sun, moons .... and felting-exchange

Ever so  s l o w l y 

things take shape on my SUN piece.

Thinking about what colours extra to add

(or not)

Thinking about other forms to add :

there will most probably be a lot more moons

(some with faces, but not yet)

Moons ..... three in a row dyed by Jude

Silk scraps I purchased from Heike (a long time ago)

are going to cover part of the sun,

giving it sun spots 

;-)

*

Almost the end of June, means to make haste 

with my assignment for the felting-exchange !

(so no Stitch'nBitch for me today)

The theme was just colours for this person :

purple, green, turquiose.

The top layer with some silk scraps, some prepared purple points

and a purple bottom layer.

Making tiny holes in the top layer to push the points trough (not easy) 

and then, as always : (gentle) rolling, rolling, rolling .....

my finished piece

(which is in the mail right now)

(Ha, Man gave them names like  the "cols" (mountains) in France :

the "Tour de France" started today, and he loves to watch that on TV .....

so maybe the "Polka Dot Jersey" (Bolletjestrui)  for me ?)

just garden-busy

The fact that we had so much rain and 

(after that and in between)

some sunshine

makes a bit of a  jungle of the garden.

Not that I don't like that,

but it means I should DO something about it.

Or otherwise I won't be able to walk trough 

my tiny one-stone-paths.

LOTS and LOTS of withered Alium Roseum

needed to come out.

A gentle tug on the stem easily does the trick

but sometimes the little bulb is pulled out too ...

I just cut the stem off and let them dry inside.

And you know what :

I know at least two people who will be happy to recieve them 

(Stins .... Yvette ...)

But I also have 

the cut off dried flower heads 

with   minuscule  bulbs

(I'm thinking of just throwing them around in public garden space)

;-)

... and it will look like this in a few years time !

test drive ..... and go !

Yesterday I put my own stitching on the SUN aside

and put the Man's stitch-and-burn under the machine

for the last part that had to be done

with the black cotton thread.

Then, this morning, the sun was out !

Beautiful weather to do some burning outside !!!

First Man did a "test drive"

with paper and scissors

The next step was to put all the needed stuff outside

and start burning 

It took quite some time, but at the end of the day : 

... finished !!!!!

There is a lovely choice of tiny pieces cut out

ánd tiny pieces left in place.

The photo I took when the piece was lying on the couch

is the best !

It's so much fun to see how the original colours changed

by the randomly placed dyed "wonder under"

and the pieces of polyester chiffon.

I myself was sitting in the garden with a wooden tray

stitching the bits and pieces of the SUN together

... with every now and then 

some visitors on the water

the sun

It's Sunday today.

Nót that there was much sunshine :

it rained quite a lot the better part of the day

(though in the end the sun really came out)

No it was "Sunday" because I was working on my new 

SUN piece

Yesterday I stitched the other half of the sun together.

Today I had to tackle the problem

what I would use as background.

(no, it is definately not going to be part 

of the big "Diaries-cloth")

It will stand on it's own.

After a lot of try-outs I decided to use 

the funny fabric I dyed with Procion two years ago

It is very loosely woven and there are strips stitched on in swirls.

I initially bought this to use in some felting project,

(but it was still in the drawer)

I placed the sun on quite a big piece

it's  about 105 cm wide 

There will be a border of very special denim pieces

(from someone else)

I put some other thin blue fabric behind it for more stability

since it's so big

It took a lot of puzzling and deciding about the rest

Of course : some weaving !!!

.... so far, so good ...

I must confess that it doesn't look like a day's work

but in fact it is ...

And on top of that :

the big problem with me is, that when I'm "in the flow" (of creating) 

there isn't much attention for anything, or anyone, else ...

(Ahhhhh Man had to wait for his supper,

I totally tend to forget things like that when I'm "busy")

(to be continued)

summer (?) solstice

I really couldn't tell that it was 

the longest day of summer today

(not much of a summer until now !!!)

Gray overcast all day long,

even a steady drizzle to start the day

But, 

a date is a date,

June 21 is June 21

I just tought it would be nice 

to start stitching a little something again.

What better colours are there 

to make a summer solstice piece

than 

yellows

So I began with a bunch of yellow scraps 

and some bigger pieces of yellow fabric

(from my rainbow "stash drawer")

and started stitching them together, by hand, the "Jude-way"

(it's a simple, almost meditative way of piecing

any kind of scraps together, and stitching the seam allowance

to either side down, with the tiniest of stitches,

which gives the piece such a wonderful feeling)

Half of my Solstice Sun is done

The other half will have a bit more colours than just yellow.

