Finally going home.

Just a quick post to let you all know I am going to be off line for about two weeks as I will be moving home next weekend. Thank you to those followers who are being very patient with my few posting due to other commitments. xxx

Some sewing at last....

 A few months ago I had an idea for a wall hanging. Here is the idea in my sketch book.

Several weeks ago I dyed the fabric for my wall hanging.

 A few days after I dyed the fabric I began the machine quilting. Then all came to a stand still for college.

Today I started to work on my water carrier.

I decided to have a break from the intensity of the never ending homework and do some much need sewing.  After Harrogate this year, I designed a new wall hanging for next year. (I know, I'm a bit early but it might take me that long to complete it).  It is based on my star sign, Aquarius, the water carrier. I started by doodling in my sketch book, ideas that popped into my head. Then I looked at star signs in magazines to help with the zodiac symbols.  This is what I have designed and the next step was to transfer it from the sketch book to fabric. Today I hand painted the head and shoulders of my lovely water carrier on to calico and I did some more free motion machine quilting. I have really enjoyed being back in the world of creating something with a end product. Whilst I do enjoy all the experimenting in college I sometimes miss that little bit of structure. 

Skull duggery.....

Collagraph made from funky foam using an image of a skull.

I have printed the image on to this lovely red scarf.

I have one week left of the two week rotation. Phew! where does the time go??? The topic for this rotation is The Body and the sub heading is under the skin. This can be interpreted any way you like. I decided to go for what lies directly under the skin.  I have been doing lots and lots of experiments using all kinds of mediums and techniques with images of under the skin.  In this experiment I have made a collagraph by tracing an image of a skull on to funky foam. I then cut the shape out and with a Biro added detail by drawing into the funky foam. I glued the foam to a piece of cardboard and rolled some ink over the top.  First I printed the image on some paper. I really liked the effect so I tried it on calico and some white cotton fabric. The results where fantastic. I then saw this cheap scarf on my way home through town and I wondered if I could print the skull image onto it. I think it has turned out really well. Alas I am all skulled out now and I have gone back to working with the image of under the skin.

I still love shoes...

Take a shoe and draw several pictures.

Using garden wire make a sculpture of the shoe

First let me apologise for the lack of post recently. Unfortunately I am snowed under with work for college and I have no free time to sew at the moment.  I attended the Regional day on Saturday and as always I had a fantastic time. Sandra Meach was the speaker in the morning and Cauldron quilters thoroughly entertained us in the afternoon with a show an tell of there amazing quilts and challenges.  An added bonus was that I won a raffle prize, four gorgeous pieces of half metres of fabric.  I have just finished the last of the eight rotations, the final one was 3D.  Here is my shoe sculpture. it is only small and reminds me of a little cinderella slipper.

Right up my street......

Mono printing.

Image of David I took from a magazine to do a mono print.

A new rotation began on Thursday textiles surface design and I was truly in heaven. We began the day by drawing our hands using many different techniques of drawing. This was then followed by making a collagraph from one of the hand drawings out of funky foam and printing it. Next we moved onto mono printing and I was smitten. This technique of printing works so well on fabric and the beauty is you do not have to be a fantastic artist because its all about tracing the outline of an image on top of the ink. As you can see I used a advert that I found in a magazine, I just loved the image of the statue David and I thought it would work well to experiment with. I think surface pattern is going to be my specialist subject and I am really looking forward to being able to incorporate these techniques into my quilts.