Where have I been and what have I been doing since last Thursday - well it must be the cold wintry weather but I keep losing myself in books lately and it means I don't have as much art to post as usual! Last week I read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini and oh, my goodness, it made me realize that I should never ever complain about my life. It was an incredible read - very powerful and moving.
On the creative front, I have finished my inchies for the next fabric inchie exchange run by Kathryn Robertson through Aus_NZQuilters. This time the theme was "plastic" so it was open season for lots of experimentation. The ones at the bottom of the picture were way too dimensional for a good scan but I am feeling slack and can't be bothered taking a photo. This is my contribution - 9 different styles, from top to bottom:
1. Synthetic lace fused to felt and painted with Citrine Lumiere Paint, overlaid with green sequin tulle and stitched with synthetic fibre.
2. Borders Bookshop plastic bag pieces fused together and then fused to felt. These have been topped with Angelina fibres (ironed into a sheet and cut into small pieces) which are trapped under white fuzzy dot tulle. Layers have been stitched together grid style.
3. Red plastic sheet fused to felt, topped with textiva strips (which have been ironed together and then “decorated” with a wood burning tool), a plastic domed sticker and stitched around the edges with plastic metallic thread.
4. Plastic wallpaper painted with diluted acrylic paint and fused to felt. Hand stitched edges with an overlay of organza and a plastic flower jewel.
5. White and gold striped plastic bags fused together and then to felt, topped with large black plastic “rubber” stickers and small plastic ear-ring stickers.
6. Black and gold stretch synthetic sequin fabric fused to felt
7. Colourful fabric fused to felt with handstitching in gold thread around the edges, topped with small pieces of Lutradur which has been painted and had holes melted in it with a wood burning tool.
8. Plastic upholstery fabric with distressed pieces of painted Tvyek stitched on top using plastic metallic thread. Inchie edges are coloured with acrylic paint and dimensional copper paint squiggle on top.
9. Toffee paper wrappers fused to black acrylic felt and backed with purple chiffon, stitched, then ironed to distress. Small pieces of plastic drinking straw stitched on top.
These were great fun but I am glad they are finished as I feel like working on something less fiddly. Today I am going to finish my Calendar Girls postcard for July. I started it yesterday afternoon before I went to a lingerie party and I had planned on finishing it last night, but once again I got stuck in a book instead!