It will take some time.

I even don't know if this piece will be incorporated in the big "Diaries cloth"

or that it will stand on it's own ...

We'll see ...

(Ha, probably not finished before Winter Solstice

... then it will be just a "Solstice" piece)

;-)

another bit of synthetic

I like the transparent bit 

of the new stitch-and-burn technique.

(though I have to try to make it even móre tranparent)

The fun part is, that mostly, 

you don't end up with 

what you initially thought it would look like :

a lot of random result

Colours change dramatically with all the added layers

ánd the stitching

Man has been busy too.

... choosing colours

...  tracing the outlines

A clever thing I learned from Jude :

make a copy 

and try out some things with pen on paper !!!

I did already sóme of the stitching ...

Sometimes you get so shaky 

running over the same lines twice

it's best to stop for a while

;-)

(to be continued)

making someone happy

It was Stitch'nBitch day again in Rotterdam.

It was supposed to be sunny today, so I dressed that way ...

SÓ happy I was I had a rain poncho (just in case) in my cycle bag :

it rained cats and dogs,

when I got off the boat.

Hmmmmmm ... happy knitting, after I was dry again.

Because knitting does give me so much pleasure, I thought I show you this :

daughter drew my attention 

on some surprise flash mob on You Tube.

It's about a lady, Loes Veenstra  from Rotterdam,

who knitted over 500 sweaters all her life

and stored them ... untill :

this moment ...

when some people gave her some very happy moments, I think 

Go, and see for yourself 

and enjoy !

*

 At the moment I'm knitting socks for my grandson

in his favourite colour

green !

(one was already finished, but I frogged it 

because it was a bit too tight, the right one, since I have to wait 

and see if it fits this time, I started with number two)

*

Remember the stained glass technique 

I did two weeks ago ?

Man liked it very much and said he wants to try it too !

He will make a mandala !

Well, the machine stitching will be for me,

but the rest ..... 

(keep you posted)

;-)

a present ..... and the garden

Last Saturday the postman

(or rather it was a post woman)

brought a  b i g  package from Germany

 Heike promised me some time ago

to send me some of her wool

she no longer used herself to felt !

(I didn't know Heike felted,

but she makes wonderful stitched pieces
and fun figures)

And there it was :

a lot of beautiful natural coloured wool,

a purse :  "Time is Money"

and a lovely card

THANKS  HEIKE !

I will most probably use this new kind of wool

for making felted animal figures !

*

And because finally the summer seems to have arrived,

the garden exploded 

in lots of different shapes of flowers 

I often think 

this time of the year

is one of the best in my garden !

(you can enlarge the pics by clicking on them with the right button 

and then opening them in a new window) 

a bit like stained glass

Stained glass

That's what the result of the new technique I did, looks like.

Today I finished the stitching 

and later, in the garden under the sunshade,

I did the burning.

It was so góód I could do that outside

because it really 

STINKS !

(the synthetic fabric melts onto the soldering iron)

These are the front and back of the piece after stitching.

The lines, that I did twice, were rather shaky sometimes :

the "lutradur" back is slippery, when guiding under the machine.

The soldering iron and some steelwool nearby 

to clean the tip every now and then.

Because of the many layers and the burning

the piece is quite rigid and firm.

With a little piece of sturdy wire with eyelets at the end

I can simply hang it.

my lovely machine

What a lovely day it was yesterday !

No, no sun to be seen 

(well ... maybe a minute or two ...)

but we were inside 

being creative 

"We" was me and my dear friend Wil 

she explained to me a certain known technique, 

she refined for her own art-quilts

(Wil's work on the "Art Quilts in Nederland" exhibition last May)

It has been quite some time since I used my machine.

( I did a lot of hand stitching lately, inspired by Jude )

First here was a lot of preparation

in several steps

painting (with diluted acrylic paint)

ironing "vliesofix" (wonder under) 

cutting 

...

but in the end I could start on my dear PFAFF

There's still a lot to be done before this try-out will be finished

because I need to do some burning too  

Ha, it's so good the weather will be fine tomorrow :

I will be burning outside 

(the fumes are not very healthy !!!)

 I will probably use parts of this technique in my own work.

Might find some inspiration in the garden ???

Wow ... these colours !