Exhibition at the Toll House Gallery, Clevedon.

The weeks have flown by and I haven't mentioned our - Gordano Textile Artists' - exhibition at the Toll House Gallery on Clevedon Pier. It has just started and runs throughout August. I had meant to post a photo of one of the posters but distributed them without doing so. We are having 'meet the artist' sessions each weekend and I am doing my stints on Saturday 13th and Sunday 21st between 11am and 3pm both days. I hope we get lots of visitors and will try to remember to take my camera with me on my days there. I haven't exhibited there before and am looking forward to seeing how our work looks there.

I had a lovely surprise this year when I noticed this agapanthus coming into flower. It had been growing in a pot for years and became so congested I took it out and divided it into four. That must have been 3 or 4 years ago and this is the first one to bloom. It's such a gorgeous blue. Perhaps the others will flower for me too.

I also split this double kingcup last spring and both halves looked very pathetic for such a long time. I had given up hope of flowers this year as they usually bloom so much earlier, but two days ago I saw these lovely pom-poms. Luckily Chester missed it when he took his dive!

I came upon this old wooden ladle in a very interesting shop in a little courtyard in Ledbury yesterday and thought it would look good hanging in the kitchen above my spice and herb cupboard.

I bought the little cupboard years ago when we were on holiday on the Isle of Wight. At that time all my spice and herb jars fitted beautifully on the three shelves inside. Recently the size of the jars has changed and now they are too tall. I still like the cupboard and will have to find an alternative use for it. Although it looks as if it has been around for hundreds of years I do realise it was probably made with suckers like me in mind, about a year before I bought it.

Trials and Tribulations.

I have had this melting pot for some months and only just now got round to using it. I found the technique I used here on the CDRom 'Paper and Beyond' by Maggie Grey and Jane Wild. These are my first attempts and are not very good. I put Ultra Thick Embossing powder into the pot with some copper embossing powder and stirred them together before switching it on. When they had dissolved I dipped small snippets of lace, etc., to see how they would react.

All the light coloured pieces are various scraps of lace. The bottom sample in the middle row is lace that had previously had gesso and paint applied to it. The top right piece is a scrap of canvaswork and below that are two tiny bits of knitting.

Here they are after dipping into the molten embossing powder. Not a roaring success but I will reheat them with the heat gun and see if I can disperse the 'enamel' to reveal the patterns of the lace. The top left sample looked quite promising but was too floppy and I couldn't control it to lie it flat on the nonstick sheet. The stuff sets as it cools and you have to work quickly. The knitting was hilarious as it absorbed the melted powder so readily and kept sticking first to the tweezers and then to the kebab stick and I thought I'd never be able to put it down. I didn't bother with the second piece of knitting.

It was interesting to see that the piece of lace that had been gessoed and painted turned out better than the others so maybe if I gesso all the pieces of lace I will get better results.

I found it much easier to use with paper. All these were done with heavy watercolour paper.

The first row are simple squares with their edges dipped into the molten powder. Next I tried dipping the fronts of the squares and then stamping into the wet enamel. Again I had to work quickly as it cools and dries so fast. The second attempt is better than the first but I even like the third which was really a disaster. Then I tried dipping paper shapes cut with decorative punches. These were easier to do though it needs practice to control the amount you take up each time.

I went back to my 'frames' and coloured the backgrounds with pale Pro Marker pens and stamped small flower and leaf images on top. These could look quite nice on cards or make little gift tags.

At least I have learned what not to do!

Yesterday I thought I would try out another 'toy' I have had for some time. Armed with Dale Rollerson's booklet for inspiration I set about trying to fit the Flower Stitcher foot to my machine only to discover that I think I need an adaptor of some sort before I can do so. At least I have her other two booklets on Walnut Ink and Sari Ribbon, so I can play with those instead.
.

We had fun and games in the garden yesterday. One of our daughters called with her dog Chester - you can see him a few posts back. As it was such a nice day we went into the garden and Chester ran round exploring. I don't think he'd met a pond before and because the pondweed has pretty well covered the surface he tried to walk across it! Poor little chap - he disappeared completely for a moment before surfacing and climbing out up the little waterfall!

