Thursday 29 January 2009

ever seen a double rainbow?

I just found this photo again. I took it just before Christmas, I think. It's taken just outside our house. The colours in the inside rainbow were so bright - you really can't see it well in the photo. The outer rainbow was quite pale and indistinct. Neither of us had ever seen anything quite like it.


fabric cover for hardback book

My sister Rose asked if I could make a cover for a hardback A4 diary. She wanted to be able to replace the diary next year and use the same cover. I'd never done this before but I didn't see why I couldn't. It wasn't much different to making the journals I posted photos of last year.

This is the final result. The base of the cover is a heavy fusible interfacing. The one I used is called heavy badge backing. There are many other with various names but I can't get them here. I had some charm squares of Aboriginal fabrics so used some of them on a plain background.


I just noticed that I stood the diary upside down to take the photo. Oh well...




This is the outside of the cover laid out flat.




This is the inside with a pocket on each side to slip the diary covers into.



I'm pleased with the way it turned out. The worst thing about it was satin stitching around the edge - not because it's difficult, just because it is so tedious! (But worth it...)

scrap bags and sun prints

At our state guild meeting in December, one of the members was selling grocery bags full of scrap pieces. I got in early LOL, and bought this bag of batik scraps.



What a treasure trove it turned out to be! Many of the pieces were smallish but most were between 10" and 12" square-ish plus quite a few bigger than that. A lot looked as if they were originally shirts or pieces left over from making clothing. They were all cotton though. I'm very happy I bought it.



I tried sun printing for the first time just before Christmas. In the first photo I used Pebeo paints and love the way it turned out. Of course I poured too much out of the bottles so I watered it down a bit and used it to paint some small bits of white homespun. I chopped the ends of some fern fronds to use.



I used cheap acrylic paint for the fabric in the next photo. I thinned it down a bit and the colours are not so bright, but I still like it. I'll definitely be trying some more of this.




If you want to find out a bit about the process, here's some links:

http://www.dharmatrading.com/info/sun_paint.html

http://andrusgardensquilts.vox.com/library/post/indoor-sunprinting-mini-tutorial.html

http://www.andrusgardensquilts.com/view.php?cat=Sunprint%20Mini

Monday 26 January 2009

It's been a while...

... since I last posted anything here. Thanks for your comment, Melinda. It's about time I put something else on this blog. My MS is behaving fairly well at the moment. I haven't used my walking stick for a few months now which is great! My memory has been behaving in an 'interesting' way recently. One day last week I went into the kitchen and couldn't remember how to open the cupboard doors - how strange is that? One time I was putting on my sneakers, the first one was fine but when I went to do up the second one I couldn't figure out how to do it. Another time I went into our local pharmacy to drop off a prescription, and I couldn't remember where the door was to get back out. In the first 2 examples the delay was only about 15 seconds or so, but I never did find the front door of the pharmacy - I found a door that connected it to the doctors surgery and from there out to the street. Sure makes life interesting!

I've still been playing in the studio though. I even got out the dyes that have been hidden away in the cupboard for a few years now. The first photo is where I was trying to make brown from blue, red and yellow. I put a heap of small scraps of calico and homespun in, and this is what came out. The actual fabric is a bit darker than it looks in this photo.



The next group was done using the principles of colour wheel dyeing but instead of blue and red and yellow, I used pink, green and black. I really like the way they turned out. The photo below shows some fabrics that I put in some of the dye pots when the dye was almost exhausted, resulting in lovely pale shades.






I made two pieces using the leftover green, black and brown dyes. They came out lighter than I hoped but still very nice. It's inspired me to do some more.



I have quite a few more photos to load and should get to that over the next week.

cheers, cat