stitching texture...

as you will have gathered by now my dear patient readers I spend as much time as possible sewing, stitching, machine embroidering, creating, playing with fabrics and generally having a wonderful time...(housework what housework?!).. even better is teaching a machine embroidery Workshop and I thought I'd just share a little of what we covered at a recent one...looking at creating a textured surface...

I had 4 lovely and very creative souls with me, interestingly the Universe had kindly organised they were all students...one doing GCSE, two at A'level and one doing an Open COllege of Arts Textile course...amazing synchronicity!

as usual the immaculate studio prepared for my workshopees quickly bcomes a creative brouhaha...what a great word that is, no idea what it means but it seems to fit!

dear old bondaweb (ahem there are probably lots of other kinds of fusible fabric out there Ed)...that versatile "heat reactive, sheet of glue which permanently bonds one fabric to another when ironed"...aha but did you know it's really fun when you paint it? with watercolour, or acrylic or maybe fabric paint...

and then you can literally glue on texture by ironing on snippets of thread or fabric, then just add stitching...

mmm...pleased with these!

and then there's that weird stuff, Tyvek, described by Barnyarns as a "spun bonded polythene fabric that is non-toxic and accepts colour mediums, will shrink, bubble and distort when heated"...not half we say! Mind you it's not so good at the health and safety owing to fumes, so you must heat it outdoors. I don't personally use it a lot...but it is amazing...

here is some which has been painted

then heated...

stitched with snippets of fabric then zapped...

painted then stitched, you can see the fabric shrinking has distorted the stitching

On the whole though I prefer to use more fabric and stitch based ways and challenge my process and creativity to achieve the textures I want...

but it may still include some bondaweb...here used OVER lots of fabric snippets, ironed on then stitched...

and bondaweb underneath...

and there may still be some heating...I used to do this with a household paint stripper, all my degree work was done with me hanging around outside the door of my studio 'burning' my beautiful work with this device!

you'll be pleased to know I do now have a more specialised controllable heat 'appliance'...

eg for burning away a top fabric to reveal layers underneath...I have to experiment first to see which fabrics will melt away...

or for small pieces of fabric stitched on top and then burned away...so much delicious colour too...

you can see why I need a housekeeper, cleaner, gardener and cook...because doing this is just so much more fun!

Hope you've enjoyed the workshop...and maybe been inspired to have a go...

Emmax 

making waves...for C-art

where does the time go? sorry I haven't been here much, just had so much to do to get ready for C-art, strange how in a year my studio has filled up with so much stuff! Thank goodness for the beautiful clean new loft space above and a loft ladder...husband of great patience I salute you!It felt like moving house, but now we have room for 3 artists and room for lovely visitors...

The New Bookshop in Cockermouth is kindly hosting a C-artists window display...so thought I'd better rustle up something new...been feeling sea-ish since my return from Mull...

here's a run through of the 'how to create a wave' process...choose delicious fabrics, snip them up and lay them on a backing of old blue blanket, needle felt with my fab machine, then get free machine stitching with more stunning blues...now the tricky bit, turn into a tube, stitch up by hand...luckily it just fits on my machine so I can stitch over the joins to blend them in and afterwards the fun part adding a lacey wavy top using dissolvable fabric...

I do like a technical and artistic challenge...and actually I am pretty chuffed...it worked! 

By the way I am having a few issues leaving comments on your blogs since I changed my blog name, apologies, I do visit and love your blogs, I will try and sort it out..any ideas please let me know!

Havea great week, back with some C-arty pics I hope, have a great week Emmaxx

feeling creative...

back home after holidays and all seems golden for the first few days...then all those things you have to do take over again...but this time I am determined to try and retain the feeling of tranquility and peace I enjoyed on Mull. Perhaps by doing less...after all when you're away from home you manage to fill your time quite easily and pleasurably without any stress!

everything seems so strangely unfamiliar when you've been away, home has existed in a parallel universe...or has it?  

back to abundance in the veggie patch...how many courgettes are now marrows?? don't you love the ruby chard against the greens?

a trip to the north east and I spot these beauties, the last of summer...

and then back into my studio...where reality really does await me...whereas the house is now primped and cleaned after months of neglect...the studio is more or less untouched after the busyness of earlier in the summer...and C-art is now only a couple of weeks away...

but somehow I get sidetracked by the lovely things I bought or collected on holiday, and a creative playing session takes over any desire to tidy or sort...but this in itself is valuable, as I haven't made since Artfest... and this will now get my creativity restarted...who knows where it will take me?

I love my 'new' camera soo much...playing with the focus so you get subtle changes...can you feel the hints of autumn? I'm loving textures and colours, sea-blue mug and rough greys and browns...fingers itching so I think it's an afternoon of sorting then some fabric and stitching time...

hope you too have a happy weekend! Emmaxx