It's taken me a lot longer than I expected

To get back into the swing of things.  I've not blogged for quite some time and felt unless I made the effort and began again I was in danger of dropping out.   So sorry to those who follow my travels and in the last week I have begun to sew again.

I promised last time that I'd show you some dyeing I'd done using alcohol inks and this is one of the pieces.  

I bought this book which gives you lots of ideas on using alcohol inks both in dropper bottles such as the Ranger ones.   But you can also use pens with alcohol inks such as Sharpies or Copic pens.  Both are very easy and simple to use.  You simply colour the fabric with your pens then drop alcohol blending solution onto the fabric.   I showed the book to a couple of friends and we got together to try out some of the methods in the book.   The result is fairly serendipitous but lots of fun.   We used silk but it works just as well on other fabrics.   The inks and blending solution dry almost instantaneously so you don't have to pack away wet fabric.

I finished my 'Twilight' picture for the EG's Sparkles exhibition next month.  I used the alcohol inks on tinfoil for the frame.   I dropped several colours of ink onto felt then stamped it onto crumpled kitchen tinfoil.  Once it dried, which took only a few minutes, I glued the tinfoil onto a wood frame.  Not sure of the name for this piece but couldn't think of anything else.

 Just in time I managed to get my March and April journal pages for the CQ 2010 challenge finished.  March is in remembrance of Mum who would have been 94 on the 8th March.  I've used fabric paper in two inch block patchwork as the background.  Printed a photo of Mum onto fabric and using Photoshop created a scrapbook page.  The lace is again dyed using alcohol inks.

April's JP is also on a paper fabric quilted background.  The top layer is made using soluble stabiliser and tiny scraps of fabrics.   I've called this infection as it was a really nasty kidney infection that laid me low during April.  The infection is spreading across the page just as it spread to my kidney's, lungs and liver.  Luckily I'm now fit and feeling up to sewing again.

 

 Once quilt I was unable to upload to the challenge site was my intepretation of 'Passage' - Passage to India.  I was doing the bi-monthly challenge on the 3Creative Studio site but try as I might I could not log on to upload the photo, the deadline being yesterday.   I tried re-registering but was told I was already registered, when I tried to use my registration details I was told I couldn't be found.  Guess I'll be sitting out this one.

Keith has finished my sewing room and I've finally moved in, these are a couple of photos of it but don't show all of it.  However its now full of junk from our dining room.   We ordered new flooring for the dining room and were expecting it to arrive end of next week but its arriving on Tuesday.   So all hands to the pump we've had to empty the dining room so we can redecorate it before the flooring arrives.  Keith decided to take off the radiator so it would be easier to take off the old paper and put on the new.  Unfortunately our plans went a bit astray as we developed a serious leak.  Good job we have new flooring coming as the old one is sitting in the garden dripping wet.  Still its all under control now but we've had enough excitment for one day and will start the decorating tomorrow.