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Saturday 31 May 2014

Cakes!!

31st May 2014

Been busy making cakes for the fundraiser tomorrow....


Honey, fig and ginger flap jacks, gooey and delicious...


....Madeira and Whisky Fruit Cakes.....


.....decorated small cakes...


....Crispy cakes for the children!!


Hope they sell or my husband will be gaining weight!!!!

Just have to do some fresh cream butterfly cakes tomorrow.....

Friday 30 May 2014

Background Papers

30th May 2014

Busy day today, supermarket shop, gardening in the park ready for Sunday and a little housework!!!

I managed to load iphoto and then decided to have a play with the rollers I made....


....I wanted to make some background papers for my journal/sketchbook....

....my spongy roller daubed with acrylic paint...



...result..


....next the roller...


...painted ....


...result...


....stamp....


...result...


...circular sponge with a yellowy /green...


...result...


...I quite like the final result and think I might try this with fabric and fabric paints!!

I used the remaining paint to make a background.....



....then printed with a natural sponge...


....tried out my roller...


....result...


....next I used the brush water to colour wash the paper then used my roller..


...simple, but I like it!


Added yellow to the brush water and coloured the paper...


...and used my other roller.

I cleaned the tray and rollers with wipes and when they are dry I can use them for stitching!!


I have had a lovely hour playing and am pleased with the effect of the rollers.

Thursday 29 May 2014

Decorating Fabric with Stitch

29th May 2014

 Pilates this morning and a couple of hours this afternoon listening to Radio 4 and stitching. Great!

I chose a piece of my dyed fabric, couched some of my dyed yarn and played with my programmed stitches on the machine.....


.....next I hand stitched using fly, french knots, blanket, seed and chain stitch....


.....very enjoyable and think I might use the fabric for a removable book cover.

Next I prepared a sponge roller ready for acrylic paint....


....by twisting a thick elastic band around the sponge.....

....watch this space to see the effect!




Wednesday 28 May 2014

PHOTOS !!!

28th May 2014

The postman brought my new memory card and I held my breath hoping that was the problem and not the camera!!!

I apologise for some of the photos which are a little blurry, think I was too close but I haven't been able to download my iphoto since I had a new hard drive!!!

I have been busy making yards of bunting ready for our park Fun Day.....


...used some of my hand dyed stash....

....small cards...


....fabric dogs....


....my marble paper...


...my own silk paper with my pressed flowers.....


...hope these will raise funds for our plans for the park.

Started knitting some flowers for a local project to decorate a tram!!


Decorated some jars with ribbon and lace for storing my pens, pencils etc...


...and last but not least I needle felted this little fella....


...I wound fleece around pipe cleaners and needle felted.....


...stabbed myself a few times...


...he is a little fragile but I love him!!!

Any name suggestions???

This morning I was in the park, in the rain, gardening, trying to make the beds look good for Sunday.





Tuesday 27 May 2014

1st Birthday!!

27th May 2014

A year ago today I rather nervously started my blog.....

.....228 posts and 13037 page views later I am still enjoying sharing my 'textile journey'!!

Unfortunately, although I have been very busy 'making and creating', my camera photo card has not arrived yet so am unable to post photos!!

Hopefully a more interesting post tomorrow.....


Saturday 24 May 2014

One of Those Days!!

24th May 2014

I was up early, put the washing out, made some cards using my pressed flowers and silk paper for our park fundraiser next week, went to town for bits and pieces and enjoyed 'mooching'. I bought a small wooden rolling pin to adapt for printing, a giant rubber to make stamps and a selection of brushes and sponges on sticks for printing, all for £2.60!!

Arrived home, washing nearly dry and my Stitch magazine had arrived.... all good so far...


.....then, the microwave wasn't working properly, I couldn't  load my printer on my laptop, my camera won't take photos-card error- went to pick some flowers for pressing and it was POURING down, soaking my nearly dry washing!!!

So stitched my pompoms to the bunting and made two cakes, fruit and lemon drizzle, poured myself a glass of red and decided to share my very odd day with you!!!

 Sorry there are no photos, I have ordered a new card for my camera and hope that works!!


Wednesday 21 May 2014

An Enjoyable Day

21st May 2014

I woke really early today, made myself a coffee and started playing!

I painted a large sheet of white paper with red procion dye and covered this with cling film and scrunched it up....


....when the paper was dry the cling film was peeled away revealing a lovely pattern...


...apologies for photo quality!!

Next I painted another sheet with blue dye and sprinkled coarse sea salt over the wet surface....


...when I brushed the salt away lovely patterns were left.


I then used these papers as backing on two pages in my journal to record my Matisse Exhibition visit...

....I cut the bag to make a pocket for my postcards, cut four square holes on the left and cut paper in the style of Matisse to decorate....



.....the little booklet and more cut outs!!


I was on a roll and prepared a page for doodling...



....went to do my bit of weeding in the park, walked Jack along the prom in the beautiful sunshine, now going to make tea......

...retirement is GREAT!!!!





Tuesday 20 May 2014

Creating Pages in my New sketch Book/Journal

20th May 2014

Have had a relaxing morning using ideas from Anne Brooke's Course...

....I started with this page as this was the Christmas card that contained the Marbling Gift .....


....the pages in my book are white/grey so I glued a piece of natural cotton scrim as a backing, positioned my card, added a strip of my marbled paper and two pieces of cotton lace, not brilliant but we all have to start somewhere!

The opposite page, a bit busy, but so was our day!!

The envelope was made by Jemma with her beautiful paper and contained the voucher.


These pages were made at the workshop and are a 'work in progress'


I love the sea so might look for a simple poem to write out....



Monday 19 May 2014

Anne Brooke Sketch Book Course

18th May 2014

I have had a brilliant day learning how to make a Journal/Sketch book with Anne Brooke in her studio in Brighouse.

facebook.com/hannemade
www.annebrooke.co.uk
h-anne-made.blogspot.co.uk

Lovely scenery on the way and good company, a great way to spend a Sunday.

The course started with Anne showing us her own sketch books, with really great ideas for recording and storing information gathered from trips and museum visits as well as lots of doodling and photographs. Anne used her own decorated papers to decorate recycled envelopes to store items from shows and exhibitions-just what I needed!!



The group then started decorating a 'concertina book' of folded paper using painting, dyeing and printing techniques. We were told that nothing could be wrong, only work in progress !!

Avariety of materials were used to print and wash, acrylic paints, dyes, spone rollers wrapped in elastic bands, wooden blocks, hand made stamps, corks, to name just a few....



...the print on the right was made by wrapping and gluing string around a small rolling pin...



...bubble wrap print on the right...


.....dye was applied to the right of this paper then cling film was scrunched on top until dry, a lovely effect...


...stamped leaf using different acrylics including acrylic.



Everybody in the group used different colours, techniques and sizes of sketch books and it was great to share ideas and chat in a very relaxed atmosphere.


Samples from our sketchbooks at the end of the day....






::::

These are some of my marble papers .....










...the colours are more vibrant than they look!!!!