Another One Bites The Dust...

another hand made book, that is (hands up everyone who now has Freddie Mercury's dulcet tones in their ears...?).  Here is the reverse side of the purple watercolour landscape book, finally finished.

As a comparison, here's the front...

They're similar, but by no means identical.  If you look closely, you'll see the stitching on both sides.  Of course, the reverse side doesn't have the heavier thread, but it doesn't seem to have lost anything as a result.  I'd like to say it was carefully designed to fit the stitch...but it wasn't...   I'm pleased with it.  Will I add text?  Possibly.  I need to think about it, look at the piece for a while, see what suggests itself.  Writing, for me, is just the same as art making...it's fairly spontaneous, but also fairly focused. 

As you'll recall, the colour for the reverse side was transfer dye, and that means that I could get a minimum of three, and up to five (if I'm lucky) prints from the same piece of painted paper.  So I happened to have another piece of Lutradur XL cut and ready to make into a book, so it seemed reasonable to turn that into another purple landscape piece.

The colours here are more intense; that's because I ironed them on longer.  The amount of pressure and the length of time you iron a piece will affect the intensity of the colour transferred on the cloth.  I deliberately made the first of the transferred images relatively light, to reflect the tones on the painted side of the book, but this one, I wanted to be stronger.  I contemplated simply ironing onto the reverse, but decided that I was too tired, and that it would be much more interesting to add paint on the reverse, so that's for another day.  Two for the price of one...always a good deal.  Well, okay, one and a half...but who's counting...

It's Amazing...

...how much more energy I have if I don't fiddle about with a computer...  Someone cut a BT cable during some work, plunging Bo'ness and Linlithgow into internet darkness for a day and a bit.  So...I started to develop some new work (of which more anon) and existing work, namely the watercolour landscape I spoke of last time . 

I started by folding the book, so that I could see how each 'page' worked.  As it turned out, it also made the piece easier to handle with the sewing machine, as I could fold and unfold as I went along.  I'm happy enough with the colour and structure ... now, it needed stitch.

I started with some variegated cotton, in purples: it doesn't show up all that well in the main image, but you can see it nicely in the detail.

I wanted some sort of contrast, some heavier thread, so raked out some Madeira Decora, which I put in the bobbin.  I haven't used it in a very long time, and  struggled with it, somewhat...but decided to leave some of the catches in the stitching as they were, added texture ( she said firmly)...

Not necessarily a good decision...but I don't want to run the risk of redoing the stitch, and missing the original holes... so it's going to stay as it is.  So, as I say, not necessarily a good decision, but the best I can make in the circumstances.  I've kept it very, very simple.  I don't feel the need to add more stitch.  I had contemplated adding some applique...but I think that would be overkill.  A poem, perhaps, but no more visual imagery, I think there's enough going on as it is.  It's interesting to swap between the individual landscapes, as designated by the folds that make up the pages, and the entire landscape, across them all.  Anything else would be distracting.

Being a book, of course, this isn't the only side that's important.  The reverse needs to have treatment, too...  Some of the watercolour has leaked through, so the choice of colour is already made for me.

Why?  Because whatever I add, the watercolour would mix with it.  And, on reflection, I don't want the colour on the other side to shift at all...so I need to add dry colour, rather than wet. That rules out conventional paint of any kind.  I could fuse on fabric, but then I would lose the stitch, and I want to retain that.  So... I painted up a piece of paper with transfer dyes in these colours.  That monoprint I showed you was on a large piece of paper, and there was enough room on it to colour a piece for dye transfer, so that I was sure that it was both deep and wide enough to cover the entire strip. 

So far so good... now all I have to do is iron on the colour...

This wasn't the only piece I worked on yesterday... I went on and painted more paper, as I had the paints out anyway... printed with some bubblewrap...  and I designed and stitched another piece... and then had to lie down... but hey, I had fun.  More anon.

And Then I Thought...

...now what?  I'd made the pieces that needed to be made, that suggested themselves, and I really didn't know what to do next.  Yes, I'll be making more work about ME: in fact, I know what's next, and I'll work on that when I have a bit more energy.  In any case, it'll be done in stages, and won't be a book, or at least, it isn't a book in my head right now.  Though I will admit, it could be done in book form...would be quite effective... would be better... okay, that's that sorted.  Not an accordion book, though, a pamphlet.  But I digress.  As usual.  For now, for the accordion books, ME wasn't a theme I was ready to address.  I'm a great believer of building time into process; Borderlines is still waiting for stitch, but as I don't yet know what to do, I'm giving my unconscious more time to work it out.  Better that than doing something half hearted, and then hating the piece for not being quite what I wanted.

Anyway... I had another khadi natural dyed accordion.  The first page is very speckled with purplish dots, and there are a few scattered through the rest of the book.  That in itself is a lesson; there's something about working with the dyestuff in such a way as to ensure that the whole book is dyed in a similar fashion, rather than having one striking page and the rest, not so much.  I'm going to let myself off a scolding, though, given this was the first time I'd ever done natural dyeing.  You don't know what you don't know, in that situation.

Struck me that the palette for this book needed to complement that purple, so I got a piece of my own hand dyed silk organza in blue, the colour of sky when it's beginning to think about rain, but hasn't quite gone grey, yet, a greenish blue reminiscent of the ocean.  Wrapping was in my mind, too, because that had been an interesting experiment, and I wanted to try more of it.  What pulled it all together, though, was reading on FB that yesterday was Prince's 60th birthday (doesn't time fly when you're having fun).  Might not have been yesterday, of course, given how long it can take some posts to appear... but whatever.  Purple Rain, I thought   Book, I thought.  Wrapping, I thought.  And here it is.

There's no stitch in this piece at all; it would have been intrusive.  Everything is glued (Prym textile glue, for those of you who like to have the technical details).  I'm trying not to use bondaweb; it involves standing, and that gets very tiring, very quickly.  In any case, bondaweb doesn't seem to do very well with sheers, surprisingly, the glue is less intrusive, you can't see it unless you're looking for it, up close and personal with the piece.

The piece is wrapped using thread, this time, hand dyed cotton perle. a blue/purple melange.  I had fun varying the amount of thread I used, suggesting lighter and heavier showers (I hope). 

I changed the orientation of the silk, partly to add visual interest, partly because I wanted to suggest both sea and sky.  I'll leave it to you to decide which is which.  Nothing to do with the song; I don't know any of the lyrics, other than the chorus! 

And here's the back.

I like the way the thread slants, like rain in the wind.  I also like that the thread is pulled tight in places, giving shadows; you can see it in the page on the far left.  It wasn't deliberate, but it's an interesting effect, and I'll be storing it in the memory banks for further use.  I feel this is a bit sparse, to tell you the truth, even for my taste.  I'm contemplating adding the words 'purple rain' randomly on each page, which might help.  I first have to find my pens, though, and there's three different places they might be, and no guarantee I still have the kind I want to use.  I'm infinitely tidier than I used to be...but not that tidy... wish me luck!

I do love it when a plan comes together...especially when it's spontaneous.  To me, that's the best kind of art; it comes from the soul.

Tulip Temptation

I've always had a thing about tulips.  I wrote here about taking photographs of tulips in a graveyard, the trigger for all the macro photography I've done (and there has been quite a lot of it).  Robin's mother came to visit last weekend, clutching these beauties, a glorious mixture of colours.

There is something incredibly elegant about tulips, I've always thought.  Daffodils are frilly, snowdrops delicate, but tulips, to me at least, mark the cusp of spring and summer by the depth of their colour.  Admittedly, sitting here waiting for snow, thinking of summer seems overly optimistic, but a girl can dream...

And then, there's the interior of tulips, a fascinating contrast of colours and shapes, and the area on which I've tended to concentrate when taking photographs.

I like all of these images, but the one that really appeals is the last one, the yellow.  It's got it all; texture, intriguing shapes, variations in colour and form.  If I was looking for inspiration (and when am I not?), this would be The One.  And probably will be the basis for at least some drawings.  The others are ideal for printing and stitching, and each has its own distinct mood, but the yellow gives me more...so watch this space...

