stitched felt

I have been 'off-the-air' for a couple of days, but I have been busy, in the evenings I have managed to do a spot of needle-felting...

After I made the little ATC sized felt I wanted to work on a larger piece. Jane of janeville has been doing some wonderful free sewing which she calls 'slow cloth' and I have decided to stitch on this piece to my heart's content. I am trying to remember embroidery stitches from my school days. When I have had enough I think I can make a free-form purse with it. It will need lining as it is easy to poke a hole in the felt. 

I also managed to visit the Luton Hoo Walled Garden today with my camera - it was very cold so I spent a bit of time in the glasshouse, lots of inspiration. I shall post some photos on my flickr pages and share some with you soon. But here is one to be going on with.

Volunteers were working inside the conservatory clearing it, a lot of work has been done in the garden since I was there in October. It is good that the restoration is going well, but I love the stately decay.

A 'Mary Lennox' moment

Mary Lennox is the heroine of this book. This is the copy my grandmother bought me in the early 60's because she had loved the story so.

Although it is so grey and dull in the garden this weekend, something has definitely changed. The air smells different and the birds are singing, tuning up. Our robin sings hidden in a holly and I can hear another singing back from a few gardens away. The dunnocks are chasing each other round and round the hedge so I can't decide if there are two or three or four of them. And of course poking up through the dead leaves and tangled stems are the crocuses and daffodils and narcissus. The Mary Lennox of the story is a spoilt little girl from an colonial family in India who has been orphaned and taken to live in chilly Yorkshire. Left to  her own devises she learns to skip in the gardens of the large house where she lives and discovers a locked walled garden which she secretly works in. Of course Mary's personality blooms with the garden and the book has a very happy ending. (Curiously I went on to marry a 'Colin', the name of the boy in the story - although my Colin calls himself Tod - but that is another story).The descriptions of the garden's return to life has never left me, and I know it is a favourite read of many of you.  As  I went into the garden to take the netting off the bowls of bulbs I planted up last autumn. (The netting stops the squirrels digging them up) Mary Lennox sprang into my mind. I thought I'd also get out the watercolours, and like the robin I have done a couple of tuning-up sketches.

These are called February Gold - I wonder if they will live up to their name.

I have little success growing snowdrops in my garden. I don't know why. It may be that I disturb the bulbs in the summer, and although I have tried planting them in out of the way places they seem to disappear after a couple of years.  I was given a potful a couple of years ago and took some successful photographs of one when I set up some lighting as part of my photography course. I have one little rather weedy flower this year where I planted this out. So fingers crossed it will be there next year!

I hope your weekend hasn't been too dull - just go and look for those bulbs!

Transferring images

First experiments in my 'Little Journal'

Some of you asked how I transferred the images onto my journal page, so I'll explain. I cannot remember where I read about it originally. On someones blog I expect. I have had success with ink-jet images printed  on ordinary copy paper, glossy magazines and newsprint pictures, but not with glossy photo quality paper.  I have tried directly onto heavyish cartridge paper (150 grams) and onto a surface prepared with gesso. They have both worked, but as the process leaves a smudged edge the gesso enabled me to wipe this off to a certain extent.  The results I got were a bit 'grungy' and paler than the originals. I'll explain ...

firstly you coat the face of the image you want to transfer with a fairly thick layer of medium/PVA. I have used Golden Gel soft matte and Marvin Medium which is good quality PVA, both have similar results, but the Marvin is a lot cheaper than Golden Gel. Whilst the glue is still wet you stick it face down in the position you want the image and smooth it out, making sure there are no air bubbles.  With a large piece of newsprint it may be better to glue the receiving surface instead, as newsprint goes very floppy when wet.     Now you must wait for the glue to dry - if you are impatient like me you only wait until it feels dry, although I did leave one image overnight it didn't seem to make much difference, as long as it is dry. Now comes the fun and messy bit. You wet the back of the image and start rubbing the paper off. It rolls up in little pills. It is quite tough on the fingers and I sure I have removed my fingerprints! My desk, lap and floor all end up covered with little grey paper globs.  Rubbing off the back takes a bit of practice - rub too hard and you get a hole in your picture, and not rubbing enough leaves a white film over the picture. In fact my images end up with this misty look.  If your image is dark it is very difficult to avoid smudging ink onto the backing paper, which is why the gesso is quite good, as it will wipe off to a certain extent

Here is my walled garden trial

Just realized I have spelled transferring with one r  throughout, I shall correct it, but not bother to re-scan. (I am a bit diplexic - as Mum where I taught called dyslexia)

The advantage to doing this process is that your images is much flatter than just sticking it in, and it gives it a worn, grungy look. However with a bit of fine glass-paper and gesso I think collaged images can achieve a similar effect, but is fun. I'll be interested to hear if you have had a go.

New Project

Well not quite - it is something I started last year. You may remember the photographs I took at the Walled Garden in Luton Hoo. I have them blu-tacked to my study door and I keep thinking I must do something with them. Then one night whilst listening to the shipping forecast, trying to get to sleep - I had the idea of making a special Walled Garden Journal. So at the next opportunity I visited my nearest vendor of the wonderful Pink Pig books and bought an A3 size - still a bargain (can't remember the exact price). The A4 aren't large enough for a large print. Anyway I have experimented with transferring some images using PVA Marvin Medium and Golden matte Gel plus some or my usual paint and collage work and here is the result.

Fanlight, bricks and monogram are from my photos but I found the portraits of Lady Alice and Sir Julius Wernher on the web. It is their initials in the monogram and they restored the garden in the Edwardian period and had the amazing conservatory built. I now hope this inspires me to get back to the garden to take some more photographs and maybe do some sketching. You can see my photographs here.

 I can now see from the photograph that the monograph is not quite central or straight! How annoying. This was a transfer and stuck face down with a lot of glue - that's my excuse, but annoying all the same.

Latest pages here and here

Good bye January

Well here is the month of January all done and dusted. Looking back over the whole month like this is quite good as somehow it puts time in perspective - it seems to go so fast, but on the otherhand my parcel arriving from my sister seems like ages ago and yet I can see it was only a couple of weeks.

I have a few projects on the go but haven't had much time for posting and this afternoon I am weary and feel like a nap- not like me at all so this will be brief. I shall look at everyone's postings later.

Have a good week.

Now the day is over...

Yesterday evening the sky was amazing the colours ranging from brightest orange to deepest violet

I just had to grab my camera.

One week to go ...

... until February all you calendar keepers. I was feeling rather pink and girlie (not like me) after  my memento box project (see below) so my February pages have ended up a bit girlie too. I also wanted a bit of soft colour. These are very simple squares leaving me plenty of scope for doodling throughout the month.

It definitely looks a bit wishy-washy in this picture. I'll post January's completed pages next week.

Here is an empty chocolate box I've decorated for a friend's birthday...

Can you tell I photographed it upside down (not deliberately) and so I have rotated photo?

Unfortunately I did not get to eat the chocolates, but managed to rescue the box when I was in school last week. I work there one afternoon a week updating the school's web pages and occasionally doing a bit of display, or helping out in the office.  I get to see all my colleagues and keep up with the goings on, although all the children I taught have left now. We always joked that if anything edible was left in the staffroom then it would be eaten by the end of the day, so by the time I got there - only this rather great box was left.  It is the first time I have tried to apply my journal collage methods to a 3D object, but I am quite pleased with the results. I have popped a lavender bag inside to disguise the lingering smell of beautiful Thornton's chocolates which haunted me every time I took the lid off.