Infusions Mini-Album–Miscellaneous Techniques

Over the past couple of days I have discovered some further techniques you can do with Infusions.

Kissing

This name always amuses me! It refers to applying a medium on one surface and then pressing another surface onto it while still wet, and then pulling it off so you get a mirror image mono print. Not only is it fun, but it saves on paint etc. too! Here it is with Infusions.

The colours I used were Royal Blood and Golden Sands from set 1, and Olive Tree from set 2, sprinkled onto the card and then spritzed with water.

Dripping

Self-explanatory.

I used Are You Cerise from set 1 as a background, sprinkling the Infusions onto the card and then spritzing it with water fairly liberally to get full coverage, and then heat set it. Then I applied plenty of water along the top edge with a brush, and sprinkled on Black Knight, also from set 1, and held the card vertically so that it ran down. To encourage it to drip where I wanted, I touched the wet edge with the brush. The drips will otherwise tend to follow the course of previous ones and you need to break the surface tension of the water in different places to make new drips flow. Working with the brush, you get more control. I kept applying more water along the top edge with the brush, and tapped the card’s bottom edge on my work surface, which encouraged it to continue flowing.

Infusions with Glimmer Mist

I haven’t used my glimmer mists for ages. When I first started, I made up some home-made ones with distress ink re-inkers and Perfect Pearls in little spray bottles, and was pleased to find that they still worked and hadn’t dried up.

I sprinkled the Infusions onto dry paper as normal – in this case Lemoncello from set 1, and the instead of spritzing with plain water to activate them, I used my spray bottle with a mixture of water, Chipped Sapphire re-inker and Perfect Pearls (the “Perfect Pearl” colour which is a silvery-pearl). I sprayed it on fairly liberally and the blue has mixed with the yellow of the Infusions to create a soft green colour.

Here’s a detail shot in an attempt to show the shimmeriness of this effect.

Painting as watercolours

I tapped out a little of the Infusions on my non-stick craft sheet and made a puddle with water, using a fine brush, and then painted with this onto a stamped image.

I used a couple of stamps from the StampAttack “Fanciful Fans” set using black archival ink. The Infusions I used were Violet Storms, Lemoncello and Emerald Isle from set 1, and Rusty Car and Violetta from set 2. When I had finished, the images looked rather stark against the white card, so I used an Inkylicious Ink Duster to apply Fossilised Amber distress ink around the edges of the card, blending the ink towards the middle.

Infusions on wet paper

Applying the Infusions to wet paper, rather than to dry and then spritzing with water, gives a different effect.

For this sample, I made the paper good and wet and sprinkled on Royal Blood from set 1 and Green Man from set 2. I heat set this and then decided it needed a bit more colour, so I added a small amount of A Bit Jaded from set 1. This method is a lot more difficult to control. You get a wonderful burst of colour but on the wet card this soon disperses and you have to dry it fairly rapidly to keep the radiating pattern. I have been using my old heat gun lately, as it dries things a lot faster than the Tim Holtz Heat Tool, but in this case it would probably be better to use the latter because the blast of hot air is much more gentle and doesn’t move the wet colour around so much.

Brayered Gesso

For my final sample today, I combined Infusions with gesso applied with a brayer.

I used Rusty Car and Slime from set 2, sprinkling the Infusions onto dry card. I put some gesso onto my non-stick craft sheet with a palette knife and spread it out a bit, and then ran my brayer through it so that the roller was covered, and then I rolled it over the Infusions on the card. I spritzed it with water and watched the Infusions begin to activate.

The effect is quite subtle and chalky, with a slight grain to it, indicating the direction of the brayer.

I have a couple more miscellaneous techniques to cover but at this point I ran out of energy and had to stop! I will do these at the beginning of the next session, in which I shall be concentrating on the effect you can get combining Infusions with acrylic paint.

Infusions Mini-Album–Texture Samples Dried, and Stamping

The pieces I made with different textures are now dry, and it’s interesting to see the results.

