Oh dear, our blog is falling behind our activities! Just too many things happening in our lives lately. Nola and Bev have been organising an exhibition, Carol was making costumes for the local Gang Show, Tricia and Bev have been travelling and we've all been struggling with colds and other things that real life throws at us. It seems Blogger has also been suffering from a winter virus, since it didn't want to load images! But we have still been creating interesting things. Here's a summary of our activities in June and July.
Maz was able to attend a playday held by
ATASDA at
Primrose Paperworks in late May, and she brought along the beautiful paper she made. The Primrose Paperworks Co-op meets at
Primrose Park Art & Craft Centre at North Sydney, and they were happy to prepare paper pulp and provide eager volunteers to show ATASDA members just how to make paper. Here are some of Maz's papers:
...and some more...
Of course, paper is hard to photograph nicely but it really is luscious! She made more than two dozen papers that will be brilliant in her future work.
She's also continuing to make Dorset buttons. Here are some in progress:
Carol brought along a scarf she bought at the Easter Show. It's an example of fusion - made in India from Australian wool, with fine elastic incorporated into the weave to imitate the collapsed weave look.
It's absolutely gorgeous! Here are some detail shots:
She also brought along a beautiful knitted lace scarf, which she'd bought from the
EWES (Epping Weavers Embroiderers and Spinners) sale at Dence Park. It was made by Brenda Hall.
She's also been doing some knitting from this cute slippers kit.
Can you see the picture? They're rather fun, aren't they?
At our meeting, Carol was making more cards from paper serviettes.
But most of the time, she spent sewing Scout badges onto this amazing blanket coat.
It looks incredibly warm!
Nola finished her Lost Treasures challenge book cover.
She used quite a few differnt techniques on this one. Remember she was making the jewels back
here? The orange background in a serviette, whicih has been stitched down using the lines of the stamped elements on the fabric section on top of it. The gold flowers of the serviette have been extended onto the fabric, to tie the two together. The ribbon fastening can be unties through the D-riungs, but fussy fastenings make a journal difficult to use so there is also a hidden snap fastening under the turn back near the D-rings. The island and title were drawn freehand and painted withg Setacolor paints. The copper gold edging was painted by painting over the edge of torn paper. The gold side and bottom edges are cotton dressmaking tape, also painted with Setacolor paint.
Nola has also been working on her Past Life challenge. She hauled out her sample folders, full of "paint rags" and other treasures.
She chose several "paint rags" as pages and covers for a book, and cut them to size. It was a great way to start the project so it's obviously worthwhile collecting together all those samples and bits and pieces we all have, in one place.
The book is intended to show Nola at different decades of her "past life" with some words about what was happening at that time. She had printed some images onto Transfer Artist Papers, to transfer to quilters' muslin. (TIP: never use new media directly onto the pages of your book, since they may behave differently than you expect!). In this case, the precaution was sensible, as the TAPs really didn't behave as they should have. Some images printed and transferred well:
but some really didn't...
She got good and bad images from the same sheet of TAP. Bizarre! I think she'll be going back to acrylic media transfers for the remaining images.
Helen brought along a front of the jacket she is embroidering. It's on black wool and looks absolutely stunning.
She also showed us her finished Past Life challenge. It was a small book, with images of the area of Scotland where she grew up.
The cover is made from Helen's favourite medium - rug canvas.
It's a wonderful memento of her youth!
Helen was particularly busy in June. She also made these vessels:
Remember she was working on it
here and
here? Here's another view of it:
She's obviously been having a three-dimensional time, since she also made this vessel:
Helen also brought along a book cover she'd made as a gift.
That's all like a small gallery of what you can do with rug canvas, isn't it? The wonderful thing about rug canvas, in addition to it having lovely holes to stitch through, is that the glue used to hold the strands in place is soluble in water. So you can stitch your embroidery, wet it a little and shape it into a vessel quite easily. The strands don't come apart, if you just dampen them, but the glue dries it into the new shape, which is quite firm and robust.
We've also continued to make postcards to swap. This one was Helen's...
Maz made this one from a paper serviette:
... and Nola made this one:
This one is from our playday using paper serviettes, back in May.
So, as you can see, we have been busy! This is just a skip through the past two months. If you'd like more details about how we made these things, just ask!
