croque-choux

This & That, and some fabric journal pages

The recent lack of posts relating to textile art is not only due to the fact that I've been tinkering with and upgrading my computer, but also because I'm upgrading the house with some storage space. This means that I'm adding some armoires around here and that my sewing/craft area has been temporarily redubbed the disaster area because of this. You never know how much stuff you actually have until you either move or decide to reorganize your closet space. So I haven't had any time to do anything crafty lately (sniff), but all this shuffling around of clothes, fabric, craft items, and photos did give me a chance to take out some of my recent projects and take stock of them.
The fabric book project and exchange is especially bothering me for a few different reasons. There were a lot of setbacks in this exchange, but the most frustrating thing was the number of dropouts that we experienced. I know this kind of thing can't be helped sometimes because life gets in the way at times, but sometimes... well, here is where I feel like ranting but I won't. All this has led me to think about these 2 pages, because these are "the ones that got away". I got back as many pages as I sent out, but I'm still trying to get over these two... I sent these out to my "swap buddy"- and never heard from them again. Not even a thank you, which really sucks! Throw away art. This probably is supposed to teach me some kind of lesson. I would tell you what the lesson was, but I'm still trying to figure that one out. The only thing this gave me a chance to do, was try my hand at making a little art doll- something I'd never done before. So maybe the lesson is hiding somewhere inside this little doll's beaded head.

Fabric Journal Page

I think I could use a color fix, and a little turquoise should do the trick. It's cold, foggy, and grey here- I think that Winter is finally getting to me! I thought I would post a fabric book page that I made last Summer for the "journaling with friends" theme. I sunprinted this one with Pebeo transparent fabric paints, and added a real miniature journal with little pages. A journal within a journal... I especially love how the hand came out. I bought a couple of them at the art store last Summer and wish I had bought more. They are like stencils or decals that you peel off when the fabric is dry, and they are reusable. This Summer I'll be sure to do a lot of sunprinting. That way I can use the resulting fabric during the long Winter months! I still can't post links correctly here, thanks to my ancient browser and operating system, but you can surf over to the Pebeo website and look for more info on Setacolor paints and sunprinting. Funny thing about journals... my teenage daughter just got ticked off at me because I wouldn't let her browse the journal I started recently. I was reluctant but when she insisted I said: "Okay, if you show me yours, I'll show you mine". End of discussion. Strange...

Make your own shi-sha mirrors

Necessity is the mother of invention they say... DIY shi-sha mirrors! How? Hang on, and I'll tell you. I always wanted to embroider shi-sha mirrors onto something, but could never find the little things in France nor did I want to spend a lot of money ordering them somewhere. One day I had a brain movement, and decided to make some out of an old CD. This worked really well as you can see by the fabric book page I'm posting today. But before you try this, a few words of caution: Be careful when cutting apart one of those freebie CDs you have lying around. I used old but still relatively sharp scissors, and I was wearing glasses to protect my eyes. Cut slowly, while turning the CD with your free hand. Also, make sure you get rid of any little plastic splinters you make while doing this, especially if you have toddlers or pets or if you like going barefoot at home :o) If I haven't scared you off, let me tell you that this was easy! The little circles you make may not seem perfectly round to you, and their edges may seem a little ragged, but once you embroider around them you can't tell. By the way, these little faux shi-shas being made of plastic, I hope that I don't have to tell you NOT to iron over them when you're done embroidering. On this particular block I was REAL careful not to do this, which didn't stop me from ironing over the bottom portion of this fabric page and burning away part of the sheer green fabric. Duh! I thought I was going to pass out with the iron still smoking in my hand, but then I noticed that it actually looked really interesting. Whew! A good thing for Margie who received this block. Her theme was Journaling with Friends. Anyway, perhaps you're wondering how to do shi-sha embroidery after reading this. I found a good tutorial here:
http://www.classicstitches.com/know_how/know_how.cfm?how_to_id=200&how_to_cat=Techniques
Have fun, and let me know if you try this!

Thought of the Day

I thought that this fabric page was appropriate to post today; its theme was "Words of Wisdom" I believe. I'm just getting over a migraine and a tummy bug, my e-mail hasn't been working since the 5th and I can't fix it, but things could be worse, hence the proverb. For now, I think I'll just go back to bed. Demain est un autre jour...

Pages of Summer

Since it is slightly less cold here than usual and I can actually hear birds singing this morning, I thought I would post these fabric book pages today. I sent these pages to Rachel in Texas whose theme was "Seasons", and so I did both pages on the one I liked best: Summer! One page has a soft retro look I really liked, though I am still not satisfied with the image transfer method I use. I have to use t-shirt transfer paper because Bubble Jet Set and all that are not to be found in France, hélas. I read somewhere though that if you put baking parchment over the transferred image and then iron over it again lightly, this will fix that unpleasant shine you get with those t-shirt transfers, so that's what I do. I PhotoShopped the images, and hand embroidered around them.The other page I made using part of a Tahitian beer can that I cut apart, believe or not, because I just love their logo. How's that for recycling? Later I found the perfect batik fabric to go with it in my stash, which was lucky. Then a few appliquéd flowers, a couple of cowry shells, and voila. It's great when things just come together like that; I wish this would happen more often!

December's Fabric Book pages

I'm working on a fabric book. I started doing these pages for a swap created by my cyber-friend Mieke in Holland (Hi girl!).This is a project I've been doing monthly since last Summer. Each month I make 2 fabric pages for one of the swap's participants, which is fun because every month I work on a different theme. Oh, my theme is "Fairies and Spirits of the Woods" by the way. The theme I worked on last month was "Into the Woods", for Lori. In return, I have received some really amazing art from my fellow (sister) swappers! I will try and make a special page for my fabric book and for the pages I make for the swap's participants soon, as soon as I get a handle on this blog thing which all is new to me. In the meantime, you can see the pages Rachel made on her site here: http://www.rcbeads.com/fabric_book_pages_round_robin.htm