E is for Envision

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.

As you know from my previous post I did these pages before the D pages.  I stuck down the Teresa Collins folder on the D page so that it folded onto the E pages.

I had gone through some magazines and picked out images and words that attracted me.

The folder opened out with the white printed quote already on it.  Interestingly at church on the morning I did these pages a friend prayed for me and spoke about a changed perception.

I found the the coloured-in image in my stash.  It's one of Valerie's designs from her book: Colorful Blessings.  

I looked at the things I had decided to commit to in my first Word of the Year blogpost and printed out some photos.  On the page above there's a piece of finished textile work to go with my commitment to finish work.

I printed out a photo of a walk and a photo of me when I was slim. Or at least slimmer than I am now and somewhere I would like to get back to.  I was listening to Terry Savelle Foy talking about keeping the vision before you - an actual picture rather than just inside our head - so printed this out.  I put a photo of someone with their Bible and praying.  I also put a photo of my right hand as a reminder of what it looked like before I broke my fingers and the word 'believe' to confirm my belief that my hand will be whole again.

Here are the pages together in my journal.

Thank you for joining me today.
Bernice

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year

Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.

 Living Your Word of the Year 2019

Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.

And it's finished

After 7 months I have finished Module 1 of my Master Practitioner course.  It is hoped that you will complete a module in 6 months but I had task for a month extra because of my broken fingers.  I finished both the piece and my workbook and submitted it with one day to spare.  I'm sure I could have asked for more time but I had promised myself I would finish by the end of February.  And I did.

In my last workbook post I showed you the pages up to my final design.  So now you get to see the pages about making the actual piece.

I lived with the lutradur out on the table for about 4 weeks and for several days I added or removed bits on the collages until I was satisfied with them.

I used  bondaweb where possible to attach most of the collage bits to the linen background and then started stitching the collages.  I aimed to stitch one square a day but sometimes managed two.

Then there was the problem of how to fix it all together.  I had been mulling this over whilst I had been stitching.

Fortunately my fixing of choice - double-sided tape - worked really well and I didn't have to add any extra stitches.

 Here is the book folded up with a ribbon around it.

Originally this piece was going to hang on the wall in the Revealed exhibition but now it's going to sit on a table.  I deliberately chose different textures for the collages so that as people touch the work they can feel those differences.

To see this piece of work come along to the Traverse stand at the British Quilt & Stitch Village at Uttoxeter Racecourse from April 12th - 14th.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Further work in my workbook

My last update showed the art work I had been doing in relation to the poem 'The Road Less Travelled' and the music 'Summertime'.

I moved on to looking at the possibility of making fragments.   I saw instructions for a folding book on Facebook and thought it would be great for displaying samples.   I tried making it in card with squares of the gelli prints I had made for this project but not stuck in my workbook.

I made it again with collages made from the gelli prints. 

 And the page in my workbook

I moved on to dyeing fabrics.

And then started experimenting with different techniques.   I had been to a workshop with Clare Bullock to learn Nuno Felting.

The instructions with this course include:

• Try at least 5 materials you’ve never used before
• Try at least 5 techniques which you either haven’t used before or are now pushing to a different level

Nuno felting was quite new to me.  I had done a workshop with Lynda Monk but decided I would try some of the ideas in her book Beautiful Bonded Surfaces.  I tried out Tyvek with wool tops, scrim, bubblewrap and came up with varying results.

I also tried working with an Embellisher (squares on the right) but really didn't enjoy it.

I also tried a couple of machining techniques.   First I tried a water soluble fabric sandwich with Aquabond on the bottom, a layer of wool tops and a thinner layer of water soluble fabric on top.  I machined one with a grid and the other with free machining.

The other technique involved layers of sheers machined onto a felt backing.

I moved on to displaying the samples.  I took a photo f the samples and printed the photo out.  As I tried different stitches on the sample I scribbled what I had done.

I put in my submission to my tutor.  Each sample was photographed and annotated.

Stitched samples

I also had to submit a design brief for my final piece.  I had decided that I would make a larger version of the fold up book using Lutradur rather than card for the base structure.

I received the feedback from the tutor.  She suggested that I made an odd number of squares.

I had tried dyeing the Lutradur with the same dyes that I had dyed the fabrics but it just didn't work so in the end I painted it with acrylic paint.

Having decided I would make the piece larger I tried out various versions of the squares and triangles.

And eventually decided on this arrangement.

I am now working on the final piece and I will show it to you in a future post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice