Monday 28 February 2011

Experimenting with fire and thread

Bonded fused and daubed in gel ... three ways of trying to form a nest with the ball of thread still attached - I want it to look like it "made itself". Yesterday, WMBM went off to a rural fire brigade "thingy" (referred to as a community day and a look at the new fire engine). I got to play with my new toy, a gas fired flame thingy, after a breakfast of fresh fruit and yoghurt.  Some things didn't go so well today  ... I set fire to stitched layers of silk, organza, something unknown but now clearly flammable, metal flakes, emu feathers  .. more metallic stitches and Shiva oil in distressed synthetic velvet ... and ended up with a flaming mess. So much fun though even if it went the way of the Tassie tiger. Can still smell singed something. It was so worth the effort. I think WMBM is eyeing off my new flame thrower for himself. On quick reflection, his alert and alarmed look may have had something to do with having just returned from the rural fire brigade meeting.  Hmmm.  Used Mel's method of transferring photos to fabric - rubbed all the photo backing off and then could not remember how to do the rest so carefully placed the "photo" face up onto a new piece of fabric the folded and stitched the raw edges forward over the photo edges... and gelled it all again - this  has potential to be either a postcard, or wheelie bin filler. Jury still out. The Sunday afternoon studio clean and sort happened rather late this afternoon (also known as it's-just-too-hot-to-vacuum-the-house-now). The effort is classified as "housework" but it is a labour of love. One day I WILL use 43 x 500g empty yogurt containers with lids, 54 chocolate wrappers carefully collected by work colleagues, and 50+ hand dyed recycled tea bag papers ... and I'm not sure why I bought tissue paper last week when there's sufficient to put a decent epidermis across a footy field in one of the "useful boxes".  One of the best things today was playing with the newly acquired embellisher - second hand and like new - loads of directionless fun as it's a whole new world for me.   When I'd run out of fibre to whack, I made postcards out of one of the flood pieces from earlier in the month and now it's time to get ready for another week. When did we eat that much yoghurt?

2 comments:

jan said...

Sounds like you had a fun afternoon Ali - just be very careful with your new flame thrower as my friend managed to burn herself very badly and also destroyed part of her kitchen.

Shirley--Knot-y Embroidery Lady said...

You are taking your artistry to new heights - Up in smoke. I am glad you are ok!