Colour Blind?

No, I'm not.  But I am easily led astray.  Looking at one of my friend Angela Huddart's posts on Facebook, I remembered that I wanted to continue the series of visual haiku I had called 'Meditation in Purple And Gold'.  This little series I talked about a little here.  Each quilt was made to a strict set of rules (as a haiku is written), and each one had a piece of a particular fabric, a lovely commercial purple with gold metallic swirls.   Sadly, I don't have any more of it, so I can't make more of the same.  And as Robin is still without a job (anyone want a good FD?), I don't want to spend any money (I don't have it to spend...), so buying more of it was out of the question.  So, I went a-hunting.  For purples.  For one cloth with a large scale print (ish), one with a variety, and one that was purple and gold.  Easy, right?

No.  I don't have any.  Nothing like.  I found some purple batiks, and put one to one side, but the rest didn't work... though I did like the look of a dark grey/almost black fabric with random leaves on it, so that was put to one side also.  Then there was the interesting print with orange in it...and a cat fabric...and something else...they went to a different side (as it were...), but with the same intention, of making meditative quiltlets.

I thought for a minute that I would have to buy some fabric after all... but then thought about the hand dyes.  I hadn't used them in the meditation quilts, but thought that I might print on one with gold paint... and above is the final selection.  Yeah, okay, the hand dye is closer to pink than purple, in that section at least, but it works really nicely with the rest of the cloth.  So we shall see what we get.  And you're not getting to see the other set...I didn't take a photo.

And as I was coming out of the cloth studio, I spotted a large piece of purple organza:

Okay, more lilac, really, with interesting areas of blue.  There must be a metre and a half, maybe two metres in the length.  It is crying out to be hand stitched, possibly in gold thread.  I'm whining in my head even as I type, because I know what a pain that's going to be... but you know how it is.  When the fabric talks, the artist listens...and gets on with it.  Wish me luck, I'll need it.  But first, I need to iron it...

Meditation in Purple and Gold : Changing My Mind...

...again.  Usually, when working like this I would just Make Another One...but when something doesn't feel right, I feel the need to improve it.  The last piece I made looked like this (you can read about it here)

But... like I said, it didn't feel right.  So... here it is again, but with the long strip removed, and replaced by a rectangle.

As well as changing the third piece of purple fabric, I've changed the orientation, and much prefer it that way.  It feels as if it has a strong horizontal flow, despite the obvious verticals.  Looking at it here, I'm wondering about moving that third piece of fabric down a bit...it might give a better balance...   Ultimately, there are so many choices... perhaps this one needs to be Left Alone, and the series of sketches continued. 

Meditation Continues...

Wonder if anyone noticed the not so deliberate mistake in the last post?  The stitch was large scale, sure enough, increasing progressively across the piece, but it was made using the purple metallic thread, doubled, rather than Decora.  This quilt, however, does feature Decora (knew I'd used it somewhere...).

The third fabric is working quite well; it's a floral dress fabric, a light weight muslin, close to cheesecloth, and therefore difficult to work with and much lighter than the quilting cottons I'm working with.  I debated the wisdom of moving from one problem fabric to another, but decided that the print was what I needed.  I think it was the right decision, all told.  This piece has a 'dangly bit'; I wanted to emphasise the purple verticals; the appliquéd strip combined with the large stitches does just that.

Blogging, I think, is as much about talking to oneself as it is talking to an audience.  I had taken and edited this photo yesterday, in preparation for today's post.  When I looked at it, though, I realised that I had put the dangling strip too high on the quilt; it looked unbalanced.  So, reader, I unpicked it, and replaced it.

In this version, it is lower...but it's still not right.  And it wasn't until writing this post that I realised why; it looks like a bit of washing hanging on a line.

And this is the final version.  I'm still mulling about whether I should have it starting up above the section with the gold lines...but I don't want to lose the length of that vertical, so I suspect it will now stay as it is.  Thank heaven for blogging...and photographs...and scissors...