Fabric Collage again

Well, I wanted to go to my Free Motion Machine Embroidery group today with something to show and tell about. So I beavered away yesterday and have finished the piece. It is only A4 size (about 21 x 29cm). I had envisaged the background fabric being visible but then I sewed it and some edges were complete and some not, so that wasn't going to work. I had to make it a bit bigger in spots so that it would wrap around the edges. Now it is a fully collaged piece.

I cut a piece of foamcore to slightly less than A4 (that was the size designated by the online group that inspired the piece). 

Then I sewed it on the back with the trampoline stitch (I really must look it up and check that I am actually using the correct term). Then I sewed a piece of calico onto the back to hide all the strands. 

I will put it in the upcoming Embroiderers Guild's Members' exhibition. It also fits the challenge for one of my online groups. Then I might put it in the Christmas (so soon!!) exhibition for the Alcove Art Shop, at the Box Hill Community Arts Centre. So, even if it doesn't sell at any of the exhibitions, it will have been useful. 

I have not used any sticky products to assist me with the collage. I cut the tiny pieces of fabric, laid them out, steam-ironed them to the background - a piece of linen with interfacing on the back, not sewn. Then I free motioned the pieces on. I find that the steam iron helps to hold them in place so that I don't need to use pins or any product with glue.  I learnt this from Kathryn Harmer Fox. I have done a couple of her workshops. And I hear that she is coming back to Australia again!

I haven't been feeling all that creative recently, so am pleased that I have finished a piece. Yay me!

February 2019

I used to aim for a post a week. Now I am for one a month! I want to continue because this really is my visual diary, I often come back to it to find out things. I think that is because the blog is searchable, which my actual, physical, visual diaries are not!
Also, as I change themes in my musing, I find that I will take things from an old visual diary, on a totally different topic, and reuse them. That is definitely not searchable in the hardcopy version.

So I will continue with the occasional post, which is mostly for me.

My tree is finally finished and mounted. I went to my tapestry weaving group today and finished sewing the back on (no relation to tapestry weaving whatsoever, but we do talk tapestry, tapestry exhibitions, themes, etc. while doing knitting, sewing, etc. - looms are a bother to take with you unless you are doing a very small, portable tapestry).

I took a couple of pictures when I got home, in two different locations. The difference in lighting is quite marked.  

This is the tree, after the acorn has sprouted (not really, of course, I couldn't wait the 100 years or so.  It is actually the tree and the acorn grew under it.)

It has been a hottish summer, not as bad as other parts of Victoria, and other parts of Australia, but I have found the weather challenging enough anyway.  So it has been a bit hard to be motivated. But I was with some young relatives recently and one of them remembered that I had taken a book about how to draw with me last year (Drawing for Mixed Media Artists by Carla Sonheim). One of the suggestions was to draw with your eyes closed. Another was to draw with your non-dominant hand. She combined these and drew a picture left-handed and with her eyes closed. Unfortunately it was on a whiteboard and she rubbed it off before I could take a photo. But she did do a couple of others. I managed to get a quick photo of them before she rubbed them out.

This inspired me to have a go myself! This is partly because there is a challenge for the AQC, due at on February 21st. I am not necessarily going to make it for that (it is a short time frame) but it is a theme to get me going. I think I need themes to motivate me, at least at present.

Part of the reason why I am thinking that my drawing is ok is that I was visiting a friend who lives in New York (lucky me) and went to a restaurant at Colombus Circle that had a whole lot of wire art, portraits. So the current thinking is to try to use that idea with the abstract drawing I have done and see what develops.

I haven't worked out quite how I will do it but the idea is giving me something to think about.