This is my yardage

This is a close up of my yardage for a jacket, but it can't be completed until I can getto my sewingmachine, which is hemmed by the progress of the floor tiling !

 This is one piece, which is really much more black/grey than the bluish tones here.

 And this is what the wind did to my lovely, carefully nurtured wild flower bank last night-who would expect that in May in SW France?

English weather

Today,we have the same weather as we left behind in England, which is a bit annoying to say the very least.This has given me time to make felt yardage in preparation for a winter jacket to wear at home ,tho it feels as if I need it here really.

This is the machine sliding its way down from the top of the car,after a 14 hour journey.

Very scary watching it come towards me from this angle.We dreaded being asked to unwrap it, as it did look as if we were transporting a body in there but here it is and here it stays.Being put to good use too

Cyanotypes

I've been busily testing my last year's cyanotype chemicals ,which I thought might be past their best and have found that they do still work, tho don't seem to be washing out to white as they should.The sun has been as strong as it possibly could be so if there are any failures, it has to be the chemicals.Fortunately, I have a new supply. but here are some images using the old stuff-some on paper and some on fabric,some using digital negatives and some using plants.

I've promised myself that I'll blog more regularly now that I have a clean house after removing 6 months of mice droppings and spider webs, but for now, back to the rolling machine to finish another piece of yardage, this time using re cycled scarves in black and white.

Another long gap!

Time is flying by,not helped by ill health and a family crisis,plus preparing to travel to France for 6 months.There are piles of 'vital supplies' lying in every room and barely any time to do creative stuff.The IFA conference was a really excellent experience-time to talk to people I hadn't seen for ages and to do some very good workshops.We all had one full day class and two half days and all of mine made me think about my own work in a different way,which couldn't be better.
My full day was with Sue Bradley, using a needle felt machine and transfer printing press.This is some of the work Sue showed us.

I started to de construct a charity shop cardy, but haven't had time to finish it yet, so more of that in France,I hope.My aim is to wet felt the items using the rolling machine,rather than using an embellisher,becuase somehow, I don't seem to get on very well with them,but it was interesting to have a go.I'm also reading and sampling from Alabama Chanin's wonderful book ALABAMA STUDIO SEWING AND DESIGN,aiming to adapt some of the ideas for my felt.It really is a glorious book and very inspiring,plus it has patterns to use and adapt.
My half day workshops were equally as inspiring, with Chris Lines and Sheila Smith, both of whom added to my felting arsenal.

dancing hares

Close up of some of my hares,dancing across scrim.Am taking a breather and thinking where to go next.We have hare visitors to our field in France and I can watch them whilst ironing,so maybe a curtain, but maybe not-who knows?

Not much work being done

I'm currently working on a new piece based on the sacred hare-no photographs yet, because it isn't working out as I wanted so far.Isn't it always the case that when you have a strong idea in your head,it's hard to make the work equal the idea? My screen print on scrim was a failure,so now I'll have to try a new approach, over the Easter weekend.Some days are good,some are not so!Maybe the change in the weather has blunted my creative  juices.

Long time since last post

After a long period of feeling non creative and generally off colour,I've finally managed to produce something worth showing .It's a poor picture,because the light inside our 1650s house is dreadful, even with flash.The garment has recycled fabric and natural dyed pieces with a 'lace'edging,constructed much like my snow queen work last summer.Have also dyed some fabric with bought dried walnut husks, which turn out to be nowhere near as good as the real thing,of which there is a lovely bucket full festering away in France.Never mind, will soon be back there in the big studio with my lovely machine!