Not Trying a Movie

I'm glad you miss me Doreen. I have to say that writing this blog does feel like writing to a mate. It's quite an odd feeling though when I go to do a talk or a class - everyone knows so much about me. Strangely, they seem much more interested in the cat's latest adventures than in my work!

It is raining here too, Daniela. Horrid and cold and dark. A long way from the Distant Stitch Summer School where we last met.

Arti (it's no good, you are stuck with that name) I'll ask Jane - I suspect that it was washes of Golden's quinacridone paint, used as glazes, but will enquire further. Jane has done far more with glazes than I have, but I love the effects so will have to play more.

Yesterday was a bit of a disaster on the birdwatching front. Having handed over Sian's work we set off for one of the RSPB reserves. Even though we are members, they are very coy about giving the locations of these in the handbook and we usually browse the web, but we forgot. After driving around for nearly an hour and narrowly avoiding get drawn into Glastonbury carnival as a float (we could have labelled ourselves 'Navigators, Failed') we went to Montacute House (National Trust) instead. This turned out to be a good move, as they had an excellent farmer's market and we wandered around, having little tastings and spending a fortune. Then a good lunch in their restaurant before heading for home.

I am going to try to tag a video on the end of this blog. If it is not there you will know that I have failed. It is just a quick one looking at applying lovely velvet ribbons (from Mulberyy Silks) with the embellisher. I cut the selvedges and the ribbons sink into the background. Here is a pic of the result.

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And another one showing the ribbons used as a frame for patterned silk.

This may, or may not, be the video!

It isn't the video. It uploaded pretty quickly and then muttered to itself for an hour. I'm giving up and going out. Will try again sometime with a very small movie. Shame.

Where Have I Been?

Where, indeed. Haven't posted all week and the reason is that I was suffering from complacency! Having finished my stint with the Val exhibition and taken all the stuff to Michael for the book photoshoot, I thought I could relax. Then I looked in the diary and realised that I had a talk and workshop to do this week and I wanted to update the talk and do something new in the workshop. Panic! Then all the work came back from the photo session and there was a lot that had to go back to the kind people who had loaned it. Double Panic!!!

Anyway, all is now done. The talk was good and Winchester Guild were a great audience. We do little movie clips in our talks and Clive was anxious to find out how his new camera worked out. It is much brighter and sharper than the old one so he was pleased. He also managed not to get any shots of my cleavage this time - always a possibility when he is filming from behind while I work on a machine.

The workshop produced excellent work, too. It was awful getting to the venue as there was an accident and it took me two hours to cover 40 miles. Just got there in time - although most of the participants had also been held up. I was glad of my 'out of the box' starter kit which I always try to carry. Putting all the 'ingredients' for the first activity in one box means you can zip straight into something without too much searching.

Susan (I always think of you as Arti, having misread your blog title right at the start of this madness) I like your fleur de lys piece. Do I detect a hint of embossing powder?

Hope you are going to show your mixed media textures, Becky. I'm going to be playing with mixed media as soon as I've caught up with myself. I have some classes booked and there's lots of exciting stuff out there to play with. Here are a couple of pics from Jane Wild, who does the most wonderful mixed media work. The piece is called 'Whispers', I think, and was developed for our Paper, Metal and Stitch book. It is cast paper, gesso and scrim, all built up on Wireform to allow some movement. We had such fun doing that book that we went on to do the 'Paper & Beyond' CDROM.

I'm glad that you all seem to find the clickable pics are working. Hope these are OK, Jane.

Tomorrow we are going to have a day out, under the pretext of taking Sian Martin's work back (she was very kind and let me use two super pieces for the forthcoming book). Sian lives in Somerset so we are going on to do a bit of 'birding' in the Somerset levels. The weather for the last few days has been cold, crisp and sunny with heavy overnight frosts so I hope it keeps going for another day.

On Sunday I am hoping to bring in a movie - it tells me that I can, so we'll give it a try. Has anyone tried it? Any advice? I guess it might take a while to load, so be prepared.

Lots of Layering

Glad you all liked the rust pieces. I was interested in Sharon's need to distress the silk. Will have to experiment with other fabrics that more readily disintegrate. I'm all for the happy accident in both art and textiles. Sometimes the problem lies in remembering how you achieved it.

The weekend class is over and I always feel rather sad. Exhausted, too. (Serious catching up with the Sunday papers is on the agenda today). The course was good - a bit experimental and we took a few risks but they all have some great samples and most have nearly finished pieces to work on. Here are some pics - the light was not great for photos and I had to scuttle round a bit as I don't like to waste teaching time - but they give a flavour. Sadly, some didn't come out too well, so it's a fairly random selection.



This piece (above) by Jenny Younger is a detail of a Lutradur trapping which has been zapped with a heat gun.




A good example of layering from Jackie Wyatt. A three dimensional effect is given with puff painted Thermogauze.




