Saturday 4 August 2007

Nearly a Disaster

Had an interesting experience yesterday with a hypodermic needle, some Xpandaprint and a newly painted wall. Someone gave me a big bag of new, individually packaged, needles (without the sharp bit). Just the thing, I thought for mark making with puff paint, so I used a thin palette knife to fill the reservoir. I squeezed it gently and a great arc of black Xpandaprint shot out of it, all down my nice white wall. Clive heard my anguished wail and rushed to help. As his best suggestion was to use a heat tool to puff it up and then call it a feature, he was sent on his way.
Do you know, it all came off with baby wipes? Lord knows what they do to baby's bottoms but they are my most indispensable workroom item. Great for wrapping up brushes when you're using acrylics and can't get to wash them straight away.

Phew! What a relief.

Have been working on my mini class on mixed media for the Festival of Quilts. Can't have sewing machines or make too much mess. It's a challenge but I'm getting there. Will show you after the class, if it all works.

Today I am going to have lunch with Km Thittichai at The Range - a big store which sells craft materials, among a lot of other things. Kim is doing some demoing there. Her new book 'Hot Textiles' (Batsford) arrived today - making it into September WoW's book reviews by the skin of its teeth. There are some fantastic books out just now but this book is right up there with the best. It focuses on all the heat reactive materials, such as Tyvek, Lutradur and so on. We've seen them before but she has some great ideas for combinations. Here's a pic.



Yesterday was also a good day for web work. The taster for Quiltwow is nearly there and the articles are so good. I'm starting a new spot in WoW for really good textile groups (it will be in the free bit with exhibitions, so everyone can see it). The first is a group called Art through Textiles. Lovely work. Here is a pic by Linda Bellinger to whet (wet?) your appetite.


We also cleared up lots of loose ends and my to-do list looks much better. I hate it when you have to throw it away and have a new one. I love the ticks.

Add to this a quick picnic with the grandchildren at the local forest park and it was quite a busy day!








6 comments:

Doreen G said...

I love baby wipes Mahggie and I use them to clean some of my stamps and messy bits when I am using dyes-inks and the like-one day I looked at the colours on the B/W and wow it was great-so I let it dry out and I have stitched on them and also used them on the embellisher(now that I have one)

Sandy said...

I can relate to paint on the wall-did that in the kitchen with green paint. Luckily, I was alone and cleaned it up.
I use baby wipes to clean up, then use them for art.
Sandy

Julie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Julie said...

You sound as though you have had a very productive time Maggie. I think I may invest in Kim's book - I had a chat with her recently at the NEC and she is very enthusiastic about heat treating fibres. I have had a play with puff paint today and will post a pic on my blog when I have finished painting it. I applied the puff paint thro a stencil as I wasn't sure how to use it.
(I removed my previous post as it rambled - even more than this one lol)

Digitalgran said...

I'm sure Clive's suggestion would have been a perfect solution to the white wall. I can just see a raised black arc with a touch of Treasure Gold.

Moira Anne Dickson said...

Hadn't thought about baby wipes. Sometimes these things just pass you by. BW's are appearing on the shopping line as we speak, or rather, as we blog!
Moira.