Surprise surprise

This lovely parcel arrived in the post today it is from Sue Blewiss and she sent it as I had won a draw on her blog, it contained a large piece of dyed velvet and all these beautiful laces in the most gorgeous colours, wasn`t that generous. It was quite a surprise as I thought it had got lost in the post it took a month to get here, but well worth waiting for, many thanks Sue

This is my first sight when I wake up in the mornings, we do not pull the curtains as the window looks out onto a field, but the neighbours are having their roof re -tiled and this sign is readable from my bed, the last line is giving my husband an inferiority complex!

challenges

This bird is for the choosedaychallenge the bird is procion dyed calico which was then stamped on a quilted background. The background was made a la Linda Westerman, strips of material PVA `d to a calico base

This is the vase for the Fibre and stitch challenge, made from funky foam with organza & silk with machine embroidery, it is triangular and has a glass inside to hold water

Framed fairy shoes

Well I finally got round to framing the shoes for my Grandaughter,I put 3 dried fungi in with the wood blewit shoes, and laid them on handmade paper. The lichen shoes had a background of silver birch bark handmade paper and quess what, lichen

London

Spent the weekend in London,seeing the Tutankahmun exhibition which was superb,the workmanship on the artifacts was exquisite and all well preserved. It was very busy but well worth the effort.I went to the Dali museum on the South bank the next day, I loved his sculptures but a lot of his lithographs were highly pornographic and not to my taste.Our main reason for going was to celebrate two friends marriage, which was held at Egham at Great Fosters hotel a beautiful Elizabethan hunting lodge, well worth a visit if you are in the area as the place is magnificent as are the gardens, no photos as it was pouring with rain,but i hope to back some day to look around the gardens I might be able to afford tea but the price for a night is £400.00, so I shall need to win the lottery first.The photos on the right are embroidered cards using some of the fabric that I gelatin printed, I hate travelling so I always stitch and Shirley Anne wanted to know what I was going to do with it all so I thought I would make a start,I am afraid I forgot to take the tacking out before scanning.

Gelatin printing

I still cant get the hang of writing in reverse,I have had my first attempt at gelatin printing, having seen jparkerbaxterwood great videos on utube and a piece written by Mary Taylor at taylorarttechs.com.I made a container using plasticene as a wall as all my clay had gone rock hard, (why does it do that just when you need it) on a piece of glass making sure that it was pushed well down on the glass so no seepage would occur.It was about 1" high and NO cracks as shown on the right above.I measured how much liquid I would need to fill the area by filling it with water then pouring it out and measuring it, this also shows you where any gaps are.Th e amount of gelatin to use is blogged about below sorry about this but its due to writing it all backwoods.When it is full put it in the fridge overnight, next day gently remove the outer wall and hey presto a gelatin base. I tried using procion dyes mixed with manutex to thicken but this was very runny and dried leaving a stiff handle.In the end I used my texiscreen aqua inks which are great they are the right texture and washable. If you do not need to wash the fabric acrylic paints work well on paper inks or paints work are fine.You can brush the medium over the gelatin and then treat it like a monoprint drawing into it, I got on well stamping onto or using a stencil it has endless opportunities. When not in use keep the gelatin in the `fridge wrapped in clingfilm. If you do have children tell them not to eat it as it does take on the colour of the medium and looks like jelly.Do try it when tou have time it is great fun

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Gelatin prints

I used this type of gelatin as it has been knocking around since the days when I used to cook and make things like lemon souffle and pork pies all very nice but very timewasting when you could be playing!I used 10 packets or 2 boxes for my one which was 7" x 9",its one cup of water to 2 packets of gelatin, this makes a really firm jelly.Below are some of the prints I have done, not brilliant, but this tecnique could give great results in the right hands.

The one on the left had paper cutouts placed over the painted gelatin they are supposed to be japanese type letters

The print on the left was achieved by stamping onto the gelatin then laying the fabric on top, all these have been made for use in a Japanese quilt This one was made using a stencil I burnt out and then laid on top of the painted gelatin
The mauve was decorated with brush marks and lines, the green one ,the gelatin was stamped with brown and then the orange colour was stamped directly onto the fabric

This one had skeleton leaves laid on top of the painted gelatin

Bookwraps

Madi and I went to Ledbury Artspace today to pick up my 2 bookwraps and see all the others,about 34 in all. All very different and of a high standard, the winner shown far left was a cover made for a childs book, using fabric paper some crochet and lots of work. The one below was for a cookbook & the pie opens up to show the slices of apples, below left was one of the third prizes.Angie said that she was pleased with the amount of people visiting and that "stitch" magazine were going to do an article on Artspace including some of the bookwraps

Three of the bookwraps I thought the polished ammonite was a great closure,The black bookwrap was velvet and nappy liners

I bought this cotton from Trago Mills at only 1.99 a meter it was a bargain, the shoes and clothes my grandaughter "had to have" cost a lot more!

Terrible weather

I took these pictures as I loved the grey tones and shapes of the tyres and ladders on the harbour wall, when I can get to grips with photoshop I will experiment

Have just spent the coldest W/E of the year in a caravan in Cornwall, boy was it cold, we were going to see the Eden project but on the day we were going we woke up to snow so that was abandoned. The days were clear with some sun so we were able to get out and about took these photos of the boats as my daughter who we went with wants to paint them.

Fairy shoes

I attended a EG workshop with Annette Emms , A lovely lady and a good tutor who does great work it was a great day Annette makes beautiful books often with a pair of shoes and a notebook inside using an old legend as a theme.the outer covers are made from 2 block painting canvasses.

These are some of Annette`s shoes she thinks of a fairy before making them she did all of the fairies in Midsummers nights dream,

Annette is a great tutor warm hearted and generous with her ideas,nothing is too much trouble

This is a photo of all of the shoes produced at the workshop some unfinished. They are displayed on 2 pieces of cork bark I picked up in Portugal whilst playing golf, they are lovely cork trees are not so great when you are trying to play golf they are always in the way, and if you hit one the ball pings off for miles.

These are the 2 pairs of shoes I made, my theme was woodland fairies, so these are the wood blueit fairy ( a type of fungus & delicious)

And these are the moss fairy.

Where does the time go?

My mother came for 5 days over Easter so I had to do cleaning didn`t I, then it was work work, and then we had the grandchild from hell for the W/E, so not a lot has been done and I am feeling very deprived. These lovely pieces of stumpwork, have been sewn by my sister, she is doing along distance learning course. Great work Ros.