Artsy crafts projects

Now that the second Artsycrafts weekend has taken place I can show you the fabulous projects we made.  First up is the canvas in the Mediterranean mix colourway and it's a lovely sampler of a multitude of techniques and products that we got to try. Although we all started from the same point everybody's was different and as I went round the tables looking at all the others I wanted to try each colour combination, they all looked so great.  Notice the rose?  I'd seen the instructions for these on various people's blogs but had always thought life was too short.  Well, now I've made one, it looks great, but ... life's too short!

This is the tree we made, all the embellishments are made of metal.

And finally this cute birdhouse, again the piece behind the birds is embossed metal. It was a wonderful weekend and I'm thrilled with the pieces I made and gateful to Lin and Leandra for the inspiration.

Hands up!

I've used my hand as inspiration for several pieces, mainly because I can't draw but even I can manage to draw round my hand, just like we all used to do when we were kids.  This first image is a machine embroidered piece I did quite a while ago as a mini quilt and which I've always been pleased with.

I then decided to use my hand as a shape to fill in with zentangles and this is the result.

And then I looked at this and thought how good it would look embroidered.  I dug out a piece (very bright!) of fabric that I tie-dyed ages ago when my daughter and I had a fun session, and this is the result:

I really enjoyed doing this, I made it up as I went along rather than drawing it on paper first and copying, I just used a disappearing marker pen to draw lines as I was about to stitch them.

Then, on Chris Gray's blog herehttp://chris-gray-textile-art.blogspot.com/2010/05/on-roll.html (always inspiring, love what she does) she had a link to the Henna page which is a wonderful resource full of patterns used in henna designs on hands.  Like Chris I particularly liked the North African designs and I spent a wonderfully relaxing evening yesterday in front of the tv drawing triangles.

Don't these look great!  The patterns are all broken down to their simplest elements then you add more detail each time to get to the more complex designs.  Drawing for dummies!  So I'm on a roll now and considering how I can stitch these triangles into a band sampler on canvas ....  I love it when all these random inspirations come together.

Artsycrafts weekend again

Well, I had a smashing weekend at the Artsycrafts event run by Leandra from Paperartsy and Lin from L. B. Crafts.  The weekend was very well organised, they had excellent support from Jo, Lynne and Karen and the whole thing was a pleasure from beginning to end.  It was very fast paced though, and they worked us hard but it was lovely to have 3 completed projects (all but a few tweaks and final sticking down) to bring home.  Another group are going in a couple of weeks time so they have asked us not to show the pieces until after that but they were all crammed with techniques and interesting products that it was great to have a play with.
Lin has some pictures up on her blog Yours Artfully and I am in one of the photos - thankfully she caught me when I was actually working hard!
Now I have to start saving to go again ....

Artsycrafts weekend

I'm lucky enough to be going to the Artsycrafts weekend on Saturday organised by Lin from L.B. Crafts and Leandra from Paperartsy.  Lin has promised we will get messy and suggested gloves for those who don't like mucky hands but I reckon gloves are for wimps!  Coming back with inky fingers will prove I've been!  I've also got birthday money to spend in a relatively guilt-free way so that will add to the pleasure.  Good fun ahead.