Rachel's Melted Fabrics

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02:24pm 12/04/2011

mood:

chipper

Most of my sewing recently has been practical - cloth nappies and the like but I decided to make a little blanket out of t-shirt scraps yesterday.

It's not exactly texturally exciting yet but I love the idea of using up all those odd patches.

(2 stitches | Stitch me up)

Recycling for Textiles

01:35pm 25/03/2011

mood:

busy

I've almost finished working on my new textiles e-book about recycling for textiles - what a relief - it's been hanging around on my harddrive, half-finished, for about 5-6 years.

I'm just reading it through today and hopefully it'll be done later tonight.

More info about it can be found here.

The images above are from a piece I made for the e-book, made from all sorts of bits and pieces I found on my studio floor, wired together and sprayed gold. The whole piece doesn't exactly look great but I love these details!

( More wrapped bits... )

(Stitch me up)

I've got Personality!

11:22am 22/03/2011

mood:

amused

This was in the Squidoo "content university" e-mail today - a link to my lens:

"Or, hey, organize a debate instead. The debate lens Silence vs. Sound: Which is better for drowning out noisy neighbors? is funny (and surprisingly useful) and has a lot of personality (hint: can't fake personality) behind it."

Shame personality doesn't equal loads of money lol!

(5 stitches | Stitch me up)

Fluffy Madonnas for Sale!

03:04pm 19/03/2011

mood:

hopeful

Just uploaded my first ebid auction.

I'm planning to auction a lot more of my textiles to make more space.

Two fluffy textile "Madonnas" for £20 buy it now or £10 first bid.

(Stitch me up)

Week Roundup

02:07pm 18/03/2011

mood:

energetic

I think I’m going to start sending out my textiles newsletters every month instead of every week so I’ll have a lot more to fill them. I don’t think I have enough to say this week without annoying people!

This week I did collect together fabrics to use for the new bag I was planning on making. (I also found a whole heap more of appropriately coloured fabric in a bag stuffed under the spare bed – there seems to be bags of fabric stuffed into every corner of this place!).

( More decluttering stuff... )

(Stitch me up)

Textiles Takeover - eek!

12:19pm 28/01/2011

mood:

overwhelmed

This year I'm planning to get some control over my textiles and craft supplies.

I managed to master my book collection last year - getting it down to just the beloved books and getting rid of all the dross/reading through stuff I hadn't read despite owning it for 10+ years. I've still got a few books that I know are just going to be one-time reads before I pass them on and probably a medium-sized shelf-full of books I haven't read yet - which is much, much better than it was!

I had the sudden urge to do some spring cleaning this week and, as I went, started pulling out all the textiles I could find and putting them in the spare room.

I know a lot of this stuff isn't even on my website as I went from selling the stuff I made to writing about the stuff I made.

I ended up with this - half of the room covered in stuff (and still a few other bits and pieces hanging around the house):

There's a double bed under there somewhere. The rest of the house looks good and uncluttered now!!

That suitcase at the bottom is full of unfinished projects. There are also some unfinished ones in amongst the stuff on the bed too. Some I'm going to have to just let go of, I think, because I've just lost interest, others just need a little bit of finishing.

I'm planning on tackling my fabric collection this year but that's going to mean more textiles.

I think a lot of this is going to find its way onto ebay if it's not an old favourite because it's hard to cope with this much stuff hanging around!

(2 stitches | Stitch me up)

Marbles

04:52pm 19/01/2011

mood:

good

Today I've been working into my Arctic Textiles piece (originally blogged about here).

I found some marbles I had left over from a few years ago from when I was making marble bags and decided to trap them under a layer of organza on top of the melted textiles. I figured they'd do well as air bubbles in ice.

The light's a little weird because the sun was setting.

I love yoyos so I'm planning on filling some of the space with blue and white yoyos.

(4 stitches | Stitch me up)

Space Brainstorm

11:02am 12/01/2011

mood:

okay

Just saw this etsy video this morning which I loved.

This is the etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/stellarquilts

I love these quilts in particular: http://www.etsy.com/listing/43087898/r136-in-30-doradus

http://www.etsy.com/listing/55344826/jet-in-the-carina-nebula

And this bedset: http://www.etsy.com/listing/44252264/space-battle-pillow-shams

The video made me crave Silent Running.

I've been wondering what to do with all my black fabric. I rarely ever use black because I've mostly layered my fabrics under ivory organza so it ends up looking grey and dull. Maybe a space project with no top layer would be fun.

