rose petal beads

Had a go at making these beads by wrapping a rose petal around a cocktail stick. Here they are drying.

Xpandaprint

Progress slow on my mosaic stitching so not much to report. Anyway I have the design for my quilt thought out and I'm working on a fountain border taken from a piece of wallpaper. The first thing I did was a pastel rubbing. That's when I could see it might make a nice border. Then I tried out a fountain tracing on my dyed calico. Painted it with acrylic first then used the xpandaprint to get a 3D effect. I thought it looked like china but it's too heavy.

Fountain and petals....a reminder of Morocco.

Chocolate box

Took a rest from machining to work on a stitch sample. Recycling is good and you get to eat all the chocolates first! Determined to make something out of all the choc boxes I've melted.....

Free machining mosaic

Been trying to do some machine stitching when I get a minute, but baby grandaughter wakes up as soon as I turn on the sewing machine! The mosaic pattern represents the Zellig tilework of Morocco. This will be the tiling in the fountain and, as my stitching distorts the muslin, I hope they(the tiles) will appear as you would see them as you look into the water. That's the theory anyway. Slow progress and my tutor is telling me to GET ON WITH IT!
I am usually thinking ahead though and I've been working on a rose stencil and a fountain stencil - both taken from wallpaper. Now need to get on with my design book and draw out a proper working design.I do get too involved in design as it's the part I like. Can somebody else make the piece ---- please!
Halloween break already too -- I'm sure the terms are getting shorter.

Procion dyeing

Procion dyed 2 pieces of calico today. Turned out a salmony pink but they will probably change colour when I wash and dry them. Not actuallly sure what shade of pink I was looking for! Also dyed some lace and threads.Nipped out at lunch time to go see an art exhibition. Nice lampshade,looked like lace.

Marbling

I'm out most Thursday mornings.I belong to the Harmony Hill Craft Group(featured in the August/September issue of Workbox mag). We don't have anyone 'official' coming in to do demos so today one of the members showed us marbling using carrigeen moss. Every one loved doing this. Quick and easy and good results.
I've tried marbling with wallpaper paste and shaving foam and been disappointed, so pleased to get some good samples.
It was Pot Luck lunch and my fluffy pineapple flan was a success!

Stencils

Into college and back to my usual Monday class. Only 7 of us, which I like, but there are only 2 of us doing the Diploma - not enough for ideas and inspiration.
We did some stencilling today and I got started on free-machining the piece of muslin.
Also made a start on a sketch book- something I've always shied away from.Started it off with the stencils.
Next week at college...procion dyeing.

Bondaweb on muslin

Been ironing little squares of painted bondaweb onto the muslin... very time consuming! Think I will add some metallic foils onto to some of the bondawebbed squares. I'm trying to get the look of mosaic tiles. Planning to free- machine the squares in between the bondaweb to distort the muslin(like pulled work).Hmmmm..does that make sense?
Went out tonight to husbands camera club as there was a photo show of a club members hols in Morocco. That was right up my street!

Can't get near the sewing machine

There's a serious mess in my sewing corner!
I need to use the sewing machine soon ... so tomorrow it'll have to get sorted.
Not going into college as I can work better at home for now.

Chaos in College

Forgotten how I like/loathe travelling on the bus to Belfast. A chatty Californian couple were heading in to town.
College was busy like it always is at the start and then we had fire drill. Could feel my rebellious side coming out already.
I've painted some bondaweb and today I'm withdrawing threads from a piece of muslin for my new project.

Fountain.

Back to College.

Going in to college tomorrow having had great intentions over the summer hols. to do loads of work. Ha! Didn't do any. My research for design has been on Morocco and, inspired by pictures of the rose petals in the fountains, I think my next piece of work will be to do with that.
So much to do. So little time.