A Blackwork Bookmark

I recently had a big sort out and reorganise, of course nothing much was thrown away but everything is now more logically organised.  During the process of finding things long since forgotten I came across a small unfinished sampler strip of blackwork which I can remember sewing when Sar was on board.  

With so little work required to finish off the sampler I'm surprised I hadn't completed it.  So out came the needle and the required rows were added.  As the piece is roughly bookmark sized I stuck a red felt backing onto it and added a row of running stitch around the edge to finish it off.  

This is probably the shortest entry on the blog but I found it quite satisfying to finish off a piece so easily.

Christmas Swan 2

After Sar suggested the Christmas Swan would be a good addition to the game I decided a more exotic version was required.  It also gave me the opportunity to practise the negative watercolour painting techniques.  I picked the colours of sunset for the swan and started the painting with some weak washes of this colour across the paper and then added some blue around the swan's outline.  On top of this I painted the swan.

I drew in the outline of the wave motif and then painted round the shapes in a series of washes.  I painted over some of the waves to vary their tone.   The photo shows a wash in progress.

I gradually deepened the washes and added some prussian blue in places.  I started to paint the sky with washes between the cloud shapes.  

As I liked the red and gold showing through the sky I didn't use as many washes as I did on the water. Finally I gave the swan an eye and tinkered with his beak to finish the picture.  Now I just have to give it a story in the game!

Christmas Swan

It's always good to try something new and the Christmas present from Jo and Haydn gave me the opportunity to do that.  The wooden swan came as a 'flat pack' kit with a set of instructions.

The lovely smell of fresh wood was released when I opened the pack and laid out the components for this photo.  The shapes were pre-cut and just needed pressing out from the sheet of plywood.  

The reverse of the cover sheet gave the instructions which were rather brief but I soon realised they didn't need to give a lot of detail.  Each slot had a number which matched up with the number on the piece which would fit into it.  

It was quite satisfying slotting the pieces together, a bit like a puzzle.  Here's the basis of the body and the little cross piece attached the head and neck to the body.  Later additions to the body reinforced the structure and the finished piece is very stable.  

So here is the swan gliding along the bookcase.  But the swan's potential didn't end there.  I thought the wooden shapes and structure of the swan were attractive and would make a good subject for a drawing.  

So thank you Jo and Haydn for a good present, it's something I wouldn't have thought of buying for myself.  

Negative Painting Experiment

Whilst perusing Pinterest I came across some attractive watercolours which were the result of a negative painting method.   Keen to have a go a I watched a you-tube video and then set to with a simple flower motif. 

The painting starts with a very wet sheet on which you dab the streaks of colour.  The advice on you-tube was to make sure the paper was completely dry before continuing so I prepared this sheet the night before.  

The next step was to draw in the first of the flowers which in the finished painting will be the palest flowers.  The background is then going to be darkened; I decided to strengthen the existing colours but this doesn't have to be the case.  Again the paper has to be dry before continuing so I went for a walk with the girls; this method can't be rushed in the early stages.

I really doubted how this would turn out so omitted to take any photos of the next stages which were to add more flowers and continue to darken the background.  I worked this stage 4 times in total and then decided I needed to consolidate the background.  I had veered away from the you-tube advice by now and in a bid not to turn the background to mud I applied a thin glaze of blue.  

Instantly the colours on the flowers stood out but due to all the washes their outlines weren't very distinct.  This was remedied with a black biro outline and then I continued to add a couple more flower shapes and some leaves.  I knew I would be applying another background layer and to make this final layer neat I needed to break up the background.  As this was an experiment I added double lines which would create a break in the final background colour. 

The final glaze was a thicker wash of dark green which brought out the paler shades of the flowers.  Although the lines were a device to break up the background I like the effect of the previous layers showing through them.  I added a blob of colour to the middle of all the flowers but decided against tinkering with the petals and risk spoiling the clean colours.

So that's the method and now I've tried it I'll certainly give it another go.  

I also have a tip if you order your library books online - check the print size; it might not be obvious they are in large print until you go to pick them up!  

Bits and Bobs

Most sewing time has been taken up recently by the Big Quilt, which is currently about 18% quilted. Here is the back of it, folded in half and taking up most of the living room floor.




I'm already planning the next quilt, which will have a steampunk, cogs and gears theme, and possibly a robot or two. These two experiments have been made into coasters.

Here is the garden at Chester, taken with the camera in watercolour mode, which gives a lovely flowing effect. That may be Kev's knee and Bess's bum on the right!

And here are some of the frogs, enjoying the Easter sunshine. 

Blankets and Patchwork

I’ve been quite industrious since the last blog entry and have completed the first of the baby blankets using up some wool which I’ve had a while.  When I saw the wool on Doncaster Market I thought it looked quite pretty but when I started to knit a tension square it became apparent the colours didn’t blend very well.   The white turning to grey just looked dirty next to the yellow and the orange tint went into a washed out pink colour so this wool clearly wouldn’t be for anything I’d wear.  I came across the group who knit blankets for premature babies and distribute them to hospitals in a prima magazine and decided I would happily knit up the yukky wool for them.  Apparently, they are short of 24x24 inch blankets and as I had, in a rush of enthusiasm, bought 6 balls of the ghastly stuff there’s plenty for the blankets.  As I had some wool with contrasting colours I decided to use that in a stripe and it worked surprisingly well but I still wouldn’t wear it!

One of the suggested stitches for the blankets was moss stitch, not a stitch I’ve used very much so I thought I’d give it a try.  It takes a little longer to knit than stocking stitch but produces quite a sturdy fabric and a tweedy effect with the random wools I was using.  It is also quite a wide stitch, I only needed 109 stitches for the 24 inch width.

The patchwork has also been coming along and the top of the cover is now finished.

I realised I was running low on dark materials and so enjoyed a shopping trip to Doncaster to top up my supplies.  I was particularly pleased with one of the fabrics from Knit and Stitch.

While I was taking the photos I noticed the girls in their usual position, fast asleep on Kev’s chair. 

A Patchwork for Harvest

The large display board in our school hall is changed every term according to the seasons and religious events, and it's my job to come up with a relevant idea and get it up on the wall (usually with Pat's help, especially at the top of the board.)

This year I had the idea of using real packaging to make a patchwork of the foods we all eat. A message was sent out to parents for boxes, wrappers and packets, and, when these were slow to come in, I began prowling the staffroom at dinnertime, snatching away any wrapping before it could be binned. This resulted in a unexpectedly large collection of empty hula hoop packets and tea-bag boxes, giving an accurate picture of the staff diet! All the wrappers were sliced into 3x3 inch squares using the grid ruler and an old patchwork wheel, which made the job quite speedy, even though about 400 squares were required. I interspersed these with some words from the children, hopefully to send a message other than pure gluttony.

It took nearly two hours to pin all the squares in place, while dodging the flying bean bags of a reception class PE lesson. Towards the end, I realised I was just a few squares short - the school secretary was surprised to find bags of flour and sugar being photocopied as I rushed to make up the missing squares. Finally,  the HARVEST lettering was printed in Word, enlarged and then used as a template to cut from yellow card.

I was pleased with the colourful result, which was the background for our Harvest Festival in school.
Sadly, displays don't stay up for long, and this one was dismantled over half term to make way for a Remembrance Day display.