Friday's rolled around again

I'm typing this blog post while full to bursting with pasta and a couple of Twix bars. Very indulgent, and not exactly low on calories. Still, I think I earned my little feast. I spent this morning, after an initial burst of cleaning & tidying, on upcycling a couple of board books, having fun using up the mountain of Gelli prints I've amassed. After that I headed to the allotment, cutting back tangled blackberry bushes and pulling up weeds, trying to get the plot under control so it can eventually be put to bed for winter. I picked the very last of the blackberries, and they're sitting in a tub, ready to be tipped into tomorrow morning's porridge. There's a single mammoth sized butternut squash that's still far from ready, so I'm hoping that'll see enough sun in the next few weeks in order to ripe up nicely.

After that I headed home, via a quick nip into the local charity shop, naturally. I picked up this Fatface top for just £4.00. Made in India, supposedly a size 8, but it's more of a 10 or 12, I love the bright red fabric. It's already washed and hanging out on the line to dry.

I might carry on with the collaging baby's board books this evening, with half an eye on the TV at the same time. My Gelli printing is improving, I'm starting to understand how to layer stencils and work with opaque or transparent paints. Here are some examples of my latest trial & errors.

All kinds of weird and wonderful shapes emerge.

I love intense blues, especially teamed with silver.

Cut up and collaged these prints will take on a whole new look. A lot of the shapes have been made using homemade stencils, as shown in the photo below. All that squirreled away Amazon cardboard packaging has come in very useful after all, hasn't it? The card needs to be fairly thin, but not flimsy enough that it wilts after the first use on the Gelli plate. I did try making stencils out of kids craft foam, but it wasn't as effective as plain & simple card. I'm rummaging around for more suitable card in order to make shapes like simplified poppy seed heads, and as soon as I can get my mitts on some fabric paint I want to stencil on to material.

Well, that's enough of my wittering on. Here's looking forward to a good weekend. Have fun!

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Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to. Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate. Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden. I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday. I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different. There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city. It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery. There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery. My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...

Another week's flown by ...

Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days. Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden. The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram. I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them. This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory. It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them. Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....

Folding a zine and an alternative use for a bank card

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