Spring Greens - 3rd Attempt

I've been playing with textiles again, trying to create something inspired by the greenness of spring.  I know we're nearly in summer but it's taken me a while to get something I'm vaguely pleased with!  My first attempt ended up being cut up although bits of it were embellished into number two (whose fate is still being decided).  But one evening last week I just started to fiddle with some scraps that I'd got left over from the previous attempts and produced this little piece:

Spring Greens

The background is left over silk and scrim that I'd dyed in the microwave, with a silk carrier rod stitched on using the flower stitcher.  I'd made the tyvek bead earlier in the week and stitched it on adding some beads.  It's only tiny (4" x 2.5"), and rather "random" but I prefer it to any of the previous (more planned) attempts!

Seed Head Inspiration (1)

Back in the summer Gina posted a series of blogs about a Sketchbook project (click here to see them all), and I had a go at doing alot of her ideas,  (I loved painting with ink and uncooked spaghetti!).  A few weeks ago I decided to experiment further with the stencil I'd made of a poppy seedhead, and stencilled with extra heavy gesso onto tyvek paper.  When it was dry I free-motion embroidered around the gesso and randomly across the tyvek.  Then I blasted it all with a heat gun, painted it with black writing ink, bleached it, and painted over the gessoed area with a gold markal paint stick.  Finally I highlighted areas with treasure gold (a purchase from the Knitting and Stitching Show last month) and mounted it on painted pelmet vilene.

 (To see the detail you'll need to click on the image to enlarge it)

I love how tyvek does its own thing, and how the gesso and stitching goes someway to controlling it, but not totally.  (I'll let you see how I used the same stencil with garden fleece another time!)

A First For Everything

This is a first in many ways.  To start with it's my first blog post that isn't about gardening or cats, secondly it's about my first piece of textile art, and thirdly it's the first time I've shared anything arty that I've created with anyone.

Back in January I bought a couple of books about textile art, and for the last few months have been fiddling around with various techniques and materials, but last week I decided that I had to bite the bullet and actually try and create something.  So here it is: (you'll need to click on the image to enlarge it to see it properly)

Seascape

It's abit of a mix of techniques.  The background is painted silk dupion, the sand and rocks are layers of tyvek, bondaweb and painted organza distressed with a heat gun.  The sea is layers of shot organza and painted bondaweb, also distressed with a heat gun.  There are beads in the sea and the sand, with gold hand stitching running through the rocks.  I used 3d medium, painted with pearlex, along the shoreline and gold markal paint to highlight the rocks.  Finally I added dangles of frayed silver thread to the sea to add movement before distressing all the edges with a soldering iron.

The most important thing is that I really enjoyed doing, and already have some ideas forming for other ones, which will keep me occupied during the dark winter evenings when I can't garden.