Our own work

Phew, running a little behind with updates on our activities! Our second May playday had no particular theme, so we were all working on different things.

Bev was doodling, with the idea of making small framed pieces for sale.

I love pattern-making like this!
Carol was working with  more paper serviettes, mounted onto mat board.

This one had been adhered with diluted PVA glue, and then she painted it with watercolour paints.

These ones were laid down over moulding paste.

 They are all intended as the base for future work.

Carol was also cheering up some very basic Masonite clipboards with some paint:

Helen was embroidering as usual:

Nola was painting some bits she'd made from glue and dimensional paint, for her Lost Treasures challenge.

She used her hot glue gun to make some shapes. When she painted them with Lumiere paints, they behaved as if the paint would rub off, so she coloured them with Sharpie pens and then painted over them with Lumiere and Setacolor paints. The first two coins were fabric, adhered together with fusible web and satin stitched. They really didn't look much like coins, even after she stamped on them with Setacolor paints, so she added Pebeo Expandable paint and painted them with Setacolor paints before heating with the heat gun. Some areas puffed to white, so she added more paint and Treasure Gold. Later coins were made from circles of medium weight card, painted with the expandable paint and over painted with Lumiere and Setacolor paints.

We also swapped postcards as usual. Bev's postcard was made from fabric snippets, free-motion stitches and beaded.

Carol made doodle patterns using the programmed stitches of her sewing machine:

Helen's postcard used fabric scraps, pieced together and embroidered.

Embellishing machine

Another smaller meeting, but I wouldn't say it was quiet! Maz brought along her Janome FM-725 needle felting machine, or embellisher, as they are often called, so we could have a play with it.

Maz brought along a piece of fabric she had been working on, with the intention of making a vest. The fibres of the top fabric have been felted into the lower fabric. It's likely to become a wall-hanging in due course.

Nola and Tricia had a play with the machine, as neither of us had ever used one. Here's our sample:

Both of us worked on the top piece. Here's a close-up of Tricia's solo piece:

And here's Nola's solo sample, Bonfire Night:

OK I made the name upon the spot, but it has possibilities, doesn't it?

We were surprised at how noisy it was, though this was probably because it was being used on a fold-up craft table. We were also surprised at how cheap in price they are, compared to the well-known competition! I can't imagine spending thousands on a machine I'd only use occasionally, but a couple of hundred is a much better option, unless you intend to use it a lot. We are blown away by the work of fellow ATASDA member Felicity Clarke - you can see her work Connecting with the light here on the ATASDA members' blog.

Meanwhile, Helen was working on an unfinished work, which (ta da!) she finished on the day. She loves embroidering on rug canvas.

She thinks it may be a book cover one of these days (probably by next meeting!).

Once we finished playing with the embellisher, Tricia returned to her spinning. She acquired the fibre from the Spinners and Weavers' Association Open Day and it's beautifully soft and lustrous. She finished the first bag at our meeting. Here she is spinning:

 Nola decided to do some stamping on one of her "paint rags", with the aim to make some cards. ATASDA NSW is running a greeting card swap at the quarterly meeting, as a fundraiser for the library. Members bring sets of six cards, and, for a small donation, five are swapped and repackaged and the sixth donated to the library for sale. So far, the library has raised just over eighty dollars from this small fundraiser.

The fabric is quilters' muslin, painted with leftover Setacolor paints in an earlier painting session. The stamp was carved with a soldering iron from a polystyrene tray. (Do this outside, because it does produce toxic fumes!) It's easy to do and gives an effect rather like lino cut or woodcut images. The stamping was with Setacolor paints as well. She was experimenting with printing first with the bubble insert from a chocolate box, but the effect was very faint. You can just see the fine dots at the top.

Maz was doodling in her sketchbook, as she often does. Nola got quite excited by it and drew this onto another paint rag:

Next time, Maz is going to show us some laminating of fabric onto paper.  Stay tuned!