Somewhere underneath that pile of clutter is a dining table ...

I'm destined never to have a neat and tidy house.  I mean, look at the state of this perfectly good dining table.  Having moaned about that, I had terrific fun playing about with the Gelli printing plate again.  Most of the prints you can see are very much works-in-progress, and will be printed over or stenciled over and stamped on.  

Apart from that, I dug out a couple of incomplete quilts in the making, checking what else I needed to do in order to finally get 'em completed.  This denim lap sized quilt won't end up any bigger, so I had to decide whether to use wadding as well as backing fabric for it.  

I think wadding would make it too bulky, so I'm going to add a backing of something like thick brushed cotton.  A cosy fabric, but not one that's stretchy like fleece.  I fancy a bright tomato red, along with red binding, but that might change.  

I really like the differences in colour you get with used denim.  Some darker, some faded.  It's a shame I don't have the right material to back the quilt with just yet, but it'll have to wait until I either pop into Leeds to visit a fabric shop or do an online order.  

As well as the denim lap quilt, I also hauled out what I call my winter quilt.  It's been so long in the making.  Literally years!  I originally wanted a full bed sized quilt, but it's unlikely to get that large. 

I keep an eye out when I'm doing a charity shop rummage, looking out for suitable material to add to it.  This time around I'd some plain brown material with an almost linen look to it.  Using this, I sewed a border around the quilt, making it vaguely rectangular.  

Of course, it's now got stuffed back on to a shelf yet again as I don't feel I can progress any more with it at the moment.  

In the meantime, I've found a couple of things in my charity shop rummages that aren't quilt related.  I'd been trying and failing to enjoy a Suzanne Dunn book 'The Testimony of Alys Twist', which looked promising - set in the time of Mary Tudor - but turned out to be both rather dull and oddly jarring.  The jarring element was the author's choice of words.  Maybe in Tudor days mens names were abbreviated from Michael, Robert and Oliver to Mike, Rob and Ollie.  But those shortened names just don't sound Tudor-ish to me.  They've got too modern a ring to them.  As do terms like 'kids' instead of children, and as for referring to underwear as 'undies'.  Nooooo!!!  I wasn't expecting 'Wolf Hall' levels of authenticity from the book, but 'Alys Twist' simply didn't have that whiff of Tudor authenticity for me. 

Luckily I came across a P.G. Wodehouse book, 'Service with a Smile'.  It's ages since I read any Wodehouse, but his lighthearted style's ideal for a quick and guaranteed enjoyable read.  I also found this Sissix foam and metal cartridge - that's probably not the right term for it, but it's for cutting out flower shapes using the Sissix pressing machine.  These cartridges retail for about £15 quid each - I know, because I bought a couple of hexagon shaped ones for cutting E.P.P. hexies - so I swooped on this second hand one at a mere £1.00.  Someone had done a Marie Kondo style clear out of masses of papercraft stuff, and this was among the odds and ends.  I thought I could either use these flower shapes with my Gelli plate, as stencils or for collage, or I could cut out flower shapes from thin foam (the primary coloured kind sold for kids craft projects) and make printing stamps from them.  Not sure if the foam's too flimsy for that purpose, but I'll experiment and find out.  

Well, I think that's my blog post done for the day.  I'm going to watch some athletics coverage on TV while devouring a large packet of white chocolate buttons and making plans for tomorrow.  Bye! 
 

Eight quilt blocks and yet more books!

 

After my recent flurry of Gelli printing I felt the urge to return to patchwork this weekend, and pulled out of my stash various pretty colours.  Mainly pink, green and light grey.  I'd a piece of plain white cotton and a 9 and a half inch square quilt ruler, so I cut out eight squares from the cotton.  Which was as many as I could get out of that remnant.  

Deciding on a wonky log cabin pattern I machine sewed my blocks, making sure each block differed.

I really like these colours and the log cabin design.  

Am not sure whether to make more blocks of the same fabrics or whether to alternate them with plain blocks or join them together using sashing.  Will have to think about that and see what I prefer.  Anyway, just a couple of other things to tell you about.  I found two more books for my To-Be-Read pile.  Couldn't resist these charity shop bargains.  

Oh, and I made another quick page for my art journal.  I'm trying to be speedy and spontaneous about it, not worrying whether it looks suitably arty or accomplished.  

Notice the pink crayoning and tissue paper.  I've obviously had that colour in mind this weekend, haven't I?  

  

More printing and even more blackberries ...