( Ideas for a Melted Space Exploration )

(Stitch me up)

Arctic Textiles

02:35pm 06/01/2011

mood:

bouncy

Eek! It's almost been a month since I last posted.

Well here's what I have been up to on the textiles front.

I started working on little experiments for the Winter Masque project.

They were all handstitched because I was staying with my aunt and without my sewing machine:

( Lots more under the cut... )

(10 stitches | Stitch me up)

The Winter Masque

01:50pm 10/12/2010

mood:

busy

I forgot to post about the Winter textiles challenge I've set for my Yahoo group.

Everyone is invited to the Winter Masque but that means icy dresses, masks, tiaras, purses, wraps, and items of decor (like wall hangings) will be needed to celebrate the occassion.

The basic idea is to make something (involving stitch and/or fabric) based on Winter and there are prizes (so far a couple of textiles pieces and my e-books on CD - you can find out more on the lens).
I had a good brainstorming session and decided what I'm going to make for the Winter Masque.

I really love the idea of looking at the Arctic for inspiration. I'm thinking of making a wall hanging that's patched together from lots of little experimental textiles pieces. It's been a long time since I had a good old experiment.

I collected this pile of fabric:

I fancy trying this again but in icy colours:

And this weird glue thing:

I’ve been searching for inspiration for my Winter Masque challenge – I love this print from Zazzle:

" ARCTIC SUNSET " by Robert Singletary by singletary
Large format printing by Zazzle

And

ebren sent me this link a while back of the most gorgeous iceberg images I've ever seen so I'll be taking inspiration from those too.

This week I also finished this wrap for my mum:

My Blue and white icy Fan n feather organic wrap

(3 stitches | Stitch me up)

Today:

11:47pm 07/12/2010

mood:

grateful

I carded some of my Mum’s friend’s sheep’s wool for my crochet shrug. I processed it myself – it’s probably not the best quality or the best carded, spun or crocheted but I love the way it looks – all rustic and twisty!
I carded the wool in my frosty back yard whilst listening to the nearby sheep.

I did my accounts – which is difficult when you suddenly lose all the receipts and papers you need down the back of the inside of the filing cabinet and the drawers won’t come out. I had to resort to covering a fork in packing tape and try and stick the pages onto the end of the fork! I think I got most of what I needed.

I made a casserole out of leftovers.

And here is a picture of my granny’s old Sunday handbag for

rachelswardrobe .
Nice and durable and the perfect size for a Bible!

(4 stitches | Stitch me up)

Here’s some of what I have been up to in the last few weeks...

12:34pm 03/12/2010

mood:

calm

My Granddad died in the middle of the month. He was 97 and an amazing person. I wish I had known him a bit better.

I wrote 200,000 words for Nanowrimo, despite getting really disillusioned in the middle of the month. And I managed to vlog every day.

I gave up TV and moves. Not sure for how long and I have been allowing myself to watch Youtube vids and a few little things – like Sense and Sensibility.

My PC exploded with, I think, 4 days to go on Nanowrimo – and I think I had 35k to do still, so I had to commandeer my partner’s PC.

My PC still remains dead but I think this could be a good thing because I spend all day on it – it’s good to be forced away.

I finished my Autumn freeform wrap – worn here by my mum (click for bigger pics on Flickr):

And here by me:

And a detail:

I’ve started working into my Rohan piece:

I’ve set a 2 month challenge with prizes for my textiles newsletter group thingy. More on that later, I imagine!

(6 stitches | Stitch me up)

Thank you, Tricia :D

11:12am 02/12/2010

mood:

excited

I've been having some really good post since I finished Nanowrimo - it's like getting an award for hard work!

A proper catch up entry will come later but I just wanted to thank

tricia_anders for the awesome package that arrived in the post this morning!

My awesome prize for the Hairball Monster competition :D

There was so much gorgeous stuff that I could hardly concentrate on one thing before the next caught my eye! I will have to take a new piece out every hour to appreciate it properly!

I'm sure most of the people in my Friends List know Tricia but here is her website.

(2 stitches | Stitch me up)

Mid month catch up.

11:12pm 15/11/2010

mood:

okay

Although I haven’t been posting my Nanovlogs here I have been making them diligently every day come rain or shine, massive spots on my face or clear complexion (I never get spots and then suddenly when I'm doing daily vlogs I get the biggest spots ever!), words, or no words. Well, I have got words every day but on Friday I think I only wrote 100.

Last week I had a few crises – first I was wondering whether I shouldn’t be rushing all these words because I might be making a big mess that would take me longer to untangle – since then I’ve come to realise that making a big hurried mess is something I enjoy and I want to get back to that because the untangling bit is all kinds of super fun.

