BLOG 233

BLOG 233 Sunday February 1^st

 

Happy February! This past week I have continued to mentally plan my ‘Remembrance’ wall hanging. In my mind’s eye, it is spectacular in its concept, simple in its construction and already completed. BUT it’s getting from the ‘all in the mind’ stage to putting it down on paper and getting started. And there is nothing worse than a blank sheet of paper to give you designers’ block!!!

                                     Scary blank paper

 

My first task was to draw the Holyhead coast line between N Stack and S Stack where the rescue took place. Pleasingly, this divided the paper into two, almost on the diagonal.

                                                   Coast

I played with pencil and eraser and line to try and get the feeling of the ferocity of the waves around the coastline. These were there marked in when I was satisfied with the shapes.

                                               Waves

 

And then I thought about wind patterns and enjoyed the freedom of adding swirls and strong lateral lines.

                                               Winds

 

At that stage I reckoned that I had enough to get me started. Typically for me, I never know completely how it is going to finish because I am anxious to start working with colours. I know that the background will be blue felt and I will use synthetics and sheers. I want to try and build on what I have learned from previous attempts with the Susan Lenz technique. And what’s not to like about this palette?

                                               Palette

 I ironed a fusible onto the felt, not painted this time because I couldn’t see the point. This is going to be well covered by the other fabrics. A second piece of fusible will be painted in jewel tones because this will be seen through the colours of the sheers. I wanted to transfer the coast line onto the fusible, and this I did with Dress maker’s carbon paper. (I used to use this all the time when I needed to transfer a gate pattern onto black fabric. The white and yellow sheets are particularly good.)

                                     Marking the fusible

Fusible was ironed onto smaller pieces of the synthetic fabric.

                               Fusible onto synthetics

I cut the synthetics into strips of differing sizes and then I stood back to re-connect with the pattern. Why would I need strips when I am doing ferocious waves? And that is where the project has stalled this week and I need to think again. Designing can be tricky!

                                                   Strips

 

And on a lighter note: I usually look after one or other of my granddaughters sometime during the week and I just love it! It is always on an ad hoc basis where I say I’m free a certain day and can I help out. We are heavily into Playdoh at the moment and I spent most of one morning making teddy bears with a mould. ‘Annudder one Grammy’ was all that needed to be said; we were aiming for an installation like the terracotta warriors!!

                                        Installation