Knitting and Stitching Show

Today I was at the Knitting and Stitching Show. Very tired. But happy with what I saw and what I purchased. I helped at the Quilt Guild Stand for a while and happily chatted about some of the winning quilts from the Festival of Quilts which were displayed. I met a young lady who doesn't live too far from here who may come to the next TVCT meeting.

Also one or two other things from ArtVanGo.

I had a full loyalty card, so I had £10 off. More textile paints. I think the opaque yellow ones may be the solution to printing on darker things. I got some advice from Clare Benn, when I stopped by the Committed to Cloth Stand, who said I could try mixing some of it with the transparent yellow to use it up. (I have a big tub of the transparent yellow. It was what I tried to do a sun with the other day.) Either that, or I will be doing some yellow on lighter fabrics for some time to come!

Threads from Thread Studio. They come every year to K+S from Australia.

I emailed last week to see if they could bring some of the kinds here on the left that I got 2 of. I was nearly out, and when I went last year, they hadn't got any of those with them. So, Dale brought these and reserved them for me under the table. I really like working with these variagated threads, so I have a stock of them. I restock at Knit and Stitch.

I got to see what the Unfinishable work looked like. I had donated a piece to add to their collection. Something I did when I was in College! for my aunt who was having a baby. Now the baby is a grown man with at least 2 children, and who has been to serve in Iraq and came home safe. So, it was good to have it out of my head. I bought the book they did - some stories are very poignant. and was given a bag for participating.

and this was one of the exhibitions I really was taken with.

Called Jabberwocky. Nothing is what it seems! Little dancing fairy flowers which were made from very pointy vintage forks! a chandelier made from wine glasses, a jug pouring flowers made from more wine glasses, etc. and a very awesome Elizabethan gown which had 'Off with her head' burned into the fabric. There were even crowns made from chicken bones!

around and about last week - 3

and then there were the trails of paint (for some digging that was soon to happen around a couple of the streets) that seemed to need varying comments attached.

This is only a small selection of marks I could have taken photos of!

mark making

Stop treading in the paint!

Don't crowd me!

Tie Fighters ahead

Can I join your game?

Colouring outside the lines.

and finally...

Someone really likes his job!

Painted Papers - swap

Some time ago I showed you the painted papers I did for a swap. This week the papers from the other ladies came. They are quite exciting. Somehow, when I read the guidelines, I thought you could choose from doodle or stamping. After I had done mine, then they were all calling them doodle papers. So, I have plenty of wonderful papers with doodles...and they have a samples of my stamped/stenciled papers! Oh well, if they use them to make a book, they will have some pages that they can do more doodles on!

Here they are spread out. And it is double wonderful, since they are all double sided! Now to get time to actually make something with them!

Funky Wooden Magnets

One of yesterday's workshops was a session for young carers. Here is a sample of the work from the children who came to paint wooden magnets. They all had great fun. A bit messy, a bit fraught at times, but they all enjoyed the experience. One boy rang his mum while we were working. "Mum? Guess what I'm doing? Well, I'm not going to tell you; but don't look at the fridge when I come home... Bye"

I love it!

I stopped into the fashion class today to sign off some work in logbooks for the Design Principles course.

One of the students had been in the Fusible Appliqué workshop, so she brought in her piece today. She had carried on at home by going round the pieces with zigzag stitch. This was really good, as I had given the idea for a suggestion, but you never know if anyone will follow through.

Some of the other ladies had been in the tie dye class. They brought their dyed pieces all nicely batched and washed out, too. They looked really good. I forgot to get photos, but we are having an exhibit on Saturday, so I think the work will be there then.

It was great to see the positive feedback after the sessions.

Painted Papers

Sometime back I mentioned that I was painting some papers for a swap. They also needed to be stamped or stenciled, so I finished that today. I used watercolour paper. One side is craft acrylics and the other is Tsueniko Walnut inks stamped with pigment dyes.

One side:

The other side:

Although the size is 8 1/2 x 11. The paper sizes here meant I could only get one from an A3 size piece. So, I painted up the A3 and then trimmed them. It means I have alot of off cuts that I can use myself. Or maybe swap if they are looking for smaller sizes.

The trimmed pieces go off in the post tomorrow. I kind of surprised myself by using autumnal colours. I don't work with those often, and especially when the weather is decidedly Summerish. I even used orange! Very Rare.