the background. $ symbols were also digitized & added to the tree, along with some leaf patterns & FME.

Not one of my better efforts but it filled the criteria.