Trying something new... to me anyway

Because I get up so early, I often do my posts at this time, when my signal strength is at its best. It makes uploading any photos much easier. As I'm off to Bristol early tomorrow morning I really wanted to share the results of some experiments I've done today so thought I'd add this extra post in now because I am so intrigued with the results.

Now, this technique has been around for a couple of years I think, but I only read about it a week or so ago and I just had to try it out. When I started searching for other people using it on the web there are lots of blogs showing pictures so I apologise if I am behind the times with this one, but it is new to me and I wanted to see whether I would use it as background papers for collages or in a sketchbook. It might make a good background for journal pages too , or might not.

This technique uses a cleaning product called Citr-Solv, available through health stores and mail order in the UK. It must be the concentrated form. Diluted forms do not work. It can ONLY be achieved on the pages of National Geographic magazine. It does not work on any other magazine AND it doesn't work if the National Geographic is over 10 years old. It works because the magazine lays down a thin layer of gold ink under its photographs, something I presume that did not happen more than 10 years ago! The Citr-Solv and the gold ink work their alchemy and produce these background papers.

Taking a brush or sponge pad the Citr-Solv is painted onto each page of the magazine, coating both sides. I ripped mine out in advance but you can do the whole magazine. The key is to keep all the pages stacked together after each side has been coated, leaving them then for about 30 - 40 minutes. I read varying times for this but the minimum is 30 minutes. When you're ready , start to peel each page apart from the others and put them separately to dry. The concentrate smells heavily of oranges but you cannot disguise the fact that this is a potent cleaner so good ventilation is vital. The pages must not dry out as they'll never come apart!

I only trialled mine on a few pages about travelling in Scotland so they were mainly moody photographs which now look moodier. It will be interesting to try it on text pages and other images. In close up, some of the colours are fabulous. It's wonderful to see how the ink has broken down and I shall be doing some more at the weekend. I think I will use them as backgrounds to collages but I've been doing a fair bit of screenprinting and monoprinting this week so also see possibilities there for printing on top of.

I'm hoping to get to see an exhibition about paper in Bristol tomorrow. With my grasshopper brain, that will no doubt take over my thoughts for a few days after that so I might forget about this process, but I hope not. This has possibilities and I hope I will re-visit it again.

Repetitive Strain Injury

Over at Third Age Musings Jill has caught the needlefelting bug and is going great guns but I, being the Job's Comforter that I am, posted a cautionary comment about repetitive strain injury (RSI). It has been well documented that these sort of activities need to be done in short bursts rather than for sustained lengths of time and it got me thinking about Shauna Richardson as I had been reading about her work earlier in the day.

There was a lot of publicity last year when it was announced that Shauna would be crocheting 3 large 30ft lions in time for the 2012 Olympics. She calls her work 'crochetdermy' and I can only hope she has a group of outworkers helping her. Imagine her wrists after all that crocheting! Have a look at more of her work here. As someone who can crochet, but being left-handed, does not crochet in the accepted sense of the word, I am amazed by her skill and imagination at using such a traditional craft in an untraditonal way.

The same has got to be said for Kate Jenkins. Coincidentally - how often does this happen? - I'd also been reading about Kate yesterday on All Things Considered. Her use of crochet is so witty and inventive and I had a great time on her website looking at not only the quality of the work but the amusing way things have been altered. Alongside her clothes range are special galleries. My favourites were the insects and Kate's Cafe.

And as for the food.... well it made me smile and brightened up a grey day. I love the humour and admire the skill of both of these artists. I know there are many more out there using crochet in such an imaginative way. Me though? I'll stick to double chain and treble chain in short bursts. I know my limitations and mustn't do myself an injury after all!

Starlings in Winter

This morning I was mesmerised by the sheer volume of starlings flying past. The stream of birds just went on and on, most heading back to the farm down the road I suspect. Some stopped off in the field next door as usual and it just seems the right time to share a poem I found the other day by Mary Oliver called 'Starlings in Winter':


Clunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theatre of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again,
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in this leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I wait
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

Blowing away the cobwebs

I broke one of my cardinal rules today and did my weekly supermarket shop on a Sunday. My husband had to go to work for the morning and I was up early with him so thought if I did it today I would then get the whole day to myself tomorrow. Although I did it, it did not sit well with me as I am a great believer in retaining that 'Sunday' feeling and making it a 'shopping free' zone. Equally, when my husband got home he said we needed to do something that made the day seem like a Sunday for us.