He was none the worse for his adventure and neither was the waterfall, and he dried off quickly in the sunshine. I just hope the frogs and newts weren't too traumatised.

Summer Reading.

On Monday Pat, alias The Weaver of Grass, suggested that we post our current or most recent reading matter, listing 2 fiction and 2 non-fiction titles and the two books we might re-read.
For my first fiction title, I recently read Ken Follett's 'The Pillars of the Earth'. Set in twelfth century England amid all the political and religious strife, it tells the story of the building of a great cathedral.
The second fiction title was 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' by John Boyne. The story is written as if by a nine year old boy who is the main character, and describes his life growing up in wartime Germany. The ending is quite a shock but the book is not gloomy or harrowing.
My two non-fiction titles are by the same author and I have just finished them. 'Wildwood' and 'Tales from Walnut Tree Farm' are by Roger Deakin who was a true countryman and loved to grow trees and work with wood. The first title describes many of his travels abroad and the second is almost a diary of a year in his life at home. Delightful, fascinating, very informative, sometimes humourous and very relaxing.
I have already read Joanne Harris's 'Coastliners' at least twice. It is a novel, set on a tiny Breton island and tells of the trials and tribulations of the local inhabitants faced with losing their way of life which has remained almost unchanged for a hundred years.
My other 're-read' title is 'The House on the Strand' by Daphne du Maurier. This is about two men, one of whom is a scientist who has discovered a drug which will take him back in time. He asks his friend to try it out for him to see if the effects are the same on him. There are fascinating and nearly disastrous consequences.
The good thing about reading is that it doesn't depend on good weather. If the sun is shining, it is delightful to sit in the shade with a good book, and if it's cold and miserable nothing is more cheering than settling in a cosy corner with said good book. It's a win win situation.

Hearts for the Heart Foundation.

This is the front of the postcard advertising 'Heartfelt', an exhibition to be held at the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bedminster, Bristol, running from 2nd - 30th September this year. It must have taken ages to arrange all those pins to get such a lovely heart shape in the centre.

The hearts will be sold in aid of the British Heart Foundation and to mark it's 50th birthday. A similar exhibition was held last year and was a great success.

Inspiration was low until I found a hoard of experimental pieces, too good to throw away but I didn't know what to do with them. The one above is made from knitting with a variegated sheer fabric stitched on top and then distressed with a heat gun. It was once the centre of a cushion which I thought would sell! The beads at the bottom are homemade.

Another discarded experiment with some colourful stitchery to brighten it up a bit. It is a reminder that I must make hanging loops for all the other hearts.

This one is made from Evolon. I had never used it before and had only got as far as colouring the piece with transfer dyes (the ones you have to paint onto paper and then iron onto your fabric). You might remember the little daisy motif - it is an embellishing experiment - from an earlier post. I stitched both halves of the heart wrong sides together. I find it so difficult to do the other way round, having to turn them through and trying to get a nice smooth shape. I then made little impressions with the soldering iron all the way round. More homemade beads at the bottom.

The last one in the making. It will be a little string of five hearts and I must hurry up and get it done as I've promised to post them all tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest.

I've made two of the five - you'll have to imagine the others. I have applied a little printed felt heart in each centre and edged each purple velvet heart with that lovely variegated felt ribbon. The purple velvet was once the surround to the knitted piece in the first heart - waste not, want not! Again, homemade beads will link each heart and maybe two or three will hang from the bottom one.

.

We are asked to attach a label to each heart with a heart/warming/breaking/touching story. I find this the hardest part but the string of five velvet hearts will relate to my children who are greatly loved and so supportive. I am a very lucky woman.

Potato Prints.

Moving on with Gina Ferrari's mini tutorials, we are now on to making potato prints. I thought about a suitable shape and could probably have come up with a simpler one but decided to carry on with the thistle as my design source. This bit of the exercise took me back more than 40 years to when our children were small and we kept the 'Rainy Day Box' behind the sofa - it was full of useful stuff like paper, felt, wool, cardboard tubes, egg boxes, match boxes, paint, glue, string etc. It was sometimes used on days which weren't rainy and kept us all amused for hours. I ended up cutting this shape freehand as it was impossible to hold the cut out drawing in place, and hold the potato steady at the same time. It is supposed to be a side stem and bud but looks more like an oven-ready chicken gone wrong!

