Layered Voices

So the African fabrics from here, are starting to become a piece of wearable art for SAQA Layered Voices call for entry.

One piece of fabric was a man's shirt with a collar. So, I took the collar off. Unpicked front from back because the inside of the collar was a lovely blue.
I turned them upside down and pinned them on Madame.

front

back with a bit of folding

and a little strip of the quilting cotton joins them between.

After some further adjustment, I stitched them together...by hand because I wanted to be sure to keep them fitting as they were on the dummy. I will machine stitch them onto a lining. Then hanging from the yoke I will make 'net' to create the dress!

???
Use your imagination.

on the interwebs

Cool thing!
The shorts I made the other day were good enough to get me through to round 2 on the Pattern Review Sewing Bee! Amazing.

Waiting til tomorrow to find out the next challenge.


Also, my SAQA Benefit Auction piece, Ramshackle Place is featured on the SAQA Europe and Middle East Blog.

Ramshackle Place

12x12in

They are featuring a donated piece each day from the artists in our region. A link to the blog directly - scroll down and see the ones before Snowden...and return to see the ones after!

And the bead keeps going on and on... 4-10 September

Week 36 - Sept 2016 - delayed

no.248

no.249

no.250

no.251

no.252

no.253

no.254

more random

Oh yeah. Due to the things mentioned in the last post...
don't hold your breath on the beads Sunday because they will be delayed.

So, here is a creature which I found whilst stitching.

What strange things catch your eye?

Have a look at creatures like this on Paula Kovarik's blog.

random

In lieu of posts, you can see what sort of figure you can detect in this random wet spot in the washing up bowl.

And I will get on with having headaches and 96th birthday gatherings.

And shorts are done.

You can read the details here in my review.


had to have a closure and a photo of it.


and a better look at the front

Shorts in Turquoise

I am using the Pattern Review Sewing Bee contest for motivation to make a pair of summer shorts. You can watch the gallery at that link as it fills up. The deadline for this round is the 7th September.
Yes, summer is on it's way out. But sometimes I am told to bring shorts for physio sessions. So, I want something that I don't feel ridiculous in.
Whether I will get it entered in time, who knows. But it is a motivation.

I thought I may as well see what a muslin/trial pair of trousers I did a few years ago looked like now. I thought I could take the clues and change for something that works now. But! they actually fit! So, I have been just making some changes to the pattern that will suit shorts. I want them a bit looser at the hem than the trouser pattern is at that point.

Also I have drafted the front to have pockets somewhat like for jeans. and the back will have a yoke like jeans.

The main body of the shorts will be from a fine wale corduroy in turquoise. I will be using the fabric with the batik ovals for accents...like in the back of the pocket. maybe some piping? like on the yoke seam? but I will see how that goes. But if they turn out nice, I might wear them for more than just physio sessions! So the turquoise will match most of my summer blouses.

And the bead keeps going on and on... 28-31 August and 1-3 September

Yesterday the internet was dodgy. Well, actually, it wasn't working full stop!

So, here are the fabric beads to end August and the tassels to begin September.

Week 35 - Aug/Sept 2016

no.241

no.242

no.243

no.244

all of August beaded fabric squares


September tassels are red/orange
the trial tassel (Can't use it for 31st of the month any more!)

no.245

no.246

no.247

the Russian Gallery

Other work I loved was the work by Lyubov Lezhanina and Tatiana Andriyanova in the Russian Gallery.

These 2 especially by Lyubov

(I grew up with wood heat. So, this really connected!)

and loved the texture on these by Tatiana



detail

from FOQ

Busy with this and that, but I still have a few things I wanted to show that I liked at Festival of Quilts. so, I will put them up here and there.

I loved this Osprey by Louise Jessup.

Amazing detail


Beautiful, isn't it!

gathering possible fabrics

For the new project...maybe

Most of these are African fabrics. The orange one isn't, but I wanted something that would work as a bright spark. The fabrics will be cut in smaller pieces and won't be directly next to one another, so I think this is a good mixture of colours to say what I want to say.

I have been putting cardboard around fabrics or work when I am auditioning fabrics. Why? because quite some time ago I realised I was choosing what was also working with the teal green colour of the cutting mat underneath. Then couldn't see why the resulting piece looked rather dead when I was nearly finished and hung it up to look. So, now with a neutral surround, my eyes aren't influenced by the cutting mat.

Still doing mending/altering while I consider the first steps for this new project.

Experimenting with a new idea

I have the next project at the front of my mind now. There is one idea I haven't figured out which technique would say what I have in mind. I am thinking of some sort of gaps.

So, whilst looking online for some other technique, I came across some videos of making net - as in survival net for fish or other reasons.
It seemed pretty straight forward, so I thought I would give it a go. I will save you the full step by step thing and just show progress in stages.

So, a string going across* and then the twine tied on to begin the net.

The cardboard standing all around is so you don't see all the clutter you can see the string. The jars have stones to keep them firm and stay in one place as I was using them to stretch the string across between 2 points.**

Knots made at regular intervals - rows 1+2

Then I got the bright idea of containing the string in these big plastic bobbins I got for something.

and then just as I started to do the knotting for the next row, I realised it was not a bright idea after all, so I took them all off again.

More knots made at regular intervals - rows 5+6
and more stones added to the jars to make them heavier.

Even more knots made at regular intervals - rows 9+10

Many more knots made at regular intervals - rows 13+14
hanging on the cupboard because I couldn't bend down that low any more....and then because I tried to raise the jars up,
also because of ** below.


Verdict: Go in the garage and find something that will stay in one place to string between.
Do this again in a nicer string.
This might just be the solution and it doesn't take too long.



*Always stretch between 2 things which will
1- stay in one place
2- not break when they stop staying in one place.

** now I only have one jar.

In the meanwhile, I am mending and taking in dresses that I haven't worn yet because they are already too big.

And the bead keeps going on and on... 21-27 August

Week 34 - Aug 2016

no.234

no.235

no.236

no.237

no.238

no.239

no.240