Just Because I Had It

 As part of the Blackwork course I am doing, we are being encouraged to play with textile multi-media. I started painting on some linen and using Shiva Oil Sticks but more on that later - if it works at all. I had heard that someone has done some blackwork onto felting. Hmm, how is that done? Turns out you make the felt then place some linen over it and do the blackwork through it all. Then you pull out the linen. Not having any felt to hand, and not feeling like making any, I looked around. 

Lo and behold, I had some silk paper, with Angelina Fibre in it, lying around. Why not try?? 

So I found a small piece of linen - didn't want to do a big piece in case it was a disaster. 

It is the Embroiderers Guild, Victoria's 60th anniversary this year and the theme was, surprise, surprise, Diamonds. I found some images online and thought I would try them on graph paper. The designs didn't work well in that format, the angles were not right. 

Feeling a bit impatient, I then decided to just draw the diamond shape onto the fabric using a water soluble pen. The pen has a relatively thick nib (thick for blackwork, anyway). So I had to guess where some of the spaces ended. I also didn't do it all that carefully, so the shape isn't exactly symmetrical. 

I then placed the linen over the silk paper and started sewing. As I did a small design, the spaces were small, I had to choose small patterns. I varied the thickness of the threads to give a bit of difference. I also left some spaces empty - not only to hasten things but for aesthetic reasons too. But it did hasten things. 

When I pulled out the linen, some of the sewing caught in it because I had gone through it when sewing. Most of the sewing was ok but a few stitches did pull. Pulling out the threads also distorted some of the sewing so it doesn't look particularly like blackwork. Ah well, it was just an experiment. I am not unhappy with it, I just don't know what I would do with this sort of thing. This piece is going into my folder. 

Maybe I should call it a rough diamond. 

Yet another bowl.

I have played with silk roving and made more silk paper, this time with some Angelina Fibre between the layers.
That didn't work perfectly as it tended to keep the layers of silk from binding, especially when I put in clumps. I decided not to iron the Angelina Fibre, to just sprinkle it in. After the silk dried, I ironed it and that seemed to help bind it.
But one lot of silk paper was a bit too fluffy and I thought it would not hold. I sewed a little pattern all over the silk paper and that seems to have worked.
Two new bowls! Not sure what I will do with them.

The angel bowl is made too!

Reading Girl with Hat

As part of one of our assignments, for Experimental Textiles, we had to make some head pieces or hats. One had to be wearable and one not. As I experimented, I made a hat for a statue that is in our garden, the Reading Girl. She fits right in as we are a reading family.


I made that hat with Zart Paper Magiclay, a wonderful new product, for me at least, that you mould and let dry and it sets hard. It is very light too. I left it white and put
Angelina Fibre and a feather on it to decorate it.




I decided this week that she belonged in the garden, not the glasshouse, so I put her out.



Thunderstorms and a, wonderfully welcome, heavy downpour later, and she looks a little bedraggled. But I can call it ephemeral art and then I don't need to stress that it is falling apart.