The prototype

This was the original Jeans bag made some ten years back, and still in use, occasionally, as a conversation piece .

Connected: Jeans bags

CQ Postcards

A while back, in early June I think , I agreed to swap Crazy QuiltedPostcards with contacts in Germany and Canada.
I enjoy working and embellishing crazy patch work, especially if I have time for hand-work.
So I went back to one of my earliest loves, silk ribbon embroidery
 to add some violets on the upper card, and wisteria and a blue daisy on the lower card.
A cluster of doll buttons and seed beads was also fun to play with.
Also on the lower card is a cluster of flowers made from gathered rayon ribbon bought some years ago from Peggy of Kalikokottage.

When doing CQ, I most often use "after five" fabrics because I like the glitter and life these fabrics add to a piece.
I also enjoy embellishing the piece with embroidery, trims, buttons, beads and broken jewellery.
Totally impractical for every-day use, but a wonderful lift to the spirit!

Inge and Mary Lou, these are for you.

She's back!

It seems forever since I last blogged. 

I hope that my readers may have missed me, as I have missed them. The past nearly two months I experienced some major ill health that necessitated some time in hospital, and needless to say, I have had neither the incentive or the inspiration to play with fabric and thread. The above green work embroidered Postcards were a swap I committed to before I became so ill, and I admit they are not the greatest and I hope the recipients forgive me for being so late in delivering them. The Summer swap round of Postmark'dArt is drawing to it's conclusion with the end of July and the conversation there is about what will be the swap themes for the next round. I am debating about "sitting out" this round also, as I still feel so "blah" and wonder about coping with mailing deadlines. Add to this dilemma I have "mountains" of unfinished works: My Red and black works (Newspaper) and a heap of unmadelittle gowns destined for "premmie" babies in Fiji remain neglected. I'm guessing that my play time with Postcards is at an end, at least in the for see able future.........I never thought I would say that! My sewing room is piled with soft muslins for baby wraps ; light cotton fabrics to be cut and stitched into minute gowns for the bubs (the smallest is FIVE INCHES long) and old jeans to be cut down into bags/hold-alls for homeless people to carry some of their belongings.

Mopane silhouettes

 The theme for the swap on the Valerie Hearder Landscape Quilt Group was "African landscape" and I thought to work a postcard NOT featuring African animals!
I do have a tendency to attempt tree silhouettes and sunsets frequently: sorry about that, but I do like the reds, orange, gold and black that I automatically think of when I think of sunsets.

To create the tree trunks and branches, I chose to use black Xpandaprint for these; normally I use the WHITE Xpandaprint and after heat treating it I paint it with black Neopaque paint.
The black Xpandaprint tends to produce a dark grey, and next time I use it, I will definitely over paint it with the Neopaque black.
Because I was attempting to obtain a flattened foliage effect I used a confetti method for the foliage:
This involved cutting black fabric into minute pieces and overlaying them with black tulle to hold the confetti in position.
Metallic gold Neopaque paint was also used to provide splashes of sun glow in the sky and the darkened ground.

Tomorrow, three of these Postcards will commence their travels: One to Ireland, and two to Canada.

Aloha! HAWAII

 Take a piece of driftwood and with some damp wavewashed beach sand as your canvas, write
ALOHA!

Once again, my ambitions exceeded my capabilities, but it was fun trying!

At this stage I don't have any alphabet software for my embroidery machine, so I wrote "Aloha" with a marking pencil then satin stitched the outline.
I struck a problem when it came to adding the shading caused by the stick digging into the damp sand...., so I attempted to remedy this by hand stitching small straight  stitches around the letters.
In the first card I laid down a couple of silk petals from a broken lei, then added some metallic flower sequins.
The brightly striped fabric represents a beach towel and I made a pair of thongs (flip-flops  I think my American friends call them??)
Some small beads from an old necklace, and a couple of charms completed the beach atmosphere.

The second and third cards also shared the beige batik for a sandy beach.

Unfortunately, I got the" bright" idea of grating some Inktense sticks onto the fabric and moistening the result.
I should have stuck to my original thought of gluing beach sand to the surface, but I was worried about how Customs would react to that, so gave it a miss.

On the second and third cards I couched down some shaggy knitting yarn to represent seaweed on the beach, and if  you look closely you will find shells, the odd fish or dolphin
and even a turtle.
I have represented the beaches in a creamy beige shade, hopefully like the sands of Waikiki, but thinking back to a very short visit in 1979, I remember walking on a beach with nearly black sand and sloping very steeply from the beach to the water.....
Is my memory playing tricks, or have I remembered correctly?

Butterflies are free

 It's a mad dash to complete my current postcard swaps before Thursday, when I'm scheduled for cataract surgery.


Sure, there's no real need to work so quickly, but I prefer to have the cards ready before time, just in case there are post-op problems.

I had already planned HOW I was going to work the cards, until...........!
I visited my local quilt supply shop for some overlocker needles, and there on the counter was this dusky pink fabric featuring butterflies and stamps!

What else could I do, but purchase a 15 centimetre strip and change my plans!

On cards number ONE and Three, I appliqued a digitised embroidered butterfly, whilst Card #2 had a dragonfly appliqued to it.
Card #1 also had a butterfly constracted of faux cabochon gem stones, whilst cards #2 and 3 had gemstone butteflies laid under tulle as there were no holes they could be stitched through to the background.

