Obsessions

This week in class, we had time to catch up with all the City & Guilds homework.

It seems Judith has a bit of a chenille obsession....here is her final sample for chenille, based on the colours and textures of a lavender field:

There are quite a few other bits of chenille in her folder....and she says she doesn't like the technique, but keeps doing it in the hope that it will grow on her!

And Carole has a robin fixation:

and a thing about houses

I, meanwhile, seem to be stuck on stitching beads and wire by machine: 

and finally finished another little fishy (he started as a teaching sample, and has been taken to and fro the Fairwarp class for the past three or four weeks, in various states of unfinishedness). Here he is:

A couple of the students tried their hands at a fish. Jan has now discovered the delights of the pick'n'mix at the local DIY shop, so here is her fish, complete with metal washers: 

and Kathy's work-in-progress fish (he is finished now but I must have forgotten to take a photo)

However, despite this beady wire obsession, I'm still on a bit of a mission with the CDs. I put out a call for old CDs and I've had a few responses...

so this morning I sat in the sunshine and removed all the cardboard cases and I've now got quite a stash. This isn't even all of them, there's a load more in the cupboard.

That's a lot of CDs to be wet-felted, yes, but most of them are for an Art Trail project later this summer.

Well, that's what I'm telling myself.

Somebody stop me...

Down to business

Time for a post about something creative!

I've been particularly busy the past month with preparing three courses.  Three!  And of course feeling more than a little overwhelmed....

Two of the courses are supposed to be informal, and more or less identical, and on more of a "project" basis - but I found that I was panicking about what we were going to do, and felt a fraud for taking people's money for a class where we just made it up as we went along - so I've now written a Scheme of Work for the term!  It's based on suggestions from the group, but I'm so much happier with a plan! 

The other course is a City & Guilds Award in machine embroidery - just a baby City & Guilds for now, but my first one to teach!  This one caused me the most headaches - trying to interpret the syllabus and come up with a grand plan to get through all the work in the right number of hours.

And then of course, having decided what we're going to do, I then have to do it all myself!

So there's been sketchbook work on colours:

then into stitch:

sketchbook and stitch work on line

(and tone, I couldn't help myself - I don't think it's Level 1 C&G though....)

and dealing with the offcuts:

I've made a sort of log-cabiny sample with this, but don't seem to have a photo to hand...

And I've finally started work on our EG branch competition "flotsam and jetsom" due in on Saturday....ahem...maybe because I love seascapes, maybe because I hoard things from my seaside holiday, maybe I was just a little complacent???

The Girl did say out loud "I wonder where you'll get some shells from Mummy - we've hardly got any in the house at all".  Cheeky miss.  (She was of course referring to the four jamjars in the kitchen, the massive kilner jars in the office, the shells on the patio, and the as-yet unclaimed shells in the car storage cubbies...)

So it was out with the sea-themed wool, to do some sort of random felting.  Out with assorted sticks and shells.  Out with the massive box of accumulated french papers (bread wrappers, receipts, tourist leaflets, tide tables etc...)

Sorry, have to tilt your head to see that one...

Whereupon inspiration deserted me.  It was Mr G who then suggested I made a fish.

So out with the copper wire and the pliers

A brief detour to a local craft show where I found these wonderful electroplated balls and nearly got distracted from my fish and wanted to make balls...

A very real distraction involving manipulating painted Bondaweb into a bowl shape

I am quite seriously chuffed with this, and need to scour charity shops for heatproof bowls and large ceramic/pottery balls...this may be my new thing....there's even some FOIL in there! 

But I digress.

Finally, I've made a good stab at starting my Fish:

All recycled fabrics and beads. 

Here's me stitching the beaded cords in place on some water soluble.  This is after I stitched through my finger.  (So now I have two tingling fingers on my right hand - the mandolined finger healed beautifully, btw, but is still a little bit numb/tingly - getting better all the time:)

Here are some assorted recycled bits and pieces to attach:

And here is a bit further on:

I'm supposed to be dealing with the tail at the moment, but as it involves stitching over copper wire threaded with beads, I thought I'd write a blog post instead!

 Procrastination, deviation from the task in hand, avoiding something difficult?  Moi?!!