Playing with bean cans

I've been so busy lately that I haven't logged onto my blog for three or four days so it was good to catch up with the blogs I like to look at especially when there are new posts ! I have been working on my travelling journal this week and have fiddled about with the cover for ages. Paper is a very unforgiving medium when you machine into it - there's certainly no going back !

 I took a day out last Friday to our Pateley textile group. We had bought in a tutor , Michelle Pilkington ,to show us some techniques with tin and invited two non-members, Joan and Sue, to join us and keep the cost down. Don't know that I will make great use of the techniques but had a really good day - lots of laughing - Joan particularly, as I'm sure Hazeltwig will agree is a very droll lady !
I made a front for a small pink pig book but polished it so much I lost most of the colour I had carefully added with a blow torch - you can still see the ridges on the bean can though.

Help

This is the current fabric sample I'm working on. It is a representation of the river ure, which runs through Masham, bordered by it's fields of different hues.

At the moment it's not sewn and I was playing with a wider/narrower river. I was fancying machining writing along the length of the river - a la Annabel Rainbow - either about the course of the river from its source at Ure Head , down Wensleydale to Masham and then on via the Ouse and Humber to the North Sea or a general river poem ( which I haven't looked for yet ).
I have a lovely piece of indigo-dyed fabric which I shibori stitched in a lot of detail to represent the movement of water but the colour is all wrong with my dyed fabric fields - altogether too soft .I could handstitch on my fields rather like the first fabric sample I did and perhaps print 'Masham man' on the river - or any or none of the above ! Just a bit lost at the moment - help !

More Masham

I have also looked at the geological map of Masham.

Seem to have got it in the wrong orientation ! Never mind - I was just looking at the colours used for the various substrata - not particularly well reproduced on my computer - and looked for scraps of dyed fabrics to approximate them.

Again I have used handstitching after making my 'key' to the map. I enjoyed this but still couldn't see a final piece in my mind's eye.

Masham

For my Ineke Berlyn class I have been working up ideas based on maps of Masham. I started with a simplified drawn outline and essentially, coloured it in.

After this I sampled a fabric image painted with thickened procion and added handstitch but wasn't much taken with it.

Then, while I was looking at one map, I noticed a man's outline in the map - my camera needs upgrading so I don't know whether you can see him in this next photo.

This is a google earth image. His head is centre top, with his spine , arms and legs extending from it. Once I had seen it, it jumped out of every map I looked at . I have coloured him in on the next image so you can see him better.

So , Masham Man was born and I have been playing with him ever since.

Don't know yet whether he will feature in my final piece but he's certainly a consideration.

Shameful Cake

As you are failing to post blogs ... I am going to make you feel really bad by putting a picture of the delicious Orange and Almond Cake I made for my birthday this week.  It has orange zest and juice in it, plus orange liquer and it is a bit like a Lemon Drizzle Cake.  Dead easy to make too.

ENJOY ... at least this way it's not fattening

Packaging

This morning I received a delivery of the fair trade coffee I buy in bulk online - thrifty or what ! Anyway, I was so taken by the packaging, all recycled of course, that I had to photograph it for future textile inspiration.
This first one is like a nest inside the box

The coffee was cocooned inside and wrapped in more lattice- cut card

Here's a closer look at the lattice - surely I will be able to make something of this idea - perhaps a couple of journal pages - who knows ?

snow

We went out to eat last night as P has his op on Monday so we can't go out for my birthday. The forecast snow arrived as we were eating so when we got back I ran out to the garden to grab a few pics.

My birdie candle holder looked like this but by morning had grown a little !

I am tired of snow now and would like it to go away but was greatly impressed by the snow angel sculpture on hazeltwigs blog - perhaps next winter I'll try my hand at a sculpt !