October TIF Challenge

I got a little bit of my October TIF done. I used an idea from this dvd by Joyce Becker which involves doing free motion machine stitching onto water soluable stabiliser. In the dvd she uses it for a beach scene to depict the white sea foam. It looked very effective.

These are some examples I did. I used a different colour in my bobbin which gave a different colour effect on each side.

I then did some looser examples to see how they would look.

I can see that this will be a useful technique to keep in mind to add to my work.

This is the one I'm going to use in my October TIF piece. It is going to be used to represent my workspace at the moment, where all my colours are mixed all in together and its pretty messy. I'm going to position this either in the bottom left hand corner or the middle of the piece. I'm then going to have strips of various colours of material radiating out from it. On the coloured strips I'm going to add colour co-ordinated emboidery as well as attaching colour co-ordinated buttons, beads etc if I think it needs it as I go along.

Things have got busy this week. I'm organising my son's 7th birthday party for this Friday after school. It's going to be a Halloween themed birthday party, so I've been busy getting everything ready. Also my online Jane La Fazio class starts this week as well. So I know that this wont be finished by the end of the month, but I'm going to try to get it finished early in the month.

October TIF Challenge

This months challenge is all about thinking about your textile work space. How do you feel about this space? What role does it play in your life?

I was going to post a photo of my workspace, but I'm alittle bit embarrassed to show it. It is in a spare room that has other boxes and thinks in it as well. It is abit cluttered. My materials and fibres are in 3 baskets under my work table, all in together with no colour co-ordination. I have a 4 draw cupboard in my built in cupboard which has my painting, stamping, and various other supplies in it. My work table is covered in various unfinished projects. I have to take my sewing machine out to the Kitchen table and set it up every time I want to use it.

Anyway this challenge has made me think about how to improve my workspace. At the moment it is hindering my creativity. I want it to be a light, uncluttered, colour co-ordinated area for me to work in. It's only a small room so I'll have to think of some ways to utilise the space in the best way. At the moment I have a table but I would like to try to find a bench table that has some storage cupboards underneath. I want to have a working board on the wall. I have a large bookcase in the room with all other books on it. I'm going to swap the books and only have my quilting/embroidery/mixed media/etc books in it. The built in cupboard at the moment is very cluttered too, so it needs a good clean up too.

I have taken a before photo and will show this when I have some nice after photos to show. It might take me alittle while to do all this but I will defineately show photos when its done.

I think this space will play a bigger role in my life and I will be able to create more when I make it into a space I love being in.

Anyway I have some ideas for my challenge piece using an idea I haven't tried from a Quilting DVD I got out of the library. I don't work tomorrow, so I'm going to drop my boy off at school in the morning and come home straight away to start creating. I'm hoping I will get quite abit of it done tomorrow and will have something to show.

Playing with backgrounds.

I've been playing around with some background ideas. I put wool and fibres down on a black cotton background. I covered it up with black netting and did lots of messy free motion embroidery. I used this same technique for my August TIF challenge piece but I wanted to play around with some different colours and use the black netting.

My scanner isn't working at the moment so I had to take photos. The colours are a little washed out and not as rich looking. Anyway, I created this blue background to use as an underwater scene.

Also this week I got this book in the mail. It was abit of a surprise as I had pre-ordered it quite awhile ago, so I wasn't expecting it. This is a great book. I've started to read it and can see lots of inspiration starting to stir in my mind.

I'm looking forward to starting Jane La Fazio's Online class through Joggles next week.

I've been thinking alot about the October TIF - I know I'm running very late. It took me awhile to get into this months challenge, especially since last month was so busy and I skipped the TIF challenge. Anyway, I will post tomorrow about my thoughts on the October TIF. Stay tuned!

I've been on Holidays.

Hills Inlet and Whitehaven Beach, North Queensland

We've been away on holidays at Mackay and Airlie Beach in North Queensland. This photo was taken on a daytrip we took on a boat through the Whitsunday Islands. We went snorkelling, walked up to the Hills Inlet lookout and swam at Whitehaven Beach. It was a wonderful day.

There were two of these statues at the enterance to our Balinese style resort at Airlie Beach.

This was the view from our Bedroom and loungeroom. The photo really doesn't do it justice. The water was a beautiful blue/green colour.

This was taken from our balcony looking down at one of the pools. There were 3 pools and a spa. It was very relaxing and we had a great time. We went swimming most days and managed to work up abit of a tan.

We've been home a few days, so have been unpacking and doing all the washing. I didn't do the September TIF Challenge. I have an idea of what I want to do though. I will get started on the October TIF challenge though and try to fit in September.