First trial prints - not too successful. I kept getting a bald patch in the centre of my thistles and painted in the first two. Then I decided to place an old mouse mat under the page I was printing on and this made all the difference. I also experimented with using two colours of paint.

The shapes look too solid and heavy so I made an adjustment to the potato shape after the first two prints and scored criss-cross lines to suggest the 'scales' of the prickles. I think it helps the design and lightens the image.

I had to cheat and paint in the stalks before I could add my side shoots and buds. These are not so good.

Then came a delightful interruption when one of our daughters and her dog Chester called during their morning walk. So it was coffee and chat for a while and trying to keep Chester occupied without getting him too excited - he is only about 6 months old. Here, he is hunting for dog treats which we have hidden in an old towel - great fun.

That little interlude was well timed and by the time I got back to work the prints had dried and I could try over washing with watercolours. I really sloshed water and paint over the top and had to work quite fast as it seemed to soak into the paper so quickly. I like a bit of dithering time when using paint.

I played with mixing various colours and love this diluted purple and green together.

My thistles look a bit stiff, but then I suppose in reality they are rather stiff. I enjoyed these experiments but can't help thinking that a teacher would have written on the bottom of my pages 'Could do better'! Perhaps I can think of a way of improving them.

Further Developments - I can't stop!

I kept coming back to this page and wondering what I could do to make it more interesting. I decided to stick the stencil itself beside the image and define a few details with a dark coloured pen. It still looked a bit ordinary then I had the idea to cut out the spaces between some of the stems and allow the previous page to show through.

This page hasn't worked as well as the others. I used ordinary wax crayons instead of oil pastels and think they may have dried out over the years so that they no longer act as a resist to the yellow ink I applied over the top. When the ink had dried I sprayed the page with Cosmic Shimmer Mist which adds a lovely lustre but it doesn't show up on the photo. This added to the misty effect and seemed to push the design further back which I quite like. I finally added a little definition with a water colour pencil in a matching purple to darken the central area of the design.

I think this was the very first page I worked on and have cut out simple shapes from the areas between the stems. I like this idea and it's 'buy one, get one free' possibilities.

This is what happened to the reverse side of the page. I simply outlined the cut out areas with a 'running stitch' in dark pen. I still have the fern stencil and would like to create a few more designs with it before it falls apart, but .......................
....................there may be a halt to these sketchbook exercises as these three small booklets arrived in the post this morning. I have only had a quick skim through each one but they are absolutely packed with great ideas and are written by Dale Rollerson. She and her husband own and run The Thread Studio in Perth, Australia. Dale's blog is 'Downunderdale' and well worth a visit as is Thread Studio website.

It took me ages to find walnut ink. Every art shop I went into had never heard of it and firms in the small ads. offering it for sale were out of stock, but eventually I tracked some down. Apart from 'ageing' white paper I wasn't sure what else to do with it, but I'm about to find out. That's a gorgeously colourful bookmark beside the booklet.

I already have a couple of hanks of sari ribbon and have learned that it works well with the embellisher. There are many other uses for it, so it looks as if my time has been accounted for, for the forseeable future.

Last but not least is the Flower Stitcher booklet. I was lucky enough to win one in a giveaway some months back but haven't plucked up the courage to try it. In this booklet there are some lovely examples of flower stitching worked on kunin felt and the felt burned away to reveal beautifully holey textures.

I think I am going to be very busy! Where do I start?!

A few additions.

I have added a bit of detail to my thistle drawing as well as some lettering and rubber stamping.

I tore away part of the fern page to reveal the thistle below, and worked whipped running stitch along the torn edge. I found a fern stamp and wrote the word 'Fern' in the top right corner and shaded coiled part of the design. These photos are not good and were taken in great haste.

This is as far as I have got with my mirror image of the fern stencil. I'm not sure what to do with it now, and think a simpler shape would have worked better. For this page I used water soluble crayons.

Back to the drawing board with a new stencil?