In between binge-reading chapters of 'Career of Evil' (very creepy, but excellent) and pulling up bindweed on the allotment I collected yet more blackberries and came home to cram them into an already full-to-bursting freezer.  I also couldn't resist experimenting with Gelli printing again.  I really need to give it a rest for a while as I'm going to be drowning under a sea of painted paper soon!  But I have been using several of the sheets to make booklets that I can use as either notebooks or art journals, so at least I can find a practical use for some of 'em.  I was really pleased with this blue, green, purple and silver printed paper.  Looks really pretty, and I included metallic paint so it's got a nice sheen when it catches the light.  Rather less pleased with this piece based on a yellowy-creamy background.  

The colours are a bit all over the place, but it's not a total disaster.  I do love that bubbles stencil from Hobbycraft.  (Bubbles or dots, I forget what its proper title is.)  As well as liking the stencil I bought from the charity shop, which kind of looks like a chrysanthemum flower, or maybe someone else would see it as a starburst?  

These are the latest art journal pages I did, and I like the bold contrast with the black dots and the orangey-red background.  Looking back on my initial attempts at art journallng, I now think I was relying too much on techniques I'd seen others do on videos.  I was not exactly copying them, but was trying to produce something that was more their style than mine.  These pages are more 'me', even though they're quite simple in the way they're constructed.  No added text or lettering.  No stencils or masks layered on top of the cut-up-and-pasted printed papers.  I think that because I wasn't sure, at first, what the rules are with art journaling, what you should do, how your journal should look to be considered successful, I wasn't confident enough.  Also, I was trying to produce something that looked artistic.  Trying to produce a completed image that someone else might view and approve of.  But I need to be bold enough to have pages that look messy sometimes, or weird or odd or ugly or whatever.  I reckon I should concentrate on the idea that the journal's a 'safe space'.  Nothing in it needs to be pretty-pretty or accomplished, and nothing needs to be shown to anyone else unless I chose to share it.    

 

Charity buys and blackberries

It's been a beautifully sunny day, and I've been a busy bunny, though managed a stroll into town and back, stopping by several blackberry bushes on the way to collect another tub of shiny sweet berries.  

I swear the freezer's three quarters full of fruit.  Earlier in the year I was freezing those homegrown strawberries that escaped being devoured within minutes of picking.  After that, it was raspberries from the allotment, and now blackberries.  They'll all get added to porridge or overnight oats during the autumn and winter months.  

Naturally, being in town meant a quick rummage around the local charity shop, and I managed to get a very nice haul of goodies at a bargain price for £6.00 for the entire lot.  A good as new Christy dusty pink handtowel.  A stencil to add to my small stash of 'em.

A couple of board books that'll be squirreled away to use as the basis for art journals in the near future.  Plus, some very shiny reels of what's labelled as 'Lurex fibre'. 

No idea what I'd use them for, but who could resist such metallic prettiness?  Finally, some hearts and alphabet dies. 

One of the packs is the Sissix brand, and I've got a Sissix machine gathering dust somewhere which I'll dig out.  Hopefully the A to Z letters will be compatible with that machine too.  If not, I'm sure they'll be useful for creating patterns with the Gelli plate.  I'd be tempted to go and find the Sissix machine now and have a play with my new dies, but I'm thoroughly engrossed in the Robert Galbraith thriller 'Career of Evil', which is creepy and downright sinister but an absolute page-turner.  

Hope your Monday's been a good start to the week too.  

 

Bubbles and stars, stencils and art journals

It wasn't the weather for allotmenting today, so instead I spread newspaper over the dining table, reached for the paints and Gelli plate, and cracked on with yet more printing.  I know, I'm obsessed with it right now.  The sewing will resume soon, and progress will be made on all those quilts that're partly made and piled up waiting to be fully pieced, quilted, bound.  But for the time being I'm going where my enthusiasm takes me.  

I made a little more progress with the board book that I blogged about yesterday, and tried to take some better photos of it.  But I can't quite capture the colours, they look faded in the photos, but maybe that's something to do with the metallic paint I used?  Not sure, but I've never been great at taking pictures.  Here are the blue pages at the start of the book.  I've began adding details in the form of stenciled bubbles and stars, plus some scraps of tissue paper and wrapping paper.  

Please bear in mind, all of these pages are very much works in progress.  Next up, the yellow themed pages.

I've stenciled bubbles on these pages too.  Can't seem to get enough bubbles!  Okay, next up we have pink pages. 