These will be sent to PostCard Mail Art members.

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

Warts and all!

Two recent themes I attempted to cover in the Postcard format were:


Doors: These two cards weremeant to represent my front door!
For the background fabric in both, I used a mono print made with my Gelli plates..
Mixing Nepoaque dark brown with  Russet and Titanium white I attempted to have a grainy timber look  for the fabric.
I then used Textiva film cut in a semi circle to represent a coloured glass insert in the upper section (of the door). A fine braid was used to complete the sectioned window.
The braid I used in the upper photo,frankly I would not repeat this , as it turned out to be too "clunky" for the effect I was hoping for.
A gold button for the door knob and the door was complete!
The lower door benefited slightly from the mistakes in the first card, in that I used a finer cord to outline the window and the door panels.Unfortunetely the round cord was a little un co-operative and my square panels are not SQUARE.

The second theme was ITALY!
PostCardMailArt group are alphabetically visiting countries of the world, and nowwe are up to "I".
 I decided to try a collage...a technique that I do not use very often.
I obtained an Italian language newspaper: which unfortunately did not have many colour features in it except on the cooking page where the recipe of the day was "Stuffed Zuccini flowers".

Using Modge Podge, which was a first for me I collaged snippets of newspaper articles.
I then sewed together the green, white and red of the Italian flag and added them to each card:
And WHOOPS! I've just noticed that one flag has been positioned  reversed! I hope that does not insult any readers as it was truly accidental and no insult intended.

Honestly though, I do tend to be a tad dyslexic at times, and I hope that can be my excuse.

I'll be taking a short break from postcard making, and blogging for a while as I have corrective procedures for cataracts

and I'm hoping that as friends say: Everything will be bright and beautiful in the near future

Shoe-box rescue kits

Yesterday I drove up to BribieIsland and visited with the Island Quilters who had kindly donated some Shoe-box Rescue kits for Flood afflicted quilters and sewers.

I now have about 60 kits to deliver, thanks to the Crazy Quilters of Caboolture and the Island Quilters of Bribie Island.
As you can see from the second photograph, my dining table  is being used to tag and seal the boxes prior to delivery.

Hopefully I can get down to the Shed (CONNECTED  regd charity) on Saturday to get them out to the areas requiring help.

Island Quilters are still a community minded group. It's over seven years since I have had contact with them (I used to be a member) and it was good to renew acquaintances and see how they still support communities in need:  Little wooly caps for Premmie babies at Mater Hospital;
                                    Knitted mini sleeping bags that as the infant grows becomes a pullover for kiddies in the PNG Highlands;
                                    Cuddly bears for an orphanage in Africa....and the shoe boxes for our own people.

I'm just an old fashioned gal!

 
 I tried doing some Blue -work stitching by machine, and although I had good designs to work with, I did not like the resulting pieces.

So, once again, I returned to where I started.....handwork!

Two pieces in the six by four inch format were more satisfying for me.
Sure digitised embroidery provides some wonderfully intricate results, but nothing measures up to the satisfaction of hand stitching a design, even if one's stitches are not as precise as machine stitched work

Accidentallandscapes

 Using the technique  popularised by Karen Eckmeier I tried making some" accidental landscapes" in Postcard format.
With "accidental landscapes, one starts layering at the top of the scene.
Each subsequent layer is topstitched in position, rather than the  raw edge applique I normally use..
And instead of using toning threads to sew down each layer I used Superior clear monofilament....I realise now that was a mistake. and in the future will avoid a short-cut in order to obtain a better result.




I wish I could say that I was happy with the resulting landscapes, but feel I need repeat the exercise in a size larger than 6 by 4 inches.
Also, adding some Angelina fibre plus a copper thread for "glitter" on the sunkissed water was  "too much" for such a small format.


 Cards 3 and 4 I used a softer fabric to represent the sky. and more greens for the hillsides:
I still didn't manage to incorporate the SEVEN that Eckmeier suggest using!


Oh well back to the drawing (and cutting board)

But that will need wait until I complete a couple of other postcards with different themes.

China

Theme: China

 The theme for my current swap is  "CHINA".

On Postmark'dArt, they have been tackling the Alphabet, and anything commencing with the current letter is presented.

On PostCard Mail Art, we are tackling countries alphabetically, and these are my offerings under the  China theme.

In the three of the cards, I have used reluctantly , I admit, three die-cut paper forms: Tigers and a dragon.
The reason for my reluctance stems from the fact I purchased several packets of these die-cut rice  papers in Beijing in 1998.
When I bought them, I had no idea what they were normally used for, or even HOW to use them.
Over the years I have found that for me layering them behind bridal tulle worked.

So, here I am  fifteen years later, and almost the anniversary of when they were bought that I have only one or two tigers left: NO peacocks and NO dragons!
Two of the background fabrics resulted from using
Iridescent  emerald LUMIERE paint over a bamboo stencil, then heat  fixing the dry paint.
The tiger on the green fabric has the symbol for tiger (I hope)  figured with Tsukineko Fabrico Markers.
The "Peace" card was constructed using the stencilled fabric and machine digitised embroidery.

Two of these cards will bemailed off in the next day or so.......but WHO will receive what??
Until it arrives in the recipient's mail box, I'm not telling!