Brooches

Look what I did with some of the beads and bits that I'd made

I had these brooch bases already made awaiting to be beaded so I didn't have to make them from scratch.
Now all I need to do is glue a piece of soft leather with a pin to the back and they are finished.
They are a 2 1/2" x 1 1/2" rectangle of Timtex covered in silk paper scraps and were just what was needed to put some of my beads and wrinkly bits from yesterdays play plus some commercial beads.

What do you think?

Todays Tyvek beads

Here is today's efforts,

first off I painted 2 pieces of Tyvek and let them dry.
I just love these colours

this lot I did a bit different from yesterdays, I'm rolling them around a chop stick as I want a larger centre hole, so I wound them around the square end , put a dab of glue on the end of the paper then carefully slipped it off to allow the glue to dry for an hour or so, then it was slipped back onto the smaller end of the chop stick and this gave it a bit of shrinkage room when it was hit with the heat so it was easier to slide it off when it started to cool down.
So here they are, they are much brighter than the first lot and by letting the glue dry it doesn't have a gluggy dull patch in the middle that doesn't wrinkle.

The second piece I cut up to see what would happen hitting it with the iron and heat gun.

These are the ones with the iron

and the heat gun

though I didn't get any of those really great big bubbles like I saw on somebody's site yesterday.

Tyvek beads

here is my first attempt today making Tyvek beads

in the first photo the middle bead has not been hit with the heat gun yet


I had 2 that didn't work, 3 so so and here are the rest that I think were fairly successful

what I learnt today to try different next time

* don't leave any white spots on the paper as that scorches before it wrinkles
* maybe thicker paint
* only a dab of glue on the end and let dry before heating as that bit doesn't distort if still wet
* and maybe it's time to think about a camera that will take better close ups

Playing

Yesterday I had a bit of a play and painted a piece of Lutradur and Tyvek.

I'm experimenting and wanting to cut these into strips and roll them up and make beads.
First hiccup, I should have laid the Lutradur on a piece of fabric not paper as it dried and glued itself to the paper and I couldn't get it off, so I went with the flow and did some stitching on the two layers,
Here is the before

and here it is after stitching, I actually like this piece and a bit reluctant to cut it up, maybe it needs to be framed.

I used up the leftover paint on the Tyvek

Now I'm not sure what to do next, I know I cut the strips tapered and roll them but don't know whether I glue them first or what I do before I hit the Tyvek with the heat gun and don't know if I can hit the Lutradur with heat or not.
If I don't use glue how do I keep the strip rolled up before heating?

Any advise or suggestions greatly appreciated.
Any blogs/websites that might have tutorial on them?

Scatterdays U

Sorry I'm a day late but we've had intermittent internet problems, so for those that don't play this weeks letter is U and the 3 categories are -
Street Sign,
Cartoon Character,
Things people pay a lot for

so first off the street sign Unyah Pl, was very close by in a new McMansion area just behind me on the lake, I think there were 4 houses in the street.....

Cartoon Character was easy

we had our own Underdog on Xmas morning - Zelda hiding under the paper

then Zelda became Overdog and adopted all of the paper for herself for the next couple of days till I could pinch it, sorry I digressed

Things people pay a lot for-
I had a few thoughts here but went with Unleaded Petrol, had thought of Underwear but thought I'd get hauled off by security if I tried to take photos in the Lingerie Dept at DJ's AND YOU WOULDN'T WANT TO SEE A PHOTO OF MINE..............

Am I an artist?

Just recently when Tim was actually at home for 5 minutes I took him to a local nursery to buy some river sand for the back yard and this pile of pallets was in the car park.
While Tim was getting the bags of sand onto a trolley I went up to the counter and said my husband was coming with 5 bags of sand that I wanted to pay for as I wanted to go and take some photos of the wood pile, they looked confused and MIL who was with us heard them comment "why does she want to take photos of that?" and the other person replied "maybe she an artist or something?

Outside my comfort zone

LOOK WHAT SHE MADE ME DOOOOOOOOO

Cheryl from The Quilters Garden where I'm teaching soon (info previous post) asked me to make another version of my Hidden Wells Quilt in more traditional colours as my brights scare some people, so I had to jump outside my comfort zone and work with country florals, I coped - just.....


