March 24, 2012

Textile projects from a photo part 2

















First photo shows backgrounds - 3 cream cotton fabric pieces and a pre-dyed (orange and yellow!) piece of silk scarf painted with fabric paints and "Lumiere's" .... the next pic shows a version of the photo enlargement - done with hand felting (single needle - very therapeutic haha) using wool and silk tops on a blue Duster cloth (Hi Pat hehe - yep - still using those you sent me a few years ago :D) since this pic was taken - I have started to embellish the "rocks" with tiny beads....The "bits" on the left are coloured (and opened out) "Paper String" ... which you will see in a future blog entry as I have used them on one of the painted cream material backgrounds ......Then an interpretation using "Angelina fibres" -and in the 3rd pic you can see the black material version which was made by using a piece of polystyrene foam (like meat trays - though this was actually a "corn on the cob" tray from Woollies!) I flipped the image and used an old biro to emboss the design into the polystyrene (learnt to do this in a workshop last August with the lovely Sherrill Kahn from USA - then Lumiere paints were sponged onto it and then it was "stamped" onto the plain black fabric ......more to come as to what this ended up being :D - Geez - I'm such a tease LOL! haha
(Oh and Hi to my lace making and embroidery mate Gillian B - who I caught up with today at the WA Lace Day and so sweetly told me how much she enjoys following my blog - yay! there's at least 2 people out there who read it - Hi to Christie too :D) ... stay tuned for more .....
(and if this is the first time you've visited my blog the photo used as reference is in the previous entry to this one :D)

March 22, 2012

Textile project from a photo
















At the February meeting of ATASDA (Australian Textile Art and Surface Design Association) we were given a challenge - to choose a photograph (there was about 10 different ones to choose from) and then to do something from it in various mediums - textile/paper/ combination etc....Well I chose the photo in the top pic - I know it was taken by Penny (one of the workshop co-ordinators) I think it was taken at Binalong Bay, Bay of Fires, Tasmania. As I have also been following The Sketchbook Challenge - (I have been working on it in my sketchbook for my own amusement :D) - I decided to combine the two themes (February sketchbook challenge theme was "Close up") so I "blew" the pic up a bit, masked off some of it- did a painting and then set about turning it into something" textiley!"..... pics of which will be in my next post ..... ;D ...stay tuned :D

March 17, 2012

Visitors in our garden


Hi All -The last few weeks we have had a couple of "28" Parrots visiting our garden - then one morning there were 3! and on Thursday this week they brought another friend and we had 4 at the same time :D - They are called "28's" because that's what their call sounds like -the have the most wonderful blue colour underneath their tails :D
The Bird table my son designed and made for me for Christmas has proved popular with them as a perch whilst waiting a turn on the seed block LOL! They look good with the Xamia Palm in the background :D

March 8, 2012

White Kumihimo braid
































Hi All - well we are into Autumn here in Western Australia - though someone forgot to tell Mother Nature as it was in the high 30's last weekend and tomorrow and for the next 3 days (over this coming weekend) it's going to be 38/39 degrees! Here are some pics of the braid I got underway last week to take to Kumihimo group - I ordered a book from Nordic Needle in USA which has not only 12 (advanced) Marudai (Round stand) patterns but also 30 patterns for the Kakudai (Square stand) and some patterns for the "Ayetakadai". The 3rd pic shows the whole Kakudai - it's a mini one that I bought when I did the Kumihimo workshop in Japan in July 2010 - I believe that this book is the only one in print at the moment that has Kakudai patterns in it - so it is good to be able to start using my Kakudai :) I did end up restarting this braid 4 times though haha - at the end of the group meeting it measured about 30 cms yay!