Painty papers, little houses and stains all over my hands!
It won't be long until the blackberries are ripe & ready for picking. Which means that every time I go for a walk along a country lane or down to the allotment, I'll go armed with either an empty sandwich box or a plastic bag. Before long the freezer will be full to overflowing with berries, and I'll have enough soft fruit to add to my breakfast porridge to last the winter. But in the meantime ...
During this third heatwave of the summer I'm largely staying indoors. Which seems a shame when the sun's shining brightly, but it's so hot I feel like I'm going to melt. I've started reading this historical novel, set during the reign of Henry IV, and it's very enjoyable so far. The heroine's self assured and strong willed, and determined to safeguard her family's precarious wealth and social position. She's not especially likeable, but sometimes characters are more interesting if the reader's doesn't wholly like or admire them, don't you think?
I've been messing about with watercolour paints and alcohol inks this morning, hence my stained fingers. I love making these painty papers. I don't worry too much - in fact, not at all - about whether someone might judge them a mess. Instead I enjoy playing with colour and seeing what effects I can get.
I also messed about with using Inktense paint to dye a small piece of cotton, having watched a YouTube video about a DIY version of shibori. I sewed lines of running stitch.
Then gathered up the lines of stitching and used Inktense to dye my material a vivid blue.
You can achieve some really interesting effects as this little sample shows. Unfortunately, despite ironing it which in theory makes it colourfast, the Inktense blue still comes off when the material's handled. (Note to self : buy fabric paint the next time I'm shopping in Hobbycraft.) I'll definitely try this technique again.
I made a few more of my silly faux postage stamps, and also - having just seen the idea on Instagram - played around with making fabric tape using selvedges. It's so simple. Just stick fabric to one side of double-sided sticky tape. Yup, it's that straightforward. You could make short lengths or even whole reels of fabric tape to use on parcels or mixed media pieces or in art journals or wherever!
Finally, there's something very endearing about making anything that's house-shaped. It makes us think of home, whether our own dwelling is a house with a chimney or a flat high up in a skyscraper. I drew a house template on cardboard and used it to make a couple of paper collaged houses. They can decorate a journal page. Along with these collaged 'Strange Houses'.
The lettering at the top of the page is a free bookmark picked up in Waterstones. (I've no idea what the actual novel's about or who it's by.) I'd seen Lynn on YouTube, who creates content under the name 'A Bit of Birdsong', make similar houses in one of her beautiful journals, so tried my hand at it. The alcohol inks were used for this too, which means my hands are even more stained. Nevermind, it'll wash out ... eventually.
Hope you're having a good weekend. I'm about to get resume reading about life among the treacherous Plantagenet court, and the rivalries between the Houses of Lancaster and York. Enjoy your day, and thanks for stopping by.
I'm typing this as snow's falling, and has been steadily all day. It's not settling to any great extent, though I bet by tomorrow morning the paths will be slippery with ice. Which always makes me paranoid about falling over and at the very least looking undignified, but at worst breaking a bone or twisting an ankle. Oh well, it's ideal weather to stay inside and craft, isn't it? I finally got around to listing packs of sari scraps on Etsy this morning. I only made up six bundles as I've no clue whether they'll sell or if I've set a reasonable enough price point. Time will tell. This is a link to the listing, if you're interested. This vaguely pink fabric isn't from one of my Etsy packs. It's from a bit of experimenting I was doing yesterday. I'd seen a post on Instagram showing how a DIY version of batik could be done without using hot wax. The Instagrammer used PVA instead, and I wanted to try this out....
Just a quick post today. I'm offering you a short but peaceful break from the overwhelmingness (is that a word?) of Christmas. By now you've probably eaten your bodyweight in sweets//roast potatoes/pigs in blankets/cake/After Eights ... whatever your festive indulgences are. You're under-exericsed, over-stimulated, feeling broke and possibly guilty about an argument with a relative or friend you've never entirely got on with. So, here's something to take your mind off all that. I've two videos to refresh and revive, and they both concern wool. Interesting fact. Well, I found it interesting. About 1% - yup, one per cent - of the world's textiles are made of wool. Out of curiosity, I also googled how much is made of cotton. That's higher, but it's only about 24% and that's heading downward instead of up. Synthetic fibres are the bulk of all textile manufacture. Anyway, back to woolly wonders. My firs...
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....
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