Straight away I laid some needle felted pieces on some loud fabric up on the design wall to talk to me and calm me down.................

upcoming classes

if anyone is interested I have the following classes booked at "The Quilters Garden" 2/7 Sophia St, Albion Park (just below Wollongong NSW) (02) 4257 8277

LATE BLOOMER

Make your own version of my winning quilt on the cover of the Down Under Quilts 2008 Calendar.
a 2 day class, a week day and weekend class is on offer
Friday Feb 15th & Friday March 14th OR Sat Feb 16th & Sat March 15th 10 - 3

HIDDEN WELLS

This is a fun class, almost like a mystery quilt as you won't know what it will be like till the end.
A great quilt to use up all of those unrelated fabrics that you've had for ages and don't know what to do with - they'll be PERFECT.
a 2 day class, a week day and weekend class is on offer
Friday April 25th & Friday May 30th OR Sat April 26th & Sat May 31st 10 - 3

FUN WITH FIBRE TECHNIQUES
starting Sat Feb 9th then monthly on the 2nd Sat of the month 10 - 3
an ongoing class where you get to have fun learning about and playing with all the different fibres, exploring the possibilities of silk and wool tops, Angelina, Textiva etc
here are a few of the things you will make

making silk paper then into bowls


felted beads then incorporating them into a necklace


a funky faux felted scarf

Give the shop a call to check on prices and availability of places

Looking forward to seeing some of you in the classes

Scaterdays E

Scaterdays letter this week is E and our categories are something white, the plant world and terifying things

so, the first photo is envelopes for something white but they could also go into the last category as Terrifying things WITH BILLS IN THEM

a White flower that is also terrifying - it covers all 3 categories, as it has an E in the middle of it's name

plant world I thought would be a challenge till I remembered that one of the many cacti on the front verandah that one is an Epiphyllum.........

what could be more terrifying than an Electricity pylon at the Power Station near by

or even more terrifying - A PLATE OF HARD BOILED EGGS

Callan grows up

here's my big boy Callan, who turns 18 next week doing his first week of shows at Bass Hill Plaza with The Leaping Loonies, there is still shows tomorrow (Friday) at 11 & 1 if anyone is in the vicinity

that's DH Tim in the middle and Daniel on the other side

yesterday's effort

I had a burst of enthusiasm yesterday and made this scarf, laying down a base of wool roving, covering it with Angelina and many knitting wool snippets between 2 pieces of soluble film then stitched like crazy.



it's a bit of a mystery, till you wash away the film and expose the magic underneath

A Pink Sky in the Morning

this piece was an idea that had been running through my head during the xmas chaos waiting to come out and not having the time to start.

First off I needle felted wool roving's onto a piece of thin wadding and it slowly started to look like a sunrise/sunset over green hills and I started thinking of the quote "a pink sky in the morning is a shepard's warning"

next I made a piece of silk paper with Angelina fibres and snippets of Textiva

the silk paper was fused to a piece of Timtex then the needle felted section held in place with couched yarn around the edge and couched yarns across the piece.
Angelina fibres were bonded together then encased in a layer of organza and held in place with thread drawing.

I think it's finished unless I have an attack of the "must add beads somewhere syndrome".....

Scatterdays V

This weeks Scatterdays letter is V and our topics are - Car Parts, Office items and In the Kitchen, so here is what I found this week.........

my car parts are - rear Vision mirror and Visor (2 for 1 photo) with a touch of the green house coming in under the guise of a View from the car, had thought of just taking a photo of the engine and saying "this is the part that goes VROOOOMMMMM" but I thought that was just plain silly.......

office items is me as a Visitor to Officeworks, now I know there a many items inside starting with V but none of them jumped out at me instantly

I don't have any Victorinox knives in the kitchen but I do have a Victorinox Swiss Card that has a little knife in it so it is sitting in front of Vegemite, Vinegar and Vitamins on the kitchen bench and the coffee machine to the left does make a Very nice coffee

and doesn't everyone have a purple Vent in their kitchen (no extra charge for the cobwebs)

sorry I was a day late as I worked yesterday and we are/were trying to install an external hard drive and it was using my card reader port and I couldn't do anything last night

random photos

here are a few of the random photos that I tried to post last week

the cactus on our front verandah has been putting on a glorious display for us again

how bizarre - the house has changed colour above, this is the right colour green, you can see 2 of my sculpture pieces on the top shelf amongst the plants

recently we finally presented Stephanie (a member of our group) with a quilt for her 60th, we had a fun sewing day at the shop (The Quilters Garden) and made this great quilt called "Hat's off to Stephanie" as she is an avid hat collector.
We had been trying to give it to her for months as for some reason or another she couldn't make our get togethers so we threw her an afternoon tea at the shop and insisted that she come....... that's Stephanie in the pink shirt

Here are a couple of braided cords that were made as Chrissy presents