Inklin Swap

My swaps have arrived!

These are some of the 4inch x 4inch "inklins" (see my post on 15th May) which I received in a swap. They have been mounted in a little book by the swap hostess. What a great idea, Susan! It's now sitting on my coffee table.

This is one of Jayne's - The shiny ink in the centre of the card has caught the light from the flash. The drawing is actually done in black ink, with a faint yellow outline.



This was done by Janice. I love the newspaper behind the drawing, and the little stamp in the corner.

Another one by Janice. Was it Mondrian who did paintings like this? It's very reminiscent of the 1960's and the clothes we wore - primary colours, divided into sections by areas of white and thin black lines. Very trendy!

Making a Note Book Cover

I found a gorgeous A6 size notebook in Canberra last weekend. Beautifully made, with pages made from a good quality white paper, it also has an occasional page of blue batik paper. So, armed with the book, I went into the sewing room and took hold of whatever caught my eye as a complement to the batik paper. Here's what I found...
I cut small random triangles from the orange, gold and darker blue fabrics and laid them on the blue background fabric. I then laid some hot-fix Angeline fibres over the lot and ironed it. This melted the Angelina fibres and held the triangles in place while I meandered over the top with blue thread, in a zigzag stitch.
The wool yarn that I had found had gorgeous knobbly bits on it which reminded me of flower heads, so I cut pieces to look like flower heads on stalks.
Then I sewed them onto the fabric, lined it and put a satin stitch around the edge. This is the front of the finished cover...
...and this is the back...
This is the whole cover, laid out flat.

And for those of you wondering what the inside looks like...here it is...
Now I just have to decide whether to put it away to use as a gift, or to keep it myself...hmmm...

But I failed art at school!

Thanks for the great comments that some of you have made about my blog. However, I really have to take issue with the description of me as "artistic"! You see, that may be someone else, but it's never how I describe myself. I had to have my arm twisted quite a lot to describe myself as a textile artist on this blog.

I'm the kid who could never make a drawing that looked anything like the thing I was supposed to draw, and always had the messy handwriting. In the first year of high school, we had to study art. This always seemed to involve drawing or painting something that the teacher placed at the front of the room. I just couldn't do it. She'd look at mine, shake her head, sigh and move on to someone who showed some talent. I remember getting something like 48% at the end of the year. Friends that went to school with me think it's hilarious that people now buy some of my art!

It's only in the last fifteen years or so that I've realised that I have a bit of an eye for colour and design, and that when use a sewing machine, or a needle and thread, I lose my fear of not being able to "draw".

So...while I can doodle, and play with bits of fabric and thread, I'm not what is usually thought of as an artist! Why am I telling you this? Because those of you who have told me that I'm artistic need to realise that you are too, in some way. You just need to relax, play and develop it! Go on...you can do it, too...

Not new, but not blue

There hasn't been much activity in my studio over the last couple of weeks, with the result that there's been nothing to photograph and post on the blog. So, in order to satisfy those of you who only come here for the eye candy, here are a couple of photos of a book cover I made for an artist's journal about 12 months ago.
During a trip to Sydney last week for work, I escaped the 3 day conference for long enough to find some small notebooks that I'm going to cover and use as gifts for all those non-arty friends who wouldn't use artist's journals. When I got home I went looking for the photos of covers I've made up to now, to give me the inspiration I need to get started and decided that that's what I could share.
Please note also that this cover has absolutely no blue in it!(See! I CAN make things in other colours...) The background fabric is a gorgeous green-gold silk shot through with pink - one of those lucky fabric remnant finds.

This is the front...


...and this is the back...