Then I had a massive crisis of conscience about the stuff I was writing – not that it was shocking or controversial in any way and I’m not sure I can explain what I mean there but it’s something that I’ve since come to terms with so it’s all cool now.

And I was just blue and confused about life for a while.

Anyway, I decided to slow down a little bit with my writing to give me time to think and because I wanted to play with Scrivener for a change. Although in some respects I really regret not keeping up with the frenzy of words. I’m getting slowly back into that now I have a better idea about which scenes I need to fill in.

Scrivener is all kinds of awesome for someone like me who doesn’t write in a linear fashion. I’ve been working out which bits should go where and dissecting all the stuff I’ve written in the last 2 weeks to decide what is left to write.

I’m getting pretty excited about some older manuscripts that I want to start playing with in Scrivener too.

Also I have finished knitting my Riders of Rohan background. It looks like a big ugly mess from a distance so hopefully I can work on that. Sort of like some limp wet rags hanging up!

Now I just need to be brave enough to start sewing into it. That white/green patch is going to be covered in organza and fabric bits of some sort and stitched into and I think there’s going to be a girl standing there. Well, that’s what will be happening if my sewing machine decides to behave itself again.

Also I managed to kind of finish my Autumn wrap – although it needs some of the ends weaving in.

My mum took some better pics of me wearing it so I'll have to get those from her soon.

(2 stitches | Stitch me up)

Day 4

11:35pm 04/11/2010

mood:

bouncy

A much shorter video today but with sniffing - sorry about that. I think I'm allergic to my neighbour's dog. We sewed up some more lavender bags today.

Tomorrow I'm going round my Dad's to clean for him so I guess everything will be a big rush when I get home.

Youtube always picks the worst frames to be the thumbnails!

(6 stitches | Stitch me up)

Day 3

10:48pm 03/11/2010

mood:

excited

Not a lot of interesting textiles news today.

I managed to finish my wordage for the day after this vlog.

I started really getting into the plot in the last 3k or so that I wrote tonight. I made some changes in the direction I was going in and feel much more warm and fuzzy about it - I feel like it's on the right track.

My vlog in which I pause a lot, exaggerate a headache, and discuss why my writing habits are like my textiles habits.

(2 stitches | Stitch me up)

Melted Map

09:21pm 02/11/2010

mood:

bouncy

Today I discovered my bad guy (kind of) and melted my map.

Here's the whole thing, the yellow and pink stuff at the bottom is another textiles piece that got in on the photo.

(Stitch me up)

First Day of Nanowrimo...

10:13pm 01/11/2010

mood:

accomplished

...And I managed to get the wordcount I wanted before 9pm so I'm super pleased with that.

I made a Vlog - I was thinking I might try and do a vlog every day through November seeing as I love a challenge. I figured it would be better for my fingers than more typing.

Close-up on my Autumn shawl - I love the colours in this pic.

A couple of the islands on my fabric map.

(8 stitches | Stitch me up)

Maps!

12:14am 31/10/2010

mood:

sleepy

Remember that map I started for Nanowrimo, way back at the beginning of the month?

I finally got it into a workable state, ready for monday!

I brainstormed about it here and came up with a few ideas for my story.

Below: T-shaped map for this year's Nanowrimo.

And then, to focus my mind, I decided to make this week's craft challenge about maps <-lens of inspiration!

Below: Fabrics collected together for map making and layered up fabrics ready to be stitched into a map.

I'm all about the islands! I mainly used little odd shaped scraps of fabric - there were a lot of ovals from the peacock feather shawl I made last year, so I ended up with a lot of oval islands.

This week I'll be dusting off my sewing machine and getting out my heat gun and facemask.

(4 stitches | Stitch me up)

Home

06:05pm 23/10/2010

mood:

refreshed

I went "home" for a bit today and wandered around the graveyards and orchard taking snaps.

I had to duck under lots of branches and slip through the stinging nettles to get up into the orchard.

Under one of the apple tree there are lots of half-nibbled apples, presumably by the wild deer that live up there.

I caught two raindrops on the bottom of an apple.

The lichen on the gravestones looks particularly beautiful in the Autumn sun. All of the stones are either sinking into the ground or at angles and the grass is mostly moss now.

The pine tree in the top garden is enormous and covered in cones.

Those red berries are everywhere and there are more on the yew tree.

Today has been an odd day with flashes of bright sun and blue skies and then torrential rain - hence the dramatic change in the colour of the sky.

It's nice to have the chance to go home and wander around the wild bits.

(Stitch me up)

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