Daisy Scrap Journal

Fabric books are much on my mind  as next Friday I'm off  to 'Late Summer at Hawkwood' with Frances Pickering.

So I thought I'd share the last sample I made for my December workshop, which is this Daisy Scrap Journal.

Daisies say 'neat and tidy' to me. To represent the feel of a smart, fresh little flower, I made the cover from bonded scraps of  a crisp striped  red cotton. The centre panel is painted abaca tissue, and hand dyed vintage lace. I wanted to keep a simple feel - the stitching is in hand dyed rayon threads and  vintage pearl cotton. The little daisy tag is cut from pelmet vilene - a great tip I  picked up from Frances.

 
 Inside the covers I went for a scrap book effect.

I used  brown paper for my pages, scrunched and re-ironed - which gives a nice textured effect to  make marks on. A simple daisy stamp was used to mark all the odd pages for a bit of interest..

The back  has a panel with a bit more detailed stitching. 
  
I enjoyed putting this piece together very much, and I think it's because it has lots of small parts. However hard I try I am always drawn back to the little details. Sometimes it is the obvious things about yourself that you don't see for ages!

Mixed Media wall hanging 'A bird sings'

 You may remember I teach a weekly hand embroidery class at our local patchwork shop. For the last few terms  this has become pretty wide ranging, and various ladies' projects have covered contemporary embroidery,  gold work, stump work and  - some colouring/painting fabric.  I've also met quite a few local quilters who said they'd like to do something a bit more arty, but just didn't know where to begin.

I'd made something completely different from my usual creations this spring,  which was inspired by the phrase, 'A bird sings because it has a song'.  So I showed it to Jayne (shop owner) and suggested we do an introduction/taster day for mixed media work, (I promised we won't cover the workroom in paint!) and she agreed.

The concept for this was a reflection of new life and change.
 I made a stamp for the nests, and created three different images on calico.  Each nest has some hand embroidery, ranging from heavily couched with textured threads, to a minimal - one egg only. Each  background  was painted with  Koh-i -Noor dyes.
The eggs were stencilled on to painted fabric. I then fused all the pieces onto a layered structure of cotton fabrics;  the old  duck egg blue fabric blended really well with the palette I'd chosen. The next stage was to add random stitching in variegated threads, and the text was printed out, torn, stained and treated with acrylic wax,  as were the bits of 'egg shell'.

It was finished off with lichen covered twigs and natural objects I'd gathered, including a feather our obliging garden woodpecker dropped. The piece is hung on a piece of driftwood from a Portishead beach.

 I'm really excited about this workshop, as it's something I've wanted to do for ages. I'm working up  a winter themed piece because it will be held in December.

So 'this week I have been mostly':
Making stamps with household items, and stamping fabric! Here are a couple of  the prints so far, which I quite like. I printed the snowflakes on the hottest day of the year!

My plan is a create a fun, simple approach anyone can do, and create some different effects on fabric - without buying lots of expensive products, and using techniques which can be applied equally to fabric or paper.

Now I just have to get on with it!x