Of books and birds

Later in the day, we realized that they were moving around a LOT so I went outside to set up the camera again.  As I set it up, one of the babies just sat very still and watched me.  I knew Michael was just inside the door, so I whispered for him to bring the still camera.  The bird eyed me off carefully as I took this photo, but didn’t attempt to hide like they normally do……

Now, onto the fun that I have had this weekend…….

On Saturday, I spent some time looking thru the book “Fabric Art Collage” by Rebekah Meier.  As usual, it inspired me to get into the studio and try a few things.

My first step was to use one of the dyed silk hankies that I bought when we were in Australia.  If you haven’t seen these before, the large hankie is made of many fine layers of silk mesh. 

Here it is with all of the layers in tact……

This is what it looks like when a layer is peeled off.  One hint that was in the book was to use lotion on your hands before you pick up the silk layers as they are very sheer and will stick to rough spots on your hands.

Following the instructions in the book, I laid it onto parchment paper, sprayed it with starch (the book called for a fancy stiffener, but I just used what I had), covered it with more parchment and ironed the daylights out of it.

The result was a slightly fused, stiff piece of fabric that could easily be picked up and moved.

I then pulled out some stamps and started stamping the silk with various colors.  These stamps were NOT designed for fabric, so I wasn’t sure what would happen.

I also read in the book about using batting as the backing for felting, so I decided to try that this time.  I added some wisps of wool and felted the background down, using the Felting Machine that I bought too long ago and never used!!!

I then placed the silk piece over the top and felted away again.

One unexpected thing happened here……the felting needles disturbed the stamps so that the designs disappeared, but it left wonderful little dots of ink through out the piece.

I added a few more stamps on the top and tried to figure out what to do next.  My husband suggested that I start by following the blue blob in the middle of the piece and I went from there to adding a couple of flowers and lots of free motion lines.

It was time to move into the living room to spend time with hubby, so I grabbed my box of lace and paint and did some more playing.  I started with some tatting that my Grandmother had made.  After trying to color it with stamps (and not liking it), I ended up painting it with gold.    I used some gold thread to attach the lace to the top and then added french knots to the center of each flower…..

  The final step was to take the brush that still had gold paint on it and brush it around in various places…..waste not, want not!!!!

This morning I added a backing fabric and used the piece to cover a journal book.

I loved the idea of trying some new ideas and really like that I was able to put the new ideas to good use and get a finished product from it!!!!

Now….back to bird watching!!!!