Counterchange

During the week I went to The Bramble Patch with  my friend Helen to take a workshop with Gillian Travis.  I love doing workshops with tutors who are passionate about their subject but who are also willing to share their knowledge so that you learn from all their experiments  including their mistakes - giving us a fast track if you like to the results.  Gillian is exactly one of those - not only sharing her knowledge but allowing us to photograph her work and trace her drawings so we could use the shapes.  This is some of her work.

You can see more here.

We started the workshop being shown about Notan and Counterchange.  We used small squares of paper and worked in our sketchbooks.  I took photos of each stage rather than making each stage.

And then went totally mad

I worked in fabric after that using batik type cotton.  Rather than making each square separately I used one piece of backing fabric.  This should now be put onto wadding and machined.  These are 4 inch squares.

Then I tried another version still not strictly adhering to the instructions - which actually made it more difficult for me!   These are 3 inch squares.

So I have taken the idea and started working on these pieces.  I almost followed the instructions.  I made the 2.5 inch squares up in the way that we had been taught but instead of using wadding I've used pelmet vilene.  This may well make it more difficult to free machine but we'll see.

Currently they are very monotone but a visit today to a quilt shop might supply some other fabric!

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Advent in November: Pause

The first of the preparation posts for Pause, Ponder and Prepare can be found here.  It talks about how the Advent Study and Calendar will work.

Let's pause and think about what we are going to do.  Are you going to do the study, the calendar or both?

While you're thinking about that go through all your stash and find all your Christmas related stamps, stencils, papers, paints, ribbons, embellishments and anything else you can think of.   One of the best things I learned from Shimelle was to get together all the stash you need for a project.

I thought I hadn't got many Christmas story stamps so I bought lots from a decluttering group on Facebook.  Beware!  Check what you have first.  When I put it all together this is what I have.  Overload!

I have rather less stencils and embossing folders.  You can use embossing folders as stamps as well as putting them through your embossing machine.

I have a box that I put embellishments and other Christmas related items in.

It's well worth tidying it up so that you can actually see what you have.

And I had lots of scrapbooking paper in a bag. It's well worth spending the time now sorting the papers into colour schemes.

I also found some old Christmas cards which I had kept.  They are useful for design inspiration or for cutting up.

And lastly I found some tags I had made either with Tim Holtz online 12 Tags of Christmas or at a workshop with Anneliese Bates.  These are also useful for design ideas.

At this point I have rather a lot of stuff and will need to think about what I actually want to use.  Do I want to use a mixed media approach to my tags or a more scrapbooking type look.  Decisions! Decisions!

In my next preparation post I'm going to look at preparing my book for the Advent Study.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Sneak Peeks

My friend Diane and I are working together on a creative Advent Study and Advent Calendar.  This is the first time I have collaborated with anyone online and it has been really enjoyable and worthwhile.  I hope Diane feels the same especially when I've set deadlines!

Our idea is that through November people can make a journal for the study and a calendar ready for use in December.  They do not strictly cover the Church Advent season but cover December 1st to December 25th so that the project can be used year after year.

The project is called Pause, Ponder & Prepare and it has a blog dedicated to it.  You can sign up for emails so that you don't miss a day of the project.

But you don't have to wait until November.  Introductory and preparatory blog posts start on Tuesday, 14th October.   There will be two more posts on October 21st and 28th to help you sort out what to do.

I hope that you will join in.  Visit Pause, Ponder and Prepare and scroll down to the bottom of the page and put your email address where it says Enter your Email and click on Subscribe me!

I hope you have enjoyed the sneak peeks on here today.
Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice