Should you find yourself in Belfast during April- Come and see our show.

Olive's work

Olive has also sent images of her completed pieces- some lovely handwork on the story cloth.

Olive found this in "Cloth Paper Sissors"

It has a few useful hints for when the good ideas well is running a little dry....

Challenge Your Ingenuity

It's one thing to be creative if you have an unlimited budget but real creativity happens when your resources are limited.

Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

Besides, upcycling. and re-using is all the rage right now: it's environmentally friendly and economical.

Here are just some ways you can make it work by upcycling.


 
Stamps and stencils

•   Clean out your junk drawer and use some of those found objects as stamps.

•   Inspect before you recycle: would the bottom of that plastic cup make a good impression?

•   Raid the veggie drawer: half a lemon is better than no stamp at all.

•   Make way for doilies: paper or fabric, these make terrific stencils. Consider using only part of them if you don't want a real granny look.

Paints, dyes, and other colorants

•   Acrylic paints can be used to “dye” fabric, especially fluid acrylics whose pigment is intense.

•   Tea and coffee dye fabric and papers beautifully. Experiment with different kinds of teas and coffee intensity.

•  Raid the kids' art cabinet. Of course there's a difference between artist-grade oil sticks, acrylic paints, blendable markers, etc. and the stuff that comes in a set made for kids for £5. But often— and especially when you're experimenting or messing about in your art journal—the difference isn't enough to worry about.

 Fabric and paper

•   Old pairs of jeans, that embroidered top your teen spilled orange juice on, and wool socks with the worn-out heels can all become fodder for a fabric art project.

•   Receipts, especially ones with lots of numbers, make terrific first layers for collage and mixed-media painting backgrounds.

•   Dryer sheets can be painted, cut, and stitched.

•   Plastic bags can be fused, painted, and stitched into wearable art, wall hangings, and more.

•   Abandoned art experiments can be can be upcycled by using them as art journal backgrounds, cut up and rearranged as wall hangings or used in collage, painted over, and turned into mixed-media jewelry.

•                     Old book pages can be used for collage and art journal backgrounds, folded into 3-D art, cut up for text, and more.

Taken from ‘Cloth Paper, Scissors’

Its all good advice.....but I'm not sure about using my old receipts in my work though... the world does not need to know the extent of my red wine and chocolate habit!!!

a great resource

I've just found this
http://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/catalog

Its an american site dedicated to putting as many vintage patten books and leaflets on line as possible, for free use by embroiderers and craftworkers world wide.

It has some amazing 19th century drawn threadwork patterns- go and have a look!

Caution, deadline approaching...!

We met at Hillsborough  last week to show off what we'd done  so far towards the exhibition, and decide how much more needs doing.  It's always surprising how different our approaches to the same subject can be.  These are a few of the pieces , in various stages of completion.... Its going to be a really interesting show. I should add that NONE of these are mine, they are not ready for public exposure yet..... but watch for the next post.....

Return to UFTM

Valerie invited us back to the Ulster folk and transport Museum, and generously let us  rummage around in the archives- some  of the photos in the collection are just stunning.

She also pulled loads of beautiful pieces out of the colllection for us to see. They made me wonder about the hundreds and thousands of hours spent  over the years by women  just stitching away.......Hours we now spend in front of screens , TV, computers, kindles.....!

This piece of drawn thread-work was a sample piece for one of the large departnment stores

after all the time painstakingly creating this incredible work by hand, a customer could wander in and just chop off a sample from the end!

There were samplers , and little garments, whitework quilts...

I left with a head full of ideas - which was the point of the excercise 

Alma's demonstration

Alma has been experimenting - she passes on this quick tutorial....

"

When free machining fine fabric or making lace I find -

1. Embroidery hoops awkward and very restricting

2. Romeo and disolvables better but difficult to remove completely leaving the work hard.

A cardboard frame is much better -

Attatch support threads firmly round the frame in both or all directions. It slips easily

under the needle for stitching. When completed the work can be cut out and extended if desired.

See you soon

Alma"

 

A brilliant, brilliantly simple idea- thanks for that.