Last day

of the beaches course. What have I achieved?

Well, I have made some stencils: done a small free machined piece: dyed some fabric with indigo and got half way through making a small fabric collage.

Have I enjoyed it? That's a tricky one! I have met some very friendly people and have learned a lot. There have been a few sticky moments as you'd expect when twelve people who don't all know each other very well are thrown into a confined space and although at times give and take has been a bit thin on the ground, it has been fun.

But I really hadn't expected to miss my DH quite so much, or my new home and that has made it a bit difficult at times. I have found that despite my love for textile art, I am not driven by it and so don't feel the need to spend every waking minute drawing, painting and stitching as some of the others seem to do, so I suppose that means that I'm not a "true artist". However, I now feel that my creative juices have had the kick start they needed and I have found the confidence to just do what I want to do without feeling that I need to beat myself up for not doing more. Standing and looking at what's around, letting ideas arrive on their own and just jotting down a few notes is as far as my planning projects has gone but that process will go on even after I've left here.

We have had some lovely convivial meals courtesy of Sally and Tim who own the farm. Looking out of the bathroom window at night I can see the lights of Polruan twinkling in the distance and if the sun is shining, Gribben head is visible with its red and white tower standing out on the cliff top. There has been moonlight and wonderful starry skies and indeed the setting here is tranquil and very beautiful. We have new lambs who are already forming gangs even though they're only a few days old! I haven't been down to the beach but if the weather is kind I can always come again and do that and I do have to ask myself how many shells I really need.

Today there was a beautiful sunrise that has set me thinking about new beginnings. I'm looking forward to going home tomorrow to start making things for the various exhibitions that are coming up.

I will also be taking some lovely memories with me and hope to keep in touch with some of the new friends I've made.

Now I need to go and have some breakfast and get ready for the day!

Course update

There are twelve of us here at Bodgrugan Barton for the course. Everyone is really keen and there are bags of stuff all round the studio.

A vivit to Hemmick beach yesterday because the tide was too far in for a visit to the beach below the farm. This has inspired me so I'm planning on getting out my sewing machine and my soluble fabric!

More tomorrow after the storm has passed.

Getting down to it!

I have spent most of the week getting things ready to take with me to the beaches course. We have to take enough stuff to be able to plan a project, make images etc.. So I've been collecting fabric, threads, sketch books, pencils, paints and all manner of things but what I seem to be unable to collect are ideas about what I actually want to do. So devoid of ideas, here is the little goody bag I've put together to exchange with one of the other ladies on the course.

My public aim is to use the time on the course to design a quilt that I can put into the competitions at the Festival of Quilts and I'd intended it to be inspired by the sea since we are living so close to it and can even see it from our bedroom window! But in private, I'm just hoping that I can have a good time playing with my toys because as far as the actual design is concerned, well that is still someway off!

Yesterday we managed to have a walk down to the beach after the rain had stopped. The sun came out and it was quite warm, but very windy and the waves were most impressive. Trying to capture the waves with the camera proved to be more difficult than I thought especially since the sun was shining directly on the camera screen making it impossible to see what I was taking. This is where I thought I should have taken my sketchbook, but what with the camera, binoculars, water bottle etc, etc I was already quite laden!

These children were really having fun surfing the waves on their body boards. I wonder if they do a wet suit in my size!

 These patterns in the sand may be useful for my design and I'm thinking of using this to make a printing block.

Today I spent the morning dyeing some silk fibres which I can use to make silk paper and also some handspun yarn to use in the project. Here they are sitting in their bags for the time until I can see what lovely colours (or not) I've got. Next I will get out some fabric and dye that too.

My mind is also buzzing with anticipation because I was asked if I would like to join a local textile art group. I was invited to go to their meeting and take some of my work so that they could see what sort of work I could do. Not really an audition as such, but they were keen to know what sort of standard of work they could expect. Apparently they thought my work was good enough! They are an exhibiting group and are planning an exhibition in 2015 and I am very honoured to be invited to join them.

The work for the exhibition is to be based on the china clay industry, especially the museum at Carthew near St Austell. Yet another project to start planning but there is quite a bit of time and it may be that if I manage to get something made that might go the FOQ.

Then there is the Contemporary Quilt Suitcase challenge for which the theme is "all in a days work" and I'm planning something inspired by watching a swarm of bees feasting on ivy pollen. So I'm in the process of making stamps, silk paper leaves and oh yes, getting some fabric dyed.

Here are the beginnings of the stamps and also a close up of the worker going about his daily business!

Busy times are ahead and at last I feel I'm beginning to get back to work!

All at sea.....

..and surrounded by boxes but now we have finally moved in and have started unpacking I am beginning to think about getting back to making things. Sadly most of my books, fabric, threads etc are all still in boxes and my cabin is not yet ready for me to inhabit, so things are getting a bit untidy.

Our local craft group meets on Wednesday mornings in the WI hall in Mullion and I'm going along hoping to get to know a few people. Everyone is so friendly and at long last I think I'm beginning to settle here, but it's still a long way to go anywhere and I think that most of my purchases for textile things will have to be made online.

On the upside, I have been invited to join a textile art group and went to my first meeting recently. They were all very nice and said lots of nice things about the work I took along to show them. They decided that I was good enough to join them and I feel much happier about joining them rather than a traditional patchwork group. As a consequence, I went along to a recent meeting of the Embroiderer's Guild and have rejoined.

So now that I have started plying with my toys in earnest, I thought I would try out some new techniques. I read somewhere that it was possible to transfer images  to fabric using transparency film. This is normally used in making slides for computer presentations. Here are my attempts.

 These photos were played about with in Paint Shop Pro and printed out for reference before printing onto the transfer film. Getting the printer to print on the film proved to be difficult and in the end I had to tape each sheet to a backing piece of paper to get it to go through.  I decided to transfer the images onto paper rather than fabric at this stage.

This transfer was made using Mod Podge acrylic medium and it has sort of worked, but I used a large paintbrush to apply the medium and you can clearly see the brush strokes. Not really what I wanted.

This transfer was made using another acrylic texture medium which has only picked up bits of the ink. So not really a success, but perhaps it might be a technique that I can use with a bit more practice.

So the next venture into image transfer came from reading Julie's blog in which she describes how to use a screen printing technique with Inktense sticks and acrylic medium to get an image onto fabric. See her post for details of the process.

My results are disappointing to say the least and even worse, the screen is now permanently stained and is not usable because Inktense sticks are permanent on both paper and fabric if they get wet! HO HUM!!!!

So here is the first print made by spraying the powder that dropped through the screen as I was drawing.. Unfortunately I overdid the water which formed large puddles and I didn't use enough of the inktense sticks so not much of it came through the screen.

 Here is the print onto cotton sateen using Mod Podge acrylic medium to push the dye through the screen .A very stiff surface and very blotchy result.

 This is the piece of silk organza in which you can see that only part of the image actually transferred,
and here is my poor screen, now permanently dyed  so I will need to replace the fabric and redo the tape before I can do anymore printing with it.

Still, I may be able to use the fabric with the other pieces and make a collage to practice on.

In the meantime, we have had a weekend away, caring for the aged relative, now 98 and still going strong and as it was a lovely sunny afternoon on Saturday we went to the beach.

And from this lovely jumble we collected.....

these which will be so useful for my beach course which is only a fortnight away!

Now I'm off to get mt sketch book to do some drawings. Image transfer with a pencil is something I can do. The rest will have to wait until I'm in the mood!