almost '26

The second half of December
rushed by
with a good book (that I borrowed from granddaughter)
wrapping presents
preparing and eating Xmas dinner with family
and visiting a birthday party
. . . . .
only tree days left until 2025 is over

All that remains for me to do

is to wish all of you, my sweet blogging friends
peace

health
warmth
joy and happiness
and lots of creativity for

2026

wool and paper !

Quiet.
Not done much stitching,
(skipped quite a few Stitch Club workshops)
making a painting on commission,

 been reading a (thick) book.
And also waiting for special paper to arrive from Thailand
and wool from Germany,
all of that for a brand new felting course
with Fiona Duthie (Canada)

I've "known"/followed Fiona for a long time
and did my first-ever online felting course with her :
"Surface design"
(but sadly never met in real life)
The "Fiber + Paper" workshop was a long time on my wish list !!!

Though getting back on track after my Pink Ribbon Challenge
took quite a bit longer than I expected,
I have now completed some of the course assignments  !

Working with paper, wool and water
requires a very gentle treatment
or the paper will tear or not adhere !

starting with a 30 x 30cm square and 10 grams of wool

adding writing and prefelt.

The last assignment was working with a resist
to make a bowl / vessel.

(from 27 cm resist to +/- 16 cm)

paper strips

Two weeks ago I finished my work for the Stitch Club
workshop of Daniella Woolf.

She loves grids and showed us how to make our own.
I cut up a calendar photo, coloured paper,
a birthday card and some old music paper.
 I liked my square
but immediately thought I could make something
out of it if I had two more !

The grid itself was rather easy to make
but putting the three together
was rather fiddly !!!

Hmmmm, in this stage I needed THREE hands !

I added some extra smaller (folded) hexahedrons
just like the lucky charms
the DONG-people in China do

Yes, happy with it !

sequins ?

 When I read that the next
STITCH CLUB workshop
was about making your own sequins
I was delighted
(because I must confess : I'm kind of a magpie  :-)  !)

Though Jessica Grady
came up with something quite different than I thought
it was really fun thing to explore
her way to work.

Sequins made out of paper, card, fabric of plastic
but just fun to use.
Most times I leave a bit of time to think things over
before I start collecting my materials.
Bur when I remembered the really FUN inside
of the vegan chocolate wrapping
things got started easy enough>
(Mmmmmmm the best ever vegan chocolate made in Holland !)
A washing-machine-felted old Benetton sweater
proved to be a wonderful background.


at the left the chocolate wrapping !

(the wooden box that I had at the end
of our FUN "Sinterklaas-game" came in handy)

Finished !

I plan to keep de seeds in I always collect from the garden . . .

The seeds of the (now flowering) Aconites
might be the first to go in !

a rose is a rose is a rose

This STITCH CLUB week went by

working on a piece for the workshop of 

Sue Stone

The strip-weaving was well known to me

because that was in one of Jude Hill's classes

and gladly I used that more then once

so no problems there.

You could definitely say that Sue

is a portrait specialist,

so on her strip-woven piece she made a portrait.

I thought about that

collected coloured strips 

(which are there in abundance)

.....

but didn't come up with a good idea

WHO

I would want for a portrait

(or too many idea's perhaps)

So I collected a second bit of (different) coloured fabrics

and wove my background.

The idea of the rose was of course there before I chose the pinks,

the rose itself I sketched from a rose on the "web"

Thin paper to stitch through

and three dark enough pearl cottons

that would stand out against the sweet pinks.

Those cottons, thát was one of my mistakes :

my hand (arthritis) ached soon

because of the three layers of my weave !

Here everything looked still all right

(removing the tissue paper gave me the déja vu

of a shredded paper hanky from the washing machine !!!) 

 And I thought the result was a disaster :

the rose simply disappeared !

(I posted it in the group anyway,

if only to show that most of the time you have to try

many times before something good emerges !)

I left it alone for a day or so

and thought about unpicking, stitch or even paint ...

Then

 back to the stitching

(with stranded cotton floss !!!)

and the rose came back to me !

a (hot but) FABULOUS day

Today I went with a dear friend of mine

to the Paper Biennial 2016

in the Rijswijk Museum.

In fact it was a birthday present

a bit overdue !

(for me it was first the usual bike - boat - bike to the train station in Rotterdam,

then together to Rijswijk by train and a bus to the museum)

We had coffee and pie in the lovely museum garden.

There was a film with interviews with some of the paper artists first

and then we started with the exhibition.

It's amazing what artworks people can make out of paper !
(just click on the pictures to see them bigger)

Some were made especially for the exhibition in this museum !

(ahhhhh ... still have to find all the names)

In the museum shop there was something beautiful

I really couldn't resist ...

this amazing book

with LOTS of cutout pages

by 

Rebecca Dautremer

It was such a wonderful day !!!
Thanks Maartje !