In my studio

I decided to get with the Christmas cheer and added a few decorations to my studio, I have so much 'stuff' in my studio that they almost get lost, but it's lovely to enter into my magical world each day.

This is one of my work spaces. I've almost completed another journal to go in my Etsy store over the weekend. That's the cover and the pages stacked ready to be sewn in.

A close up of the journal.

The cover, I used my hand dyed thread for stitching around the edges.

This candle has been burning on and off for days giving off a beautiful spicy fragrance.

Jacky made the round, red printed bird and the pine cone tree my grandson made for me

four Christmases ago, I love it.

I made a tree from a bamboo twig, the tinsel bird was made by Dot.

I have a passion for paper tapes. The fabric medical tape pattern was made by rolling the tape over one of my hand carved stamps.

I've also been dying fabric and decided to try out some buttons and beads. This is the before.

And this is the after, I'm amazed how the very cheap 'pearl' beads took the colour so well.

The purple looks great on the brown buttons now too.

Flora - on line

I did a wonderful workshop with Flora Bowley when she came to Australia earlier this year. It was so inspiring and Flora is a fabulous person and teacher, so giving of her techniques and time. Flora's workshops are so freeing and really help loosen up your style. My whole way of painting has now been so positively influenced by Flora's workshop.
For those of you, anywhere in the world, who would love to take her class, you can now do so as Flora has set up what looks to be a tremendous on-line workshop starting in February. Registration is now open so you can find all of the details HERE

Photos of Flora and her work.

Words on Etsy

I'm often asked how I create the stitched words that I add to my journal pages. They're free motion machine stitched, which isn't that easy unless you have the right foot for your machine and can hold the fabric steady while feeding it into the machine. I decided to make up packs of five random words and have added them to my Etsy store.

The words are stitched to double thickness off white calico, I think you call it muslin in the US.

Each pack contains five randomly selected words unless specifically requested.

This is how I use them in my journals. They can form the theme for a page or be added after the page is completed.

They can also be added to art quilts, clothing, used in fabric jewellery making or collages.

It's up to your imagination.

Art is You Retreat

I'll be teaching a two day journal workshop and a one day necklace workshop at the fabulous Art is You Retreat in Sydney next March 2012. There will be twelve teachers with a vast array of subjects they're teaching. It would be great if you could join us. This retreat is so popular all over in the US and now it's coming to Australia, with Aussie teachers. Check out the website for details.

The teachers and organisers.

Some of the papers we will be making.

The journal will be similar to this one.

Typical fabric pages, I'm working on the sample at present and will show it as soon as it's completed.

This is the necklace.

Would love to see you there.

Pages and packs

We had our sketching group today and had a lovely visitor, Beverley, from Canada. Beverley's visiting her family in South Australia, she reads my blog and emailed me asking if I was holding any workshops this week as she would be in Melbourne. Her visit coincided with our sketching group so she came along. We all had a lovely time chatting and did get a little sketching done. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos amidst all of the talking. I've extended the group to cover mixed media and collage now too so it's a little more versatile.

Thank you for all of the lovely comments on my last post. I'm sorry I haven't been able to get around to everyone, but your comments are much appreciated.

I've been busy making some fabric pages for my next journal for Etsy. Elizabeth came for a play day a couple of weeks ago and suggested I might speed up the process by spending a whole day sorting out the fabrics, wools, silks, buttons etc for prospective pages, rather than selecting things as I go. I loved this idea and became so engrossed I ended up with twelve packs. I'm now thinking I might start selling some packs in my Etsy store.

Above are some of the pages for my next journal.

Above, these are just a few of the fabric packs I've put together to make my next pages. I still have to add buttons to some of them.

Be back with more show and tell shortly.

New Journal on Etsy

I've just listed a new journal on Etsy. This one features some white pages with my hand carved stamps decorating the base of the pages to avoid the blank page syndrome. There are two signatures with lots of fabric pages and my decorated paper pages. I've also added some brown paper pages and created original graphic drawings with markers.

SOLD

The cover and beaded spine

Fabric page on the left, brown paper page on the right with original graphics

Stamped white page, hand dyed doily and a decorated paper page

Decorated fabric pages with free motion stitch words. The flower on the right is made from a plastic paint palette.

Just a few more of the pages above.

I received this fabulous package today from Angela at Fenland Textile Studio

we did a swap, I sent Angela some of my sun printed fabrics.

These are some of Angela's beautiful daffodil printed fabrics, they are divine in the flesh. I intend to use them in a journal I will keep, as the daffodils are from where I used to live in England as a child.

There's also a lovely fabric brooch and buttons too.

On Saturday Patsy, Jacky, Dot and I got together and made some foam stamps and did some printing, we didn't start until the afternoon there was so much talking and show and tell in the morning we had a late start. Even so the ladies produced some wonderful stamps and printing, here's just a few.

Jacky's gorgeous design

Patsy's

and Dot's

great work girls.