It Was Just Lying Around...

...honest, Guv...  just bits and pieces found when going through bags and boxes of stuff... 

I've got very little of this kind of fabric, the odds and sods you gather when you make a lot of work, as I used to do.  A couple of pieces of hand dyed cotton velvet.  A bit of hand dyed linen, very frayed on one side.  Fragments of rust dyed silk.  A lacy doily, found in a charity shop, I think.  And then a collection of paper, with some woven plastic, which has been a net of some kind, vegetables, perhaps, I don't know, it was given to me a long time ago with no explanation.  So, given I don't have much of it, I've been collecting it together to put in one place.  Yesterday, though, while putting yet more stuff into boxes, I came across some Lutradur XL, already cut into small bits, mostly either postcard or Artist Trading Card (ATC) sizes, though there are some squares.  And I thought... I don't want to keep working on UFOs...I want to make something original.  Putting the two together seemed like a good idea, given that whatever I do is likely to be hand work.  Whilst you can actually see the floor in the studio, it's still not in a state that would let me set up the sewing machines, much as I'd like to (sigh). 

Sadly, I'm not able to work today; just having the idea is going to have to be enough.  I didn't sleep well last night, had a shower today in preparation for going out this evening, so I need to do as little as possible, to preserve the energy I have left (you'd be surprised how much energy it takes to have a shower). But that doesn't stop me thinking about how to approach this.  I enjoy working in series: it's a great way of exploring a small cache of materials like this, or a particular theme, and is also good if you feel stuck, and want to work your way out of so-called 'creative block'.  I've talked about series elsewhere on this blog, notably when I talk about the 'Meditation in Purple and Gold' series (one of the posts is here, if you're interested in that).  

In the meantime, though, I've just added a bit of lilac silk organza and some silk carrier rods to the mix...watch this space... did I say, I think it's going to be fun...