TAST 8 and Vintage Threads

Take a Stitch Tuesday - this week we are doing chain stitch. It is a simple stitch so this time I have kept the page for my fabric journal fairly simple. There is a piece of vintage fabric, some painted paper, dyed lace and a needle felted flower. This page was attached to another page with blanket stitch.

Below are some vintage threads that I bought at an Embroiderers Guild meeting, I love the cards that the thread is wrapped around.

Torso Tags and Turquoise [TAW]

Take a Word - the challenge this week is the colour turquoise.

I upcycled this image of a kingfisher from an old calendar and placed it on a painted background.

A week or so ago the challenge on Three Muses was for torso tags, a bit late I know, but it is the first time I've made any of these. The torso shape is a 1905 vintage ladies corset and drawers and was part of a page of white wear. Most of the images I used on them were from the Graphics Fairy. 

click on the image to enlarge

'Other Side' Doodles

These patterns are made from the bleed thru from promarker pens on the other side of the page. I've added extra lines and dots. You can see the originals by clicking on the link -  original above and original.

Shoes, Roses and Fluid [IF]

Brush pen drawings, my version of shoes from an historical costume book

I drew around a coaster for the shape below

The Illustration Friday challenge this week is 'fluid'.

Farrah the frog

Couldn't see the hole

Now she has found

She is stuck in the bowl

Sketchbook 15 - 10 pages

I think these are the last pages from sketchbook 15 which was all about boats, sea, fish, coast, sea birds etc

Above - collage of found images

Below -brush pen drawing [that strange creature is a kind of jellyfish]

below - watercolour painting

below -watercolour background, found images

below- collage of found images [you can see it better by clicking on the image]

Below - watercolour background, found images

Below - watercolours

Tast 7, Outside the Frame, Alphabet

Take a Stitch Tuesday - this week's stitch is detached chain or lazy daisy stitch and this is my rather untidy sample. I've used patches of vintage fabrics, some transfer printed lace, a little painted fabric and a beaded fringe with large sequins on the end.

The Three Muses challenge is 'Outside the frame - Birds' and I was thinking outside the cage for some reason and started something with that in mind, eventually it dawned on me - frame not cage. I have used one of my collaged paintings and added the frame digitally [frame from Graphics Fairy, birds and rabbit are found images from magazines]

There was an 'alphabet' challenge on Inspiration Avenue a few weeks ago and I meant to post these but I never got around to it. The top one is all drawn with promarker pens and the bottom one is a collage.

Transfer Prints and Valentine Potato

Does a potato have a heart?

Below are some of the transfer prints I did last week, some of the photos were so bad I decided not to add them, these were the best of the bunch. Most of them were done using the gel printing plate which is normally used for acrylics but I thought I would experiment. The transfer paint separates when put on the plate but I thought I obtained some interesting effects. I used poly cotton fabric, so the results are more muted and not as bright as when a totally man made fabric is used. 

For this sample I used a fabric with a little texture.

I used a plastic fork to make the marks in the paint here.

I used a stamp in the paint here.

More than one colour was used

A whisk was used here and a stamp 

I also used stamps and texture plates to print on the fabric directly which can be seen on some of the papers below. Tip - save the used papers and paint over them so they can be used for collages and other art work.

Workman ATC and Valentine Bunnies

The Take a Word challenge is an 'old fashioned' ATC.

For my ATC I used a photo I took at Beamish museum for the background. The man is from the Graphics Fairy and the adverts on the trunk are from a photo also taken at Beamish which was on the side of a building.

As it is Valentine's day tomorrow I thought I would post this digital collage. The heart shape with the flowers and text was from a greetings card which I cut off and coloured. The cute bunnies are another image from the Graphics Fairy.

Sewing Lady and Lace Effect fabric

Sewing Lady - Above is a digital collage made up of lace, hand embroidery and a vintage image from the book 'Women: A Pictorial Archive from Nineteenth-century Sources'

Yesterday I posted images of transfer lace, well this is the fabric that was under the lace when I transferred the colour from the paper with an iron.

Tast 6 and Transfer Printed Lace

This weeks stitch for Take a Stitch Tuesday is Chevron Stitch.

Once again my sample will be part of a fabric journal. On this page I have used some vintage fabric, painted/stamped paper, painted aida, transfer printed lace and ribbon and a metal washer. I have used cotton perle threads and stranded cotton. I don't like using stranded cotton, it always looks messy when I've finished, I think my stitching becomes more untidy the older I get! [TAST 2010]

Below are some transfer printed laces. Last time I used my transfer paints some had dried up so I thought I had better start using them more often before they are unusable. I also did some fabrics which I'll show another time.

Altered T-Shirt

I altered a plain t-shirt the other week. I used vintage patterned fabrics to make flower shapes. I would normally use bondaweb to stick the shapes to the t-shirt but I didn't have any so I used fabric glue instead.  I hand stitched it in place, running stitches around the petals and blanket stitch around the middle of them. I have washed it since and the edges have frayed slightly but I think it has improved it.

Coffee [TAW]

Take a Word - this weeks challenge is 'coffee'

The coffee adverts were from a book entitled 'How it all began in the pantry'. The figures were from the book 'Women: a pictorial archive from Nineteenth century sources'.

The background, cups, cakes are my drawings.

Click on image to enlarge.

Envelopes and IF [suspense]

I created this envelope on the computer using a free label from here and doing a few alterations such as space for a stamp. I printed it and made it into an envelope. The envelope below was already a cute little square brown envelope. For this one I used a purchased stamp to decorate around the edges.

Illustration Friday's challenge this week is 'suspense'. I used this drawing from my sketchbook of a giant prawn and a man on a beach. Are the tables turned? Will the prawn eat the man instead of the other way round?

TAST 5

Take a Stitch Tuesday - this weeks stitch is Herringbone Stitch

and I did actually get it done on Tuesday, but there has been a lot of dust and chaos around here!

Most of the patches are hand painted/stamped papers and transfer printed lace, another page for the fabric journal.

We are having a new kitchen, but before it is put in we have had rewiring done, so lots of new holes in the walls and ceiling - the plasterer covering over the mess as I write. At the moment it is an empty room, all the old units and fittings taken out, no central heating or lights/electricity in there, and kitchen contents spread around the house, so as you can imagine there has been quite a bit of disruption with power off at times and no access to my computer[!] and the dust gets everywhere.....still it will be great when it is done.

Chair Stencil

Above - the finished picture

I started with a photo of a chair and my challenge was to make a stencil

I drew the chair, then simplified it to make a stencil, I used it both sides to make facing chairs. The background was painted and it was collaged to a doodle in a sketchbook.

The ladies in the finished picture were added digitally.

They were from a Women Archive book.