Tangled Doors

I won't bore you with the diagnosis of my illness - but tell you about my latest piece of work instead! I have spent another lovely weekend with my friends in MEG. I have just finished another Zentangle stitched piece based on my doors project from a few posts ago .....

I just need to mount it now.
I am going to plan the next one as I am really enjoying Zentangling like this.

New Work

Sorry it has been a while since I last wrote but I have a) not been well - still, b) its been too hot and sunny to work and c) I have been busy :-)

I have had two wonderful weekends away with my lovely textile art friends - the first weekend was with the MEG group in Salisbury. The second was a long weekend (Friday to Tuesday) with the group Textile21 where we were in Kingcombe.

So what was I doing? Firstly making more of my Waste Not Want Not products - I now have Mug rugs, brooches and bracelet/cuffs -

 

NEXT - I finished off stitching on the Doors piece I have already shown you - then I started work on a Zentangle version of my Doors piece - its A3 in size and as you can see is still a work in progress.

 FINALLY - I started another piece - it is much bigger and although it has started off in the same method  - as I work on it, it may change.  I can only show you the work in progress at this time as it has a very long way to go.

I chose two of my favourite door photos and cut them in two sizes - arranged them in a pleasing design, then doubled, mirrored and off set it.

The textile background is still in the Wendy Dolan technique of white on white fabric then painted, although I have found online that this technique has been used for many many years by loads of other artists so its not just Wendy's technique. Anyway - white on white then painted in a delicate violet and azure blue.

 Here I have just started the stitching of the design outlines.

A birthday present

I showed my Three Kings - Zentangle piece to some of my work colleagues - those who understand the odd creative textile things I do.  One said I should do other pieces - not seasonal.  She likes Poppies and her birthday is on Tuesday so today I have created this....



It is A5 in size and I a stretching it to a small canvas - hope she likes it.





Oh -  and this is the rainbow over my house on Friday..... sorry its at an odd angle but I was leaning out of the window ad if you look carefully you can see it is actually double - from the bottom right corner of the photo is the second layer

Three Kings 1 - Zentangle - Complete

The first of my Three Kings projects is finished - well up to the point of all the stitching is complete - now  I need to decide if I mount it on a canvas or turn it into a quilt - any suggestions?  The full piece and a couple of close up photos.  By the size - from base of stitching to top of stitching it measures 40 cm (16 inches).

2012 - Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my blogging friends. Hope it's a good one for you. I decided not to make resolutions as I always make the same - to lose weight, exercise more (once the knee op is out of the way) etc. This year my family suggested we all write a list of our top 5 wishes - they could be mundane to the ridiculous. Any thing we really would like if it was at all possible - to have or to achieve. Then we would spend the next year trying to achieve these top 5 desires and to help each other achieve their wishes too. My list is currently 12 items long. I did ask my daughter to help choose the top 5 - she did help but only suggesting the top 4. I will not tell you which ones they are but will try to achieve any of these (written in the order I thought of them not the order to achieve them):

1. Go to New York again
2. Go to Venice for the carnival
3. Visit my dear friend Jan
4. Go Riding
5. Spend a weekend at a health farm
6. Dye my hair purple (have it bleached first to make it vivid)
7. Build a vanity unit and cover the pipes in the downstairs loo
8. Buy a 'good' orthopaedic mattress
9. Buy a dress (not had one for years)
10. Buy some really good quality saucepans
11. Tile the kitchen
12. Get a Kindle when they are in colour.

Then there are the four art related wishes - have these every year :-) :

1. Exhibit my quilts/costumes
2. Make more costumes
3. Make some small art pieces to sell (like the cuffs)
4. Go to the quilt show at the NEC

There I have written them down - now let's see if I achieve any!!

In the meantime I have been following the Sketchbook Challenge with great interest throughout 2011 and have decided to try my hand this year. Click here to get more information. I may not do every months theme but I have decided to try mostly because the January theme is 'doodling' and it means I can zentangle. So what I have done is used my New York skyline picture (see previous posts) and filled it in.... this is it up the right way...

but it also looks good upside down.....

and on its side!!

All look OK but a bit busy - don't think I will use the filled in for anything else.

Starting Muse 2

OK so I have started Muse 2 - the rusted one. I cut out the pattern pieces to my new size (bigger than Muse 1) and laid them out in order on the living room carpet....

here you get an idea of scale as you can see the DVD player and old video player....

then it was turning under the edges

and applying them to the 12 rectangles.

I have machined edges using invisible thread -

the edges will be hidden by a cord, when I have made one myself. This time the quilt is going to be made as a pieced one, still with some delicate zentangle stitching on the sections.

MUSE 1 and scale

My plan for MUSE 1 is to work on a combination piece - to sort of translate this rough design, using colour but using zentangles for stitch texture, and finally 'quilting' the whole thing. My trouble is that i am rubbish at scaling. Here is Muse (the zentangle piece) I showed you in a previous post on the stitched grid ready for Muse 1. As you can see the scale is increased. Muse is roughly A3 in size already. I have stitched a sample using a scrap of the dyed fabric from the weekend to test my thread colour, I even 'quilted' the sample. It is random shapes just for fun. However when you see my sample against just one rectangle of Muse 1 I am not sure how the stitching will scale up !! Should I use the stitching scale of the sample - it will look rather compact/busy or do I try to scale up the zentangle designs. Each row of the sample (and Muse) is free machine stitched three times. to scale up it would need to be many more times - 6 or more. I am unable to decide the best way forward.