Well, one of our Sunday treats from Spring onwards is a good walk so we drove the 20 minutes it takes to get here, the Green Bridge of Wales, and had a bracing walk along the cliff tops.... In truth it was mild and there was absolutely no breeze. The weight of the snow has made all the grass looked like the waves of the sea and it was a beautiful afternoon for a walk from the bridge along to Elegug Stacks, known locally as Stack Rocks.

Very soon both of these rock formations will be host to a mass of seabirds all gathering to breed. There will be razorbills, kittiwakes, puffins and guillemots by the hundreds. Today we were lucky enough to see the choughs that inhabit these cliffs. There were about a dozen flying about which are pretty good numbers for any time of year. It was a special couple of hours and took away some of the guilt at doing that shopping this morning. Now all I have to do is make sure I make the most of tomorrow so that it was worthwhile.

Lisa Hannigan

I had an e mail from a friend this weekend telling me about these videos by Lisa Hannigan, whose album 'See Sew' was an absolute favourite of mine from last year. I had no idea these existed but my friend knows how I love paper in all its glory. There are two worth looking at. There is the official video for the CD using pop-up books and this one for 'I don't know', one of my favourite tracks, involving paper cutting. Both are worth a look if you love books and paper or if Lisa is a new voice to you.

Some you win.... and some you don't

You know when you do something and nothing, but nothing, goes right with it? Ever had that happen to you? Yes ? Then you'll know the feeling I've had for the past few weeks trying to make this bag. It was a great idea - but only in my head it seems... I saw this beaded fringe on a market stall and a vision of it adorning a bag came into my mind so I bought a metre. It was £4, so not a snip, yet I paired it with a remnant of creamy gold curtaining that only cost a £1. Already you can see I was not thinking clearly...

I decided to use some grey linen from Laura Ashley for the top of both the inside and the outside so my husband kindly offered to buy it when he was next in town. I wanted a bare half metre but he came home with a metre because there was a 30% off sale on the day and he thought it was good value. I told him that 30% off of half a metre was better value but I was stuck with it. Now I have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous in what this bag is costing to make but that's nothing to the horrors I encountered when I started. Firstly I couldn't sew the fringing as the beads kept getting under the presser foot. Think - change to zipper foot! Better? Marginally, but it looks OK from a distance. I've picked it up, thrown it down, picked it up, thrown it down for the past three weeks....get the picture?

Then I tried to put it together and the linen was so stiff I ruined the first set of handles. Made a second pair. Ruined those too. So now I'm beginning to thank my husband for buying that metre but cursing at the same time at the cost of the fabric I'm wasting. I had great plans to make a bow on the outside and use stiffening on the bag but abandoned all of those in the end. This morning I made the THIRD pair of handles and just finished it as it was. I can't see me buying any more fringing for another try and it's not even my sort of bag. A classic case of where I had to try something but didn't think it all through in advance. So typical of me.... as is my next idea with this man's jacket from the charity shop....

Now I don't want to offend anyone but what man in his right mind would wear a bright green jacket with red threads running through it? I saw this on Monday and it was only £4. It stood out a mile. Luckily these photos don't show how green it is... anyway, when I looked at the label I noticed it was wool and alpaca so I snapped it up and I've cut out the panels from the back piece and used the lining to make another bag.

Disappointed with my previous effort I decided to hang fire before getting too far down the road. One of my friends suggested I overdye the fabric for the bag or overdye some of the rest of the jacket for future ideas. Another friend suggested I embroider some motifs or something on the material before I make up the bag. As I have a lot of skeins of thin wool, dyed with natural dyes, this is a possibility, but the project then starts to stretch out into something that will take me months to do and I am a quick turn around merchant. If it takes too long I go off the boil and drop it in favour of a quick fix. If anyone has any ideas they would be gratefully received.

Finally, speaking of quick fixes and because I had to try and do something today that I was pleased with, I made this little journal. I got the idea from here which suggests using photographs for the covers. They call it a photojournal but I didn't want to do that. I had these old notecards from Ikea and used the two I had left for the front and back covers. I cut the text block from a note pad I had and found a strip of decorative paper for the binding. All you need to make it is some pva glue, a brush and some pegs or bulldog clips. The video tutorial on the link is very good and the book only took about 45 minutes to make. This includes hanging around waiting for glue to dry, so worth a try.

So the day started off badly but got better. Then I had a lovely present arrive in the post from a friend. It made my day completely. It can't get much better from here on in!

Making tracks

Blackbird

Squirrel

Fox - no! Rabbit (thanks Jill)

Husband

After yet another night of it, now I really have had enough of the 'S' word. This is how I'd like to see it - on film - online - and definitely not on my drive.

Wintertime from David Köhlmeier on Vimeo.