Grey and white boroinspired

I bought some yellow cushions to go on my grey sofa – daughter hates them – so I decided to make some boroinspired covers in grey after a friend gave me an old pair of jeans to work with.

I made the first cover very simply joining the grey panels together with 5 rows of running stitch.

One pair of jeans was not enough fabric to make 2 covers for the size of my cushion pads. I found some more jeans and a couple of grey shirts at thrift stores.

Two layers of jeans is quite hard on my hands to sew through – but I am making the design using patches again so at least my fingers get a break regularly

My design so far

I enjoyed sewing this but had to go much slower than usual because the thickness of the fabric made my hands ache. I finally finished it this week

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Adding colour to my boroinspired stitching

I found some variegated coloured crotchet thread in a second hand shop the other week. I had been searching online for a big ball of rainbow coloured thread but it was going to cost far to much to shop it. The box of cotton balls had many more colours than the rainbow I required but I restrained my self to one of each colour and a couple that went in between below is my stash and my first experiment.

I finished my second quilt with some of the coloured threads- it is a present for someone – I will add a pic when they have revived it.

I bought some plain calico shopping bags sometime ago and decided to add a panel of boroinspired stitching to one side.

These have been great fun to do

I found a Great British Sewing Bee note book kit – I have a few of these – they were produced in 2012 to accompany a TV programme – the consist of a nice quality journal – fabric and instructions to make a loose cover for the book.

It had to be done …..

Boroinspired quilting

I have always wanted to have a go at making a quilt. I was given a small blue one when the children were small that I always loved.

I have never been able to imagine cutting out the fabric neatly with 90 degree corners and straight lines. Doing some research around my teabag quilts after some one said they looked a bit like sashiko- I discovered the fabulous world of Japanese stitching and boro inspired patching.

There are lots of sources on Pinterest and blogs about the history of /methods online

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/an-experts-favorite-japanese-textiles#9

Above is an early 19th Century bed cover.

Back to my quilt. I was offered a bag of fabric scraps by a friend if mine. I decided to have a go at making a quilt using an old single duvet as a base.

As a child I remember saying when I grow up I am never going to darn socks – after watching my mother sew little hard circles of stitches into jumpers and socks. So I am amused that the technique mum taught me is now being used to top stitch a whole quilt!!!

My aversion to the effort required to cut neat shapes means that the design will be quite organic and the top stitching will hide a multitude of sins ….

I had a bright cotton skirt that was too busy. It would make a good choice to base all my other fabric colour choices on.

I started at the edges because I thought the hem of the skirt would add strength to the final piece.

I practiced boroinspired stitching on some of the pieces

Then started adding my friends fabric scraps. She has some experience with quilting so a lot of the pieces were cut into rectangles or squares ….

I wasn’t really sure about the yellow but it does lift the blue.

I have been a bit obsessive and made my hands and back ache. So I decided to stop pinning new fabric and sewing it onto the base and concentrate on a bit of top stitching.

Jon and I are enjoying this because me adding fabric pieces is very very messy 😂with needles pins, fabric and thread all over the kitchen.

This is as far as I have got with my design. I am thinking of just adding blue pieces to the middle bit in a nod to the Japanese

history. I am using second hand pieces of fabric or clothes in an attempt to be frugal.

Simple colour/ emotion exercise (art journalling for self care)

I did a simple exercise today with a group today – it was surprisingly successful . There were some very powerful emotions evoked

so I thought I would share. There are no pictures I am afraid because it was so personal

Materials and kit

I provided packs of single coloured papers- filled with magazine pages, printed paper and coloured papers. Glue stick , scissors , words. Free publicity postcards

I invited the group to choose a colour and decoupage / cover a post card with different bits of paper as they wished, they could have scissors or rip the paper . It was attached with a glue stick.

As they worked I asked them to be mindful and think about what emotions were coming up for them.

I also provided of words used to describe emotions and a pack of words that describe emotions cut out from a novel.

After 20 mins , they had talk to the person sitting next to them about the process and then say something to the group.

Here are the words if any one wants to reproduce the exercise. (Taken from a hand written poster design on the wall where I was facilitating )

Emotions

joyful excited sexy playful creative aware daring fascinating stimulating amused extravagant delightful

Powerful proud respected appreciated hopeful important faithful confident intelligent worthwhile valuable satisfied cheerful

Peaceful content thoughtful intimate loving trusting nurturing

Pensive relaxed responsive serene sentimental thankful

Sad guilty ashamed lonely bored sleepy bashful stupid miserable inadequate inferior apathetic

Mad angry hostile hurt jealous selfish frustrated rage hateful critical furious irritated skeptical

Scared rejected confused helpless submissive insecure anxious bewildered discouraged insignificant weak foolish embarrassed

Messing about, mixed media and digital manipulation

One of the things I like doing  best as a time waster and ‘a lets not do the housework/ cook dinner exercise ‘ is producing mixed media images and then manipulating them in my iPhone Apps 

My favourite go to doodling is pen and ink flowers 

I am working in a letter journal at the moment and the theme is flowers so I reproduced this image and added colour 

I used Gelatoes , babywipes and teal acrylic through a stencil – the pen ran a bit with the baby wipe 

So I needed to work ontop of it a bit more – I wasn’t really satisfied with this either 

So I edited the warmth and saturation in the iPhone photo app

I reflected the image , tried layering and fiddling with the filters in snapseed – but it wasn’t doing what I wanted 

Until I only layered part of the image and made a stronger tonal panel down the middle 

I rotated and reflected it and then zoomed in on a smaller section to get something I liked a lot more – I like the patterns the lighter sections make in contrast – it’s just a shame the resolution isn’t very good. When you manipulate to this level