Ann Goodwin has a great idea for her samples - she brings dear little luggage tags and writes the method on them. This motif from layered stitched felt was lovely but the photo doesn't do it justice.



The piece above, by Marion Whitby shows the true layers effect. On a background of velvet we've added foil, organza and zapped Thermogauze. This is in the process of having layered felt motifs applied.

I'll show some more tomorrow. Meanwhile - the papers call.

A Saw Point

I think I have cracked it - it all hangs on the pic size, as you say, Susan. All except dog pic should go bigger when clicked. I've resized to a max 0f 600 pixels (in any direction). This is slightly bigger than I'd use for WoW but it seems to give a good balance between enormous and tiddly. I find PSP good for resizing as you can specify a percentage or make it exact.

Dale, it adds a whole new meaning to perspective. You will laugh when you see 'your' photos in my next book. I used the one of the three coloured pots quite a lot!

Welcome to the wittering rainbow - a woman after my own heart. Listing 'staring at things' and 'looking up chimneys' as interests on your profile, rings lots of bells with me. Also 'walking old lurchers'. This was my little lurcher, sadly departed some time ago. She was a whippet/terrier cross but as she got older her whippety bit filled in and she looked like a little golden lab. She lived to be eighteen. When we retire we shall have another dog.

While sorting out stuff for the course I found this bit of rust dying.

It came from a very rusty old saw. You can see the shape of the saw in the silk. Clive wishes it to be known that it was not his saw. He says he looks after his! It was very rusty and there are lovely coloured bits in it. I sprinkled it with white vinegar and salt, wrapped fine silk around it and encased it in cling-film. Then I forgot about it for about a week. I think that is why it worked so well.

The details are great. Next week I shall try using them as Displacement maps. On with the packing for the Layers of Stitch course. Hopefully, will have pics of it next week.

Thanks for all the advice. I think I have cracked it, so try it out and let me know. As we say in England - how was it for you!

Yesterday the man came and cleaned the oven - thank you, to whoever told me about that one. It looks like new and I can now leave the kitchen door open when cooking, without the smoke alarm (or, as it is known in our house, the dinner gong) going off. Next time I shall cook a duck the day before he comes. I love duck but it makes such a mess of the oven.

Have been shopping which was exhausting. I don't think Clive and I have recovered from our bug yet. We are fine when in hibernation mode but as soon as we go out we are shattered. This is worrying as I'm back to teaching this weekend. I expect the adrenelin will kick in and carry me along.

We are working on layers - both on the embelisher and sewing machine. I've been playing with Lutradur - nothing earth shattering, just layering up silk and metallic fibres on painted Lutradur.

Then laying on another painted piece and stitching. It's quite interesting how different patterns work so it is worth making a sampler with close stitching and open areas.

Then zap it - this one is half zapped as I want to save it for a teaching sample.

The one above is the other side. I also like to include snippets of net and painted lace.

I followed t'other Maggie's advice about selecting None and Medium for the size. We shall see.

Experiments

Not a proper blog - aha - fooled ya! Trying out this pic thingy. Thanks for the advice. Have loaded pics first, as suggested. The one below is very high res and took ages to load. It is a background from the embellisher book and used some very lightweeight non woven fabric with lettering on it. Margaret Beal sells it and it is lovely on the embellisher.

This is my pastel drawing again, loaded small to see if that makes any difference. I have found on other blogs that the click doesn't always work. They say computing is an exact science - I don't think so!

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Stitches, Shoots and Leaves

I'm so glad that you all enjoyed the tree pics. It is a fantastic year for tree colour and they were not retouched at all. Even the old silver birch at the end of my garden is trying hard. Usually the leaves go brown and then just drop off. It is on the boundary of three houses and the other two would like to get rid of it but I love it and, luckily, it has a preservation order on it.

Vonne, so sorry to hear that you can't get out. ME is a horrid thing. My friend's daughter has had it since her teens.

Dianne - glad you are pushing on with the Paint Shop Pro CD. They have been surprisingly popular. We really only offered them as an afterthought when we decided that we couldn't keep up with books on all the new releases. Details on my personal web site http://www.workshopontheweb.com/chezgrey/.

Sabine - I like that sentiment - living with the impression of nature. You are a poet.

Help needed. Does anyone know how to get the 'click to make the pic bigger' effect. Can't find it in the settings. Dale says that hers just happens.

Here's my pastel sketch. based on one of the displacement maps. I dabbed some Xpandaprint on the top left, to get the speckled effect. I'd like to work it in free machining on water soluble as a long, narrow piece.




I picked up some fallen leaves at Westonbirt and left them on the kitchen windowsill. They curled up into this lovely shape.

I rearranged them a little and plan to make a little bowl based on the shape. I have a class at the weekend where we are layering and burning so may make this up using poly-cotton and a soldering iron. We have a Beyond Stitch meeting today so I will try to get the stitching done then. It's my turn to bring the coffee stuff so I'd better go and get it all ready.

So many ideas, not enough time.