Monday 12 March 2012

Girls, goddesses and a bit of embellishing

Thanks for kind comments on the singing. It was such a lovely day. I had to miss the Saturday session this week this week as I abandoned Clive and Smudge and had a sneaky girlie weekend with my friend Peggy in London. My other friend (see, I have at least two!) Sally drove me up there and we had a great time – mostly eating and talking. We all worked together twenty five years ago and have kept in touch ever since. Peggy lives near Hampstead Heath so we had great walks and enjoyed lunch at Kenwood House. Great paintings and it is free to go in.

It does you good to get away and when the sun came out today Clive and I had a bash at the garden. There was a blank spot in front of the new fence that needed a focal point so we popped to the garden centre and bough a Hebe. No, no, not the plant, but a statue of the goddess Hebe.
I read somewhere that, to make your garden look longer you have to place a small statue at the very end, so here she is.
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She will look better when the climbing plants inhabit the arch.As the goddess of youth, I am wondering if she will start to look old while I get younger. The Dorian Grey effect. I will keep you posted.
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the construction work around her is not quite finished but it is coming along.

I prepared a little workshop for the Beyond Stitch group last week and thought I would show you. It's based on the embellisher machine. You will need felt, webbing, transfoil, acrlic wax and some painted tissue paper. First take a piece of dark felt and iron on some fusible webbing. .


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Then let the iron cool a bit and iron some foil on top, a la Lynda M.
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Now place pieces of the tissue paper on top, turn it over and embellish from the back to drive the felt through the painted tissue..
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Then work from the front to show some od the foil and knock back the lines. be careful not to destroy all the tissue. Stamping on the tissue is fun, too. Stamp before embelishing. When you have finished paint it with acrylic wax and it will not be fragile. Allow to dry.
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I made some motifs to go on top by repeating the webbing and foil on felt and then cutting out shapes from a piece of embellished silks and chiffon. These were placed on top of the foil and embellished to bed them in. This is gold foil but the flash makes it look silver.
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When cut again they have a border which I turned to the back and stitched.

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These will be applied to the background, with other shapes.
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Let me know how you find this technique.

4 comments:

Heather said...

Hebe looks lovely and I'm sure she will age while you get younger!
I love the foil/embellisher technique and will have to try it. I have been trying to work more with my embellisher and have some foils somewhere but have never made proper use of them.
'Must try harder'. I'm sure I heard those words years ago!!!

Aussie Jo said...

Great effect with the embellisher, another reason to buy one!!! Just need room to put it though-time to build a girl's shed.
Girl's weekends are great fun, relaxing too.

gilby said...

Great effect going to try using it to make a vessel,combing it with machine made lace.

Robin Mac said...

Sounds like you had a lovely weekend, glad the weather was kind to you. Hebe looks to be in just the right place. I am going to try the embellishing piece today, looks like fun to do. Cheers