Love love love the bold black acrylic.  After pink, here's green, which I haven't worked on at all.  Though I'm tempted to leave them as they are. 

Last up in the board book are the pages I added today.  A mix of colours and stencils.  I like the softness of these blue-ish greens and reddish pinks, as well as the contrasting shapes of the brickwork stencil and the bubbles stencil.  Very pleasing.  

Putting the board book to one side, allowing the glue covered pages to dry, I turned to one of my handmade notebooks that I intend to be an art journal.  The first of what could be many.  The notebook contains various pieces of paper, including theatre flyers, copier paper, sketchpad paper, upcycled envelopes and even paper bags from shops.  Here are the 'before' pages of my first attempt at art journal-ing.  I wasn't sure how paint would adhere to that shiny blue surface of the flyer.  

It took a while and a few false starts before I got into the swing of it, and these were my transformed pages.  

All very random and not going to win any prizes, but I eventually came up with something I didn't entirely hate.  Well, I couldn't expect my first attempt to be immaculate, could I?  It's all a learning process and every day's a school day, as the saying goes.  

Anyway, I had another quick try and this happened.  

I think maybe I spent too long pondering over the pink pages, instead of speeding up and not over-thinking things, as I did with this blue page.  

Okay, to round up this rambling blog post, here's what I've gleaned about art journals from my recent browsing through YouTube: 

1 - it can be daunting to start an art journal.  Especially when you're chronically under-confident and are convinced everyone else knows the secret magic rules of art journal-ing, and you don't.  But just dive in.  Create and embellish pages that reflect your colour and pattern preferences.  One tip is not to begin literally on page one of your new journal.  Having to fill page one - the first page you or anyone else sees when opening your journal - can be paralysing.  What if you make something that turns out to be hideous???  What if you fail so badly you can never pick up a paintbrush or glue-stick ever again???  Take a deep breath and turn to page two or three, or halfway through the journal if you'd rather.  Always remember it's not the end of the world if you make an unholy mess.  Which brings me to my second tip gleaned from online content.

2 - keep going.  If you fill your journal page with paint or collage paper and it resembles nothing more than a heap of mud and dust, or reminds you of a bin fire, don't panic.  Keep working on your page, and it's very likely you'll rescue it.  Clear away the mud and dust.  Put out the bin fire.  I learnt this through watching several videos by Erin at eb_mixedmedia.   She makes beautiful art journal pages, but lots of the time she struggles, unsure where that day's page is going, thinking she can't see a way through.  But it all comes together in the end, and her journal pages gradually emerge like pretty butterflies.  (Yours may not be butterlies, but keep going anyway.  You'll get better if you practise.)

The third point is not something I've learnt from online content, but through my tentative first attempts to produce art journal pages.  And that point is: it's really tricky to know when to stop.  You make what you think looks good.  Oh, but is it complete?  Let's add a squiggle here, a gilded star there.  Let's highlight that area with a Sharpie or dab some acrylic in this corner of the page.  There's a point where you fiddle so much with your oh-so-nearly-right pages that you end up overdoing it and ruining them.  Hold back.  Mull things over.  Brew a cuppa and take a breather.  Don't be so anxious to conjure up something as skillful as that produced by 'proper artists' like that lot on Instagram.  Do what you can, do your best and accept it won't be perfect.  Above all, enjoy the process.  Crafting shouldn't be stressful.  It's fun.  Don't forget it's fun!  

It used to be a book about a rabbit ...

 

Lately I've been obsessed by printing.  Specifically, making prints by using a gelli pad and a roller (known as a brayer).  I've bought a selection of acrylic paints, several stencils and a ream of photocopier paper.  I've also gathered up lots of things to add texture to my prints.  Bubble wrap, bottle tops to make the outlines of circles with, nuts and bolts, dried poppy seed heads, and so on.  

I've been watching lots of videos on YouTube about gelli printing, and that led me down a very enjoyable rabbit hole of creativity.  I've been  introduced to the concept of art journals, of making your own simple books and using them to print in or make collages in or paint and stencil.  So, I've made three simple art journals of differing sizes, and finished those off today, making covers for them.  

I've also come across a great idea from an artist called Drew Steinbrecher.  He makes wonderfully bold prints, some of which he's used to completely cover board books.  You know the kind of thing.  Chunky books designed to be handled by very young children.  The boards are sturdy enough to make them suitable for glueing collage material on to.  I wanted to try this technique, so picked up a board book from a charity shop.  (Funnily enough, there aren't that many to be found in charity shops.  Maybe because parents throw them out rather than donate them as the books end up damaged or drawn on with crayons or felt tips.)  'Little Rabbit waits for the moon' is a very sweet book, but sorry bunny, you're about to disappear.  

