Fabric

Fabric has played a large part in my life over the past week. Elizabeth and I went on a shopping spree, looking for fabrics and art materials. What a lovely time we had, apart from the rain. We started at ZiguZagu's new location in Malvern. They have the most divine fabrics from Japan, new and old. It was very difficult to drag ourselves away from the shop.

Some old

and some new fabrics and threads

From there we headed to Brunswick Street, an artist's haven. We did buy art materials, not just fabric. Neil Wallace and Melbourne Etching Supplies relieved us of some more cash, papers, sketch books etc.

We then discovered another fabulous shop 'Precious Pearl'  for fleece, wool and fabric. I bought some lovely sari silk fabric remnants and gorgeous fleece.

beautiful silk fabrics

silk fabrics and fleece

As if all this shopping wasn't enough I then went to Sassafras in the hills, near where I live, the next day and bought these beautiful tea tins. Mine won't ever see tea though, they're going to be the centres of some more of my yo-yos.

tea tins

I've also been putting together button and fabric kits for the Journal workshop I'm teaching here

I've been dyeing doilies

lace

and buttons and beads. I'm amazed how bright the buttons turned out, they were all white to start with.

and these are fabric pages for my latest journal, this one's an order

Thanks for visiting and for all your lovely comments in my previous post, now off to do more pages.

Necklace and papers

I'm still making Suffolk puffs or yo-yos to some. The centres of these are made from an old Nestle biscuit tin that I've cut into circles, domed in my dapping block and drilled holes around the edges and added brass beads. This is another one for the exhibition.

I still have to add beads and chain to the top.

A close up of the centres.

I add stamping to the base of some of the papers I add to my journals, usually I use my small hand carved stamps but I've now made some foam stamps that are A4 in width so I can stamp in one go.

The stamps are double sided.

These are some papers I've decorated to add to the journals.

Recently I purchased a Gelli Plate from The Thread Studio, instead of making my own gelatine plate, it's great. I love the marks you get from the gelatine plate you make yourself but the Gelli Plate is so much easier to clean and it lasts forever if you look after it and it also creates great prints. The one above is on paper and has been printed twice.

This is another print on paper.

This was printed twice with the design being in gold paint.

Happy creating.

A bit of everything

I've been busy this week finishing off my sample journal for the decorated papers and journal class I'll be teaching at the Queen of Arts retreat in April this year, there's still a couple of vacancies if you'd like to join us.

The finished cover of the journal

We will be adding inserts into the journal so you can add fabric pages, or anything else, at a later date. We won't have time to make the fabric pages in the class.

The other side of the sample fabric page showing the insert we will add.

another insert waiting for a fabric page or anything else you might like to add later.

a close up of the fabric and button spine

I taught a wonderful group of students a new 'junk journal' made from cards, cardboard, fabric scraps and decorated papers this week. It was great fun and they all went home with a journal that they can spend many happy hours adding to and decorating.

Packs of my hand dyed laces.

I've added some packs of my hand dyed lace to my Etsy store.

There are five lengths per pack each measuring a metre in length.

The lace is made in Denmark, in a variety of materials.

I've also added a new hand carved stamp to my Etsy

Phew I hope I haven't bored you to death with all of this. it's been a very busy week.

Journal Workshop

I'm teaching a journal workshop at Queen of Arts Retreat in Melbourne in April this year. There are still a few vacancies in my class if you'd like to join us. Other teachers will be DJ Pettitt and Maha Ghobrial. I'm just finishing off the sample book that I will be teaching and have some photos below.
I'm also having an exhibition in May/June with Patsy, Jacky and Dot and am busy painting and making jewellery. I'll have more details of the exhibition soon.

This is one of my necklaces for the exhibition. I love mixing fabric with metal pieces.

The cover, it's still not completed yet. I will also be adding fabric strips and buttons to the spine.

The inside cover with one of my hand dyed doilies.

we will be making a few stamps and stencils for decorating the pages.

there's a variety of weights of papers, from tissue papers, paper towels and bond paper

the paper on the left is decorated tissue paper on the right is bond paper, slightly heavier

more decorated papers

we will also be using pages from an old novel

the pages waiting to be assembled and stitched into the spine.

I'll have more photos of the finished journal shortly.

All of the pages will be hand decorated by the students. The journals can be used for writing, sketching, as a diary or for photos, whatever takes you fancy.

Thanks once more to all of you lovely people who have visited my last post and also thank you to everyone who left comments, they're very much appreciated.