Well, can't believe I haven't posted here since October. I seem to have been busy doing odds and ends and most of my stitching has been for christmas presents. Always a problem for a blogger as you can't say too much about it. I saw a picture of some candles decorated with machine embroidered motifs so I made loads using commercial patterns on the computerised machine - here is just one.
I also made this little cushion as a last-minute gift for someone who has a westie - again a commercial embroidery design and some very simple patchwork as a border.
And here are my ATCs for the January swop on Facebook on the theme of musical.
As usual, I have been getting distracted - this time by my brother's present to me...
...an electronics kit (and my sister gave me the book to go with it). It is a great kit, designed for people with no experience to learn to programme a microcontroller. It connects to a computer via USB to download your program and then runs from the mains or a battery. You can use inputs such as buttons, tilt switches or pressure pads and control output to eg LEDs or motors, making interactive objects. I have spent a few happy evenings working through the sample programs and then writing my own to understand how it works. So, where is all this leading? Answer - to incorporating electronics into textiles using a LilyPad - a microcontroller designed to be sewn into wearables. No particular project in mind at the moment, but I am sure something will happen. For more info see the Arduino website and Leah Buechley's LilyPad pages and to see what people have made with a LilyPad, have a look at this video on YouTube.
And finally while I'm in a high-tech mood, check out this site and meet the RepRap - a self-replicating desktop sized 3d printer you can build at home and then use to produce the parts to make another one (you may have seen an article in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago). I feel sure there will be ways of using this with textiles...
Showing posts with label ATC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ATC. Show all posts
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Ceili Headbands Done and A Tiny Animation
It took a while but they are finally done - 17 headbands for the dance school - and the girls wore them for the All Englands competition last weekend. Here are a few - the photo doesn't do justice to the effect of the crystals which really sparkled on stage.
For the September ATC swap, we had to include something beginning with our initial. I used some of the scraps from the monoprinting I did last month to make J is for Jugs.
Finally, thanks to Sharon over on Pintangle for highlighting this animation by Aardman featuring Dot, the world's smallest stop motion animation character, as she tries to escape from an unravelling textile. The 'making of' film is also fascinating.
For the September ATC swap, we had to include something beginning with our initial. I used some of the scraps from the monoprinting I did last month to make J is for Jugs.
Finally, thanks to Sharon over on Pintangle for highlighting this animation by Aardman featuring Dot, the world's smallest stop motion animation character, as she tries to escape from an unravelling textile. The 'making of' film is also fascinating.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Keep forgetting to take photos...
..of the ATCs I have been making for the monthly swops. Finally remembered for the June ones so here they are - the theme was black and white plus one colour.
I have also been keeping busy fiddling with my daughter's Irish dance dress. I got it secondhand and knew it needed a bit of TLC, but when I looked inside, I realised that under the layer of organza is a glorious fluorescent orange. So I decided to cut away the top layer...
..and I am still doing it. It would probably have been quicker to have made a new dress! I am also making some headbands for the ceili team, I will show you when they are done - expect bling!
I have also been keeping busy fiddling with my daughter's Irish dance dress. I got it secondhand and knew it needed a bit of TLC, but when I looked inside, I realised that under the layer of organza is a glorious fluorescent orange. So I decided to cut away the top layer...
..and I am still doing it. It would probably have been quicker to have made a new dress! I am also making some headbands for the ceili team, I will show you when they are done - expect bling!
Monday, March 01, 2010
February ATCs
Well, I've been so busy posting to my other blog last week that I forgot I hadn't updated this one. I have decided to make a hanging for the Gloucester exhibition in August and count it as one of the pieces for my course, so if you wander over to Gallimaufry you can see how I am getting on.
Meanwhile - here are the ATCs I made for the February swop on Facebook on the theme of love. They are made from torn bits of magazine pages that have been scrunched up momigami style, paper bags and offcuts of painted paper that I made decorated for another project. Plus a little bit of free machining.
The other thing I have done recently is visit the RWA in Bristol which was showing two exhibitions - Celebrating Paper, and Urban Evolution - Anne Desmet. Of the two, it was Anne Desmet's incredibly detailed prints which caught my imagination on the day, especially the ones which were cut up or broken. I really liked her collaged fragments - small pieces of prints of buildings applied to fragments of glass, mirror or tiles, suggesting decay, destruction and dereliction. In her British Museum series, the prints were made on semi-transparent Japanese paper so that they came through lightly on the back. She had then cut the print into strips, turning over alternate ones and transposing them from left to right creating a new, more complex image that is still recognisable.
On a similar theme, in my local butcher's, the mirror behind the counter combines a normal mirror with one-way glass in narrow vertical stripes. When look into it, you get a fascinating combination of a broken reflection of the people in the shop mixed in with the movements of the butcher cutting and packing in the next room. I have often stood there and thought I should use it as a starting point for a design. It's on the Big List of Things To Do.
Meanwhile - here are the ATCs I made for the February swop on Facebook on the theme of love. They are made from torn bits of magazine pages that have been scrunched up momigami style, paper bags and offcuts of painted paper that I made decorated for another project. Plus a little bit of free machining.
On a similar theme, in my local butcher's, the mirror behind the counter combines a normal mirror with one-way glass in narrow vertical stripes. When look into it, you get a fascinating combination of a broken reflection of the people in the shop mixed in with the movements of the butcher cutting and packing in the next room. I have often stood there and thought I should use it as a starting point for a design. It's on the Big List of Things To Do.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
November ATC swop
Another varied group of ATCs arrived this week from the November "Tis the Season" swop on Facebook. I was especially pleased with the reference to the Archers in one as I am a hopeless addict. The organiser Sue has posted pictures of all of them on her blog Crafters Corner so you can still see the ones I made.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
October ATC swap and some fun stuff.
One of the other places I like to browse at random is Instructables - here you will find out how to do/make anything you can imagine. It is mostly electronics, DIY etc but there are all sorts of craft projects too. I like the ones by Lynne Bruning using electronics in fabric and clothing - see below for her latest one and her website is here.
flexible LED eTextile ribbon array - More DIY How To Projects
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Happy Hallowe'en.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
August ATC - Sea and Sand
A quick post to show my ATC for the August Facebook swop on the theme of summertime. Wool tops felted on the embellisher with a little bit of stitching added. The organiser, Sue, has started a blog called Crafters Corner where you can see all the ATCs in this swop group.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Catching Up (2) - July ATCs
Sunday, July 12, 2009
ATCs From June Swop
Monday, June 22, 2009
ATC swap for June
Here are two ATCs made for a Facebook swop on the theme of 'things with wings'. I digitised a drawing of a dragonfly and stitched it out in different ways. The one on the left is scrumpled tissue on pelmet vilene painted with layers of Moonshadow mist. On the right is hand-dyed fabric topped with silk paper and then stitched.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Pink!
I mentioned a while ago that I had joined an ATC swop group on Facebook - well the Feb/March swop fell apart but a new volunteer has come forward so we are trying again, the theme this time is My Favourite Colour. Now, my favourite colour is pink - not the nice pastel shades but the glorious and outrageous bright pinks. It doesn't often appear in my pieces because it is too...well...pink but I have been hoarding a fragment of rather lurid spandex that called to me one day from a remnants basket so this seemed the time to use it. I backed it with pelmet vilene and free machined with about 10 shades of pink following the pattern on the fabric, leaving some of the sparkly bits showing through. The photo shows the ATC on top of the original fabric - people with a nervous disposition look away now (although I am not sure the camera does it justice).
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
First attempts at ATCs
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