Muse

So the reveal - following the last post when I showed you a teaser of my latest art work - here she is Muse (I think I must call her Muse as there are many ideas forming from the drawings and design) - yes a free machined zentangle version of my work from the other weekend (See the blog post HERE). This is free machined on white cotton (with a calico backing so I did not need to use a frame). Here you can see on the left the machined version and on the right the paper drawn one. A close up of the back so you can see that the back is much messier than the front.and a close up of the stitching. For once I am going to continue with the design process - lots of paper ideas coming up and I will let them become fabric pieces if that is what they want to be. In the meantime I am also 'brewing' or 'composting' as we call it - the ideas for the next costume - The Queen of Hearts. Fabric is being sourced - Pictures and notes are also being added to the sketchbook - shock!!

Busy Busy Busy and Mustard Seed

I have had a fantastic few days recently and more to come now too!!
Where shall I start to tell you... In no particular order - yesterday my daughter and I went to see Matthew Bourne's ballet Cinderella at the Bristol Hippodrome! What a brilliant production - set during the Blitz - such an original idea - it was just superb! Last weekend I attended a course at Urchfont tutored by Viv White - Learn to love your sketchbook - what a fun weekend that was - brilliant - We had to take our favourite things to draw - I took this statue - my first drawing... not bad! Then a close up - I got inspired by copies of my drawings and did several coloured versions - which then had a grid over the top - I won't bore you with the various combinations just suffice it to say I am inspired and when I have finished the costumes (very soon) I will be working on this design to see where it will lead me - possibly a panel or hanging - although I have ideas for costumes too I think I need to break away for a little while - especially as I currently have nowhere to exhibit them. OK Just one more design picture then..... Of course I had to Zentangle a version.... (This is the most inspiring for me !)
Now an update on Mustardseed.. I have been working on the seed pods, but the more I do the more I thought they were too heavy looking to hang on the bottom of the dress - then on Wednesday morning I woke up at 5am with a start the idea had come to me...... Don't have them hanging from the dress - give her an accessory to carry them in - I had to tear a piece of paper out of my diary and draw a rough idea..... but that was not good enough - I had to get up and pin a very rough idea straight away...I have also been busy hand stitching on the Volume Covers as mentioned in the last but one posting.. progress so far - all three have had some of my favourite Sorbello stitch in swirls (Little Secret for you ---- if you look carefully at the above photo you can see the covers were resting on a very rough draft of a future costume - The Queen of Hearts - but shhhh don't tell anyone!) and I have started some beading - yes beads - I don't often use beads but I have a large collection so time to use them up.
So this is what I will be working for the next few weeks -
Finishing First Fairy

Finishing Mustard Seed

Finishing the Volume Covers

Statue designs - she really needs a name - any ideas?

Queen of Hearts costume (design is in my head at present)

Blue silk Corset (fabrics collected and laid out in the workroom but not worked out yet).

This weekend (ie starting tonight) I have another fun packed weekend at Urchfont with the MEG group so hopefully some of the above may be close to done. Busy Busy Busy!!

Oh no still no machine

The Bad news is my old Bernina - which I am using for Oberon is still not repaired - its been at the repairer since before Christmas - now he has discovered the gears need replacing so it's going to be mega expensive to fix but I need it. I will not use my Pfaff on Rusted fabrics. In the meantime I am back to working on Mustardseed and First Fairy.
The Good news is that my zentangle commission (click here for the blog reference) are now up in their owners home!! The pics are a bit dark but I am so proud!!

Commission Complete - big GRIN !!

Whilst my car was being fixed I had time to get on with my commission - in fact I finished what I had to do and sent it off to the 'customer'- as she is very happy with the result I will explain more here. I can't show you the final result as someone else has a bit to do yet!!

The commission was to embroider borders on a truly beautiful (expensive) silk to be made into a pair of curtains and a false blind in my zentangle style. Here is part of the blind once I had finished stitching. As you can see I was working directly onto the fabric and not creating bands to be stitched on later. Now the three pieces are with another lady for making up into the curtains and blind. Once this has been done I hope to have photos.
OK so who was my commission for well this lady......... Jane Lemon no less!!!! They are to go in her dining room, a room that is regularly seen by her guests and it is such an honour for me to have my work in her home. - so now you can understand my nervousness before starting and my joy that Jane loves what I have done. For those of you who don't know Jane here is a brief biography I found on the web:

Jane Lemon is one of Britain's most celebrated embroiderers, who for many years has commanded the respect of all those who have been fortunate enough to hear her speak, been her student, read her books or who have been able to see her work.
After years of experience as a costume designer for BBC Television and in the theatre, Jane co-founded, in 1978, the Sarum Group at Salisbury, particularly noted for the design and working of ecclesiastical embroidery; she is its Chairman. After spending several years developing and teaching the art of embroidered box making, she has achieved her ambition of working entirely in ecclesiastical embroidery. Her designs may be seen in the Cathedrals of St Albans, Exeter, Salisbury and Wells, Bath and Sherborne Abbeys, and many churches around the country including two venues in the USA.
Jane is an honorary member of the Embroiderers' Guild of Great Britain, having previously served on the Executive Committee for a number of years. The Royal School of Needlework has made up a number of Jane's designs at Hampton Court Palace. In 2004 Her Majesty the Queen accorded Jane the accolade of being appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to needlework.

THANK YOU JANE!!

More Zentangle Practice - Complete

A whole afternoon of stitching and the practice piece on rough silk is complete - now it is a simple slip cover for a sketchbook - front, back, and in case I forget what it is and when........ (inside the cover!!)