This photo is the new look front cover, though the picture's not come out clearly enough.  You can't see the lovely metallic sheen to the greenish-gold background colour.  I'll try and take another photo tomorrow when the light's better.  Turning from the cover, I opened the book to the first double page spread.  

These are the first inner pages I decorated, using cut up strips from the stash of gelli printed papers I'd amassed over the last few days.  I chose a blue theme, as you'll see below.  

I laid the strips down in a pleasing order, then made liberal use of a glue stick to secure them in place.  A tip I learnt from the videos was to leave a small gap either side of the centre spine.  Then, glue a strip of tissue paper over that small gap.  It means you don't get any messy crumpling or wrinkling down that spine when the book's opened and closed.  Maybe the tissue has a bit more 'give' in it than the more substantial printed papers either side?  

The next two pages of the board book had yellow as their theme.  Though I did sneak some turquoise and a smidgeon of rosy pink in there too.  

After that, we go green.  All abstract and moody with subtle greens, not flashy in-your-face ones.

Then it's pink, making sure it's not too Barbie-fied.  Actually, that central strip of tissue is looking suspiciously like Barbie pink ... 

I've still got another double-page spread to do, plus I need to finish off the cover.  Then the plan is to work into each page, adding stenciling and masking off areas, applying more detail to make the pages really unique.  
I'm lovin' using the board book as a surface to work on, and would definitely recommend you experiment with this method of journaling too.  Of course, you don't need to use handprinted paper, but can personalise the book according to your likes and dislikes.  Even incorporate fabric, haberdashery trimmings, fragments of vintage embroidery, etc.  

If you're asking online inspiration, try Drew Steinbecher's output on YouTube.  Oh, and he also does a good short video on making a speedy art journal from just one sheet of paper, cutting and folding it to make the booklet.  I'm trying that next!   Have fun.  

Wednesday's craft book review. Lovely things!

 

I'm sat here feeling pretty pleased with life.  It's been a gorgeous sunny day, and I walked into town for groceries and came back via a bramble lined track.  Which meant lots of chances to gather free fruit in the shape of shiny juicy blackberries.  My fingertips are still stained purple, despite a good scrub when I got home.  As it's Wednesday I'll get round to my craft book review in a moment, but first things first, here are my recent charity shop bargains.  

These two dresses cost a few pennies short of a tenner for the pair.  The red dress is a simple shift, complete with pockets and ideal to wear with leggings.  But the stylish olive green and white dress is much classier.  Originally from Monsoon, my favourite label, it's 100% silk and feels luxurious.  I hope to goodness it fits!  

Having loved Maggie O'Farrell's 'Hamnet', I bought this paperback, yet another to add to my To-Be-Read pile which never seems to get any smaller.  I also picked up this children's board book.  Now, that might seem like an odd choice for someone who's childfree, and whose reading has progressed a wee bit beyond 'Little Rabbit waits for the moon'.  But there's a method in my madness.  The board book's going to be upcycled, but more of that on another day...

Okay, let's move on to my Wednesday book review.  Eithne Farry's 'Lovely things to make for girls of slender means'.  It was originally published in 2010, so easy to pick up secondhand if you want to.  I've had a copy for ages, and it's a familiar favourite.  There's something very endearing about Farry's enthusiastic approach to sewing, and her make do and mend, give it a try attitude.  You don't need bags of cash to make many of the clothes or accessories featured in 'Lovely things'.  Just a sense of fun and a basic sewing kit.  

'Lovely Things' is divided into five main sections.  The first is the nuts and bolts stuff.  What you'll need in terms of scissors, pins, thread etc.  How to sew by hand - backstitch, running stitch, tacking and blanket stitch.  How to use your sewing machine, plus things like sewing hems, making darts and inserting zips.  She assumes  you know nothing much, so this part of the book's handy for the absolute sewing novice.  

 Next up are sections marked Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter.  'Makes' are divided up to more or less fit in with these themes.  So autumn, for example, includes a tote bag embellished with a spider's web, and a red vinyl web complete with a spooky plastic skeleton, while winter has mittens, ear muffs, ponchos and a pom pom scarf.  

There are dozens of 'makes' in the book, though some of them are, I have to admit, not things you're likely to make.  I won't be knocking up a hat that'll make me look like an American bellboy, and the dirndl skirts aren't exactly flattering to most women's figures.  

