Brittany’s ‘Fly’ Scarf

I have decided to make a new schedule to keep my blog rolling along. On Mondays I will write about homeschooling, on Wednesdays it will be a lifestyle post, and on Fridays it will be a post about art. This is very good timing for me because today is Friday and I have just finished Brittany’s scarf.

This is the scarf I have been making for my son’s girlfriend, Brittany, who lives in America. It is a present for her birthday which was a couple of weeks ago – hopefully she will forgive my lateness. I wanted to make her a scarf because where she lives it is very cold and she wears a scarf every day. It is made using recycled fabric from clothes I have bought from the Op Shop, which I have cut up, dyed, bleached, printed, manipulated and generally experimented on. I was using all these pieces to experiment and refine my skills especially using dye paste and bleach paste printing.
The scarf is called ‘Fly’. Brittany and my son enjoy doing a lot of bird watching together (so sweet), so I wanted it to have a birds theme and I have included bird prints, feather prints, and phrases about flying in the embroidery.

This is the first time I have done freestyle machine embroidery and I am absolutely hooked – love the effect of the ‘messy’ sewing, and it is really quite relaxing to do. I really need a better sewing machine though, that is first on my list of things to buy when I sell a few pieces.

Ok, here it is….

Unfortunately, the photos are terrible, but I wanted to get this post up today, will try and get some better ones tomorrow.

I have another scarf in pink and blue colourways that I will finish off this week and then put up for sale somewhere, not sure where yet, but stay tuned to see that one next Friday.

Only 7 weeks to go until the artists books exhibition at the Riddoch Gallery In Mt Gambier, so I will need to get back to work on my books this week too.

I hope you are finding opportunities to be creative too.
All the best,
Sharee

Neglected blogs and busy lives

Dear Blog,
I am sorry I have neglected you. We have been busy, in a lazy stay at home, do things that you love, kind of way. It gets to this stage of the holidays and I feel like I am really on top of everything – house is tidy, bills are paid, meals are planned, exercise done, artwork is in full swing. Unfortunately I know from experience that it all ends next week when school goes back, and we go back to juggling schooly stuff, and homeschool groups and after school activities, so I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
Here are some things that we have been doing in our house…

I have been doing lots of fabric dying experiments. I am going to use these pieces to make a birthday present for my son’s girlfriend. I have just tried a technique using flour paste from Jane Dunnewold’s book Art Cloth, and I loved the results.

This is one of my favourite pieces. It was tie dyed and then I added a mono print using dye paste.

I am planning to do some more work on these pieces using discharge paste today and then maybe some printing.

The other thing I have been experimenting with is encaustic work. I borrowed Encaustic Workshop by Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch from the local library and was so inspired by it that I rushed out and bought some basic encaustic supplies. Encaustic is painting with wax, and all you really need to get started is a bag of wax and a heat gun, so it’s fairly cheap. I really enjoyed the technique and I can see lots of potential for using this technique in some of my artist’s books, especially the Specimens series that I am working on at the moment.

My boys have been creative too. Axel raided my box of sculpture goodies and came up with a beetle and a dog – gorgeous!

And Zac made this cool bug, notice he has a tiny antenna so he can be remote controlled.

And while they had the gear out I made another crab and added some updates to some of the older ones.

Not to be left out, my teenage daughter made a doorstop and this gorgeous bunting using vintage fabrics.

Gotta love creative days of summer. I hope your summer is creative too.
All the best,
Sharee