Wednesday 19 December 2007

More Embellishing

Brrr, is it cold here. Just been for a good walk on the local common and it was freezing. The good thing about that was that there weren't many other idiots about, so we saw a huge dog fox trotting about his business and some g. spotted woodpeckers.

Good to be home in the warm and making mince pies. As you can see, I'm feeling very Christmassy.
Megan, I love your granny's saying about the laughter. Do you think our grandchildren will quote us? Heaven knows what mine will say. My granny had a wonderful one. If she saw any of us children scratching our behinds she would say 'Butter will be cheap when grass grows there'! We never did work out quite what it meant but it certainly has a ring to it.
Sharon, you must try to get to Urchfont. If you do go to the exhibitions, make sure you book for lunch. Their lunches are fantastic.

T'other Maggie. Sorry about the challenge - just go with the antlers and show us the result on you blog. I think baby reindeer are called showers.

Carole - Happy Chrimbo back and I'm sure that everone's blog will go from strength to strength in 2008. I'm so glad I got into it - loads of fun.

Here are some more pics from the embellisher weekend. We were experimenting with working from the back and making patterns. This little sample (below) from Rita is worked on silk carrier rods (pods).





This one from Sarah uses black chiffon over built-up silk fibres. The chiffon is applied by working up and down in rows which pulls it into chevron patterns.




Here we were ironing T Shirt transfer prints over embellished surfaces and Penny has put some glitter on this one. She will go on to work into it with the sewing machine to enhance the architectural lines.




Cindy produced a lovely landscape on a prefelt with lots of hand stitching that we destroyed with the embellisher.




Finally here is Barbara's finished piece - an eyeglass case.



6 comments:

Carole said...

Hi Maggie: What a nice treat to find your blog this morning. Thanks for providing pictures of the embellished work. The workshop sounds like there was lots of opportunity to play and experiment. I seem to need to give myself permission to do that! Much too focused. Ah, a New Year's resolution in the making. A qeestion for you...I bought some black quink ink yesterday and wondered about the "emulsion" paint..is that a latex based wall paint or something else..I have never heard the term "emulsion paint" so wanted to clarify before I started. Also, does the technique only work with white paint? Carole (from Kelowna)

pascale putz said...

Hello Maggie,
I'm a big fan of your blog and i always look forward to having a look at it when I've got time. It's so motivating to see all the nice things you create.

sharon young said...

What a wonderful collection of work that the students produced on the Urchfont W/E.
I love penny's architectural piece, right up my street. it looks like a Gaudi building, or is that fabric distortion?
Is Rita's sample worked using the embellisher OVER the silk carrier rod, or have they been added afterwards.
A trip to Urchfont will definitely be on the cards next year, I can usually get my OH to go anywhere if there's a good lunch at the end of it LOL

Penny said...

Hi Maggie, I am reading your blog over here on Kangaroo Island, we arrived this morning, tomorrow is John's 70th and we are celebrating over here and staying on until just after Christmas, some of the family are coming tomorrow, we had a celebration for the three family members (John, daughter Sarah and grand daughter Fenella, all born on the 21st of December before we left, others cant come until after Christmas, but a wonderful way to do it.
I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas, ours will be a bit quiet after the birthday excitement,
the Island had been badly affected by bushfires in the past couple of weeks but where we are no fires and it is its usual delightful self.I do hope you can see it.

Kate said...

I'm loving Penny's work, too. (But I thought it might be Venice!) I'm a bit baffled by Carole's question about ink and paint - I'll have to go back and re-read the last few days. I've had a bad back, so no doubt I've missed something! If I don't comment again before, have a great Christmas, and here's to a creative new year! xx

Carole said...

Kate: Sorry to be confusing. MY questions relate back to a July (I think) posting. I'll try and copy it here so you don't have to go searching.

Maggie wrote: "The piece below shows lots of textural snippets, from scrim to lace, embellished on to acrylic felt. It could be zapped to add more texture and this is shown at one end. The pieces could also be stitched down if you don't have an embellisher.





Then the whole thing is painted with white emulsion paint. Yes, the stuff we paint on the walls. After this, it is coated with black Quink ink which reacts with the emulsion to give a lovely blue-grey colour.



When dry, a little gold paint gives that finishing touch. Good, eh?"