I made a resolution in January to try out some of the "best buys" from lots of shows that have never seen the light of day; I took a piece of snow dyed fabric, another first, and stamped some expandable paint medium onto it using foam letters that my grandchildren play with. I ironed them from the reverse so that they swelled nicely and then painted the words. The green reversing arrows were Markelstick applied through a cutout stencil. Finally the really messy part was the free machine quilting, when I took off the feet and just let the needle go where it wanted to without much control; quite a scary thing for me and the stitching is very messy but it was soooooo liberating!! The additional words were two that our seven year old made from the letters in "About Turn".
Ann
Thanks for the description, Ann. You clearly had a lot of fun with this one.
ReplyDeleteIt is great when one does something out of ones normal way of working and finds that - Yes - I did enjoy it. Am doing exactly that myself at the moment. I am doing sun printing.
ReplyDeleteFor my last years JQs I made myself print, stamp, stencil etc, not something I had done much of and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The interesting thing is will you play again with these materials in the near future? I hope you reply to this query!
Irene
Ah, now that's interesting Irene, I am just about to start on my June JQ and that is going to have lots of stamping on it now that I have mastered the knack of cutting out lino type blocks. So Yes is the answer, I will keep experimenting. Have never found a block for carving in the UK that is as good as Speedy-Curve by Speedball from the US, what do you recommend?
ReplyDeleteAnn
Re carving I just use whatever I have bought at shows so am never sure exactly what it is. I do most of my stamping from found or modified found objects and I also stamps made from cut foam.
ReplyDeleteMy letters are made from foam and are sold for kids.
I have so many stamps I have made when I teach I just go with boxes of them and empty them on the table. Sometimes they come unstuck so I just take them home and reglue or modify or chuck.
I love using them but find that I need a subject in mind to really get into stamping, painting, screening (again home constructed screens) so as I have been so devoid of ideas recently I am feeling most frustrated. There is a limit to just playing and producing bits of fabric.
I keep hoping that these themes for our group might inspire ideas for a larger piece. In the meantime I am doing mindless stuff as I fall asleep in the evening if I am not sewing, and I find free machine work so relaxing.
Iren