But there are some fun little purses, headbands, detachable collars.  Plus, billowy kaftans for beach cover-ups, pretty bows and upcycled quirky earrings and brooches.  

I reckon the book's real strength is that it reminds the reader of what clothes really are, and that's nothing to do with commercial fashion or cold-hearted money making ventures.  Instead, clothes are about telling stories.  

About presenting a version of ourselves to the world.  Maybe we're a Talitha Getty style boho hippy, or an austere Gothic lady draped in black.  Maybe we want to make ourselves an oversized faux fur hat and imagine we look like we belong in a Soviet spy drama or Dr. Zhivago.  'Lovely things' is a book to leaf through when you're seeking inspiration, when you want to lift your mood and remind yourself of the playfulness of clothing, the whimsical or quirky, the romantic.  It's for when you hanker after making a necklace from forage shards of china or a belt buckle made of Lego, earrings from Christmas baubles or a frothy tulle wrap complete with velvet bows.  

Well, I hope that's given you an inkling of what Eithne Farry's book is about.  I'm about to make myself a cuppa, then I want to play with the new stencils that arrived in today's post.  

These - brickwork, stars and circles - will add texture and interest to my gelli prints, and came from Hobbycraft.  I also snaffled four stencils from eBay for a little over £6.00 the lot.  Three of the packets haven't even been opened, while the fourth is open but obviously never been used.  I love the abstract shapes, and I can see myself using these a lot.  

Righty-ho, that's the blog post done and dusted for another day.  I'm off to have fun stencilling.  

P.S.  If you're wondering where the title 'Lovely things to make for girls ...' etc came from, it's to do with writer Muriel Spark and her novel 'The Girls of Slender Means'.  

'He said, 'I don't think I've ever seen such a gorgeous dress.'  'Schiaparelli,' she said.  He said, 'Is that the one you swap amongst yourselves?'  'Who told you that?'  'You look beautiful,' he replied.  She picked up the rustling skirts and floated away up the staircase.  Oh, girls of slender means!'  

Make a paper star

Well, I have to admit I'm feeling quite pleased with myself.  I wasn't convinced I could make this work, but it's really not too bad at all.  My first attempt at making a paper star.  

This all started because I was trawling through YouTube, looking at videos on how to successfully print using the gelli plate.  Too many of my prints were ending up muddy messes, so I needed to learn some techniques.  I came across an American artist called Elizabeth St Hilaire and one of her videos called 'Fabulous Shimmery Gelli Printed Paper Star, Easy!'  I mean, with a title like that, how could I not watch it?  

She made a wonderful looking decorative star, very bright and bold, and constructed out of paper bags.  Yup, a stack of humble, everyday paper bags.  After they were printed on, complete with metallic and iridescent paint to make them shimmer, she cut the bags into a point at one end and glued them together.  The construction's quite straightforward, and I wanted to try it straight away.

Not having a handy stack of paper bags, and not wanting to wait until Amazon or eBay could deliver them, I used photocopier/printer paper instead.  

I printed sheets of it in various colours, and ended up with twelve I liked.  Then I folded and glued two sides of each sheet of paper to make the bags.  

Deviating slightly from the order in which it's done in the video, I found the centre point at the opening of each bag, and cut the top part into a point.  So each bag looked like the shape a child draws when they imagine a house.  

Stacking up my twelves 'house' shapes, it was time to assemble the star.  It was a case of being heavy handed with the glue stick, firmly pushing the glued pieces together to ensure them bonded well.  

It was a lovely feeling to unfurled my star and see it take shape.  

I punched a hole in two points and threaded a ribbon through for hanging, and am already planning to make another star.  Maybe Christimas colours, lots of red and gold?  It'd look good to print on both sides of the paper too, so when the star's opened out there's no white paper on view.  Unless I printed on coloured paper in the first place?  

I'd love to think some of you might have a go at creating a paper star too.  You could use actual paper bags instead of making them, to speed up the process, or use fancy wrapping paper instead of printing on plain paper if you don't want to mess about with acrylics, stamps and stencils.  The link for the YouTube video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvbPzUpg224&t=7s.  (I'm not great with technology, so I hope that gets you there.  Otherwise just type in the artist's name, Elizabeth St Hilaire.)  If you don't want to watch the entire video, simply watch the first four minutes or so, then skip ahead to about 24 minutes and see how the star's constructed.   Good luck!