Cords and twists

Photos 1 - 16 are sewn cords.
1. Frayed fabric twisted then sewn
2. Pink chunky elastic cord with contrast light green thread
3. Green wool dyed by me and deep pink knitting cotton
4. Tights
5. Pink satin ribbon
6. Hemp jewellery cord oversewn with two colours of thread















7. 2 colours of raffia with bright green and deep pink thread
8. Fabric strips wrapped around a hemp core
9. Ribbon
10. Thick cotton oversewn with layers of thread















11. Sparkly green tape (dyed by me) with pale pink ribbon - one of my favourites
12. White and pink knitting cotton with two contrasting cotton threads oversewn
13. Green wool, stranded cotton and cotton perle, oversewn with deep pink thread















14. As 12 but with pink thread
15. Chenille thread
16. Gold elastic

Twisted cords
17. Thicker green knitting wool and dark pink knitting cotton
18. Sparkly green ribbon (dyed by me) with knitting cotton and boucle thread dyed by me
















19. Thread dyed green and two types of perle cotton
20. Strips of dyed fabric stitched into lengths
21. Green raffia and gold thread
22. Pink satin cord and green and pink variegated thread
23. Thick wool and variegated knitting ribbon
The last unnumbered picture is my first kumihimo braid

A little bit more work to show

First of all Sian wanted me to make a few more spiral shapes out of card, relating them to some of my sketches of spirals.

Then there are some samples of handstitched spirals ....































... and some machine stitched spirals, including cable stitch and whip stitch.

Forster's Fabulous Friday Fondant

Here, for your delectation and delight, on a flippin' freezin' Friday, is my module 3 work to date. It is in a randomised and reversed order, primarily because I haven't blogged for so long I have forgotten what to do.

3-d shapes - unfortunately these have got a bit squashed so while they did look quite good, they now look like squashed card.



















Dyed fabrics - this is the first time I have used procion dyes. My colours for this module are green and pink by the way.






















Dyed fibres, looking like luminous spaghetti










Monoprinted papers










My sketches of jewellery:












Preliminary spiral sketches:

Diversions and distractions

There is something about working with just black and white for months on end that makes you go a bit stir crazy when you are finally unleashed back into full blazing, rainbow-hued, glorious technicolour once more. Certainly something, some set of cogs, has clicked over in my head and a lifetime of procrastination has ripped itself to shreds and I just cannot stop making different things.

I want to share some of the bits and bobs I've been playing around with.

1. I've been making more felt. I got a real taste for this while I was working on module two and made some black and white and grey felt. Now I've made some really bright felt ("every action has an equal and opposite reaction").











2. I have been making some cuffs. One is also very colourful, the other two a little quieter. There are two with beads and buttons sewn onto suede. I am especially fond of the really buttony one because it makes a lovely little jangly noise as it moves. The colourful one is very much an experiment. I had something through the post (can't for the life of me recall what it was now) that was protected by a plastic mesh tube. I was idly messing around one day when I put it on my hand ... and realised what a perfect fit it was around my wrist. Yey, an idea was born. So I messed about some more with some recycled sari yarn, and the rest is history. All the pieces of yarn are simply pushed through one hole and back through a neighbouring hole. The biggest problem is that the mesh has stretched a bit with the process of pulling it to insert the pieces of yarn. However, it is fine over the sleeve of a jumper.






















3. Dipping Dottie. Now first-up this is not my original design. I signed myself up for a course on the Joggles website. I saw Dottie and really liked the cut of her jib. I'd always fancied having a go at an art doll so this seemed a good opportunity. I think the original design is good - after all that is what caught my eye in the first place. I do however have some reservations about the actual pattern provided to put Dottie together. I could be mistaken but quite a few times I felt that following the given pattern would not result in the intended outcomes in the photographs. Indeed I had to make quite a few pattern adjustments as I went along to get things to work.
It almost felt as though the doll had been designed and then a pattern made retrospectively that wasn't tested to check it would work as it was meant to. Now, I have to point out that quite a few designers work via Joggles and have tutorials that are available for varying amounts of money, and the lesson part of this art doll is not necessarily a good representation of the other tutorials. I've never tried any of the others so I don't have a yardstick to compare it by.
On the basis of Dipping Dottie I would have to conclude I was disappointed in the lessons. For the money you get 4 weekly pdf files so in the end I had maybe 20 - 24 pages of instructions/pattern/photos. There were no videos for this tutorial. For the same money I could have bought 2 or 3 books on making art dolls and ended up with many more pages. So this time round, although I really like the doll design, I didn't feel the lessons were particularly good value for money. I think maybe some of the tutorials with videos would be a different matter, and as I've said a lot of designers work through Joggles, so I can't write them off. That would be the same as going into a sweet shop, tasting one gross sweet and declaring all sweets vile.