First of all, the sample with the thick layer of gesso.

I added Lemoncello Infusions to the piece once the gesso was dry, and spritzed it with plenty of water so I could move the Infusions around. I propped up the piece so that the Infusions would pool in the texture. Unfortunately the gesso has badly warped the card so I had to hold it in order to photograph it adequately. Time for the heavy books treatment again.

The sample with the piece of fruit net, duly dried and trimmed.

The glass bead gel medium sample.

The gel medium has dried crystal clear, showing the glass beads to their best advantage. Here’s a detail shot of the piece.

I tried to photograph this to show how the glass beads catch the light, but as usual, anything sparkly or reflective really doesn’t photograph well.

The other pieces didn’t look that different once dried.

Last night I had some fun doing some stamping on Infusions. The Inkylicious clear stamps that I’d ordered had arrived, so I primed them ready for use. The set I used for this project is called “Create a Collage – Meadow” made up of several different stamps that you can mix and match together to produce any selection of wild grasses.

For all the stamped samples I used black archival ink.

For the one using these wild grasses stamps, I created a background using The Sage from Infusions set 1. I really like how this one has turned out.

For the next one, I was really keen to try Ryn’s stamp “Textures – Water Droplets CM-T3” with Infusions. The background was created with In the Navy from Infusions set 2.

I used a wet brush to lift as much colour as I could from inside each water droplet. This proved to be not as easy as when you use the technique with distress inks, but after several applications with the wet brush, I achieved the desired result. Removing the colour in this way makes this extraordinary stamp look even more 3-dimensional, an effect which is further enhanced by the addition of a tiny catchlight on each droplet, using a white Uniball Signo marker pen. I love how this one turned out!

My final stamped piece was created with Heartfelt Creations “Botanical Rose” stamp. This was done on a background made with Frankly Scarlet Infusions from set 2.

Again, I lifted the colour from within the flower outlines using a wet brush. I deliberately left several flowers in this state to show how effective this is. To colour the two large flowers, I used watercolours, and added a little highlight on the centre of each one, using my white Uniball Signo pen again.

Here are the completed stamped samples all together, with the gesso piece at the rear.

The next technique I wanted to do was the woodgrain effect. I think it might have been the card I’ve been using, but this wasn’t as effective as the first time I used it. Here is the page from my Mamhead Mini-Album which shows it best.

With the current samples I struggled to get the desired effect although I used exactly the same method – tapping some Golden Sands Infusions from set 1 onto my non-stick craft sheet and adding a little water, and then applying this with a fan brush in parallel strokes.

This is the finished piece after three applications of the Golden Sands Infusions.

I tried another sample, this time using Sunset Beach  and Golden Sands Infusions, both from set 1. After this was dry, because it didn’t look right, I added some Black Knight Infusions, also from set 1, using the same brushing on technique. It looked like weathered painted wood. I decided to try to enhance the effect with some crackle paste. This is the first time I’ve used this, and I thought it would dry clear, but it didn’t, and it doesn’t seem to have crackled either, but the effect is somewhat interesting.

In an attempt to make it crackle, I added some more to give a thicker layer.

Here are the two samples together.

On the pot it says it takes quite a while to crack, so maybe something will happen! If not, at least I’ve tried and after all, a lot of these samples are experimental and it doesn’t matter if they don’t work; they just won’t find a place in the mini-album.

My final samples today used the same brush-on technique, but using both horizontal and vertical brush strokes to create a mock tartan effect. Again, the effect wasn’t a dramatic as I’d hoped, and I put this down to the card I was using. I must try and remember what sort of card I used for the Mamhead album and try it with that, but in the meantime here are my samples.

The first one was done with two shades of Infusions from set 1, Sunset Beach going on horizontally, and Royal blood going on vertically. The latter had the effect of dramatically darkening the whole sample – quite an interesting effect but not entirely what I wanted!

The second one was done with Are You Cerise Infusions from set 1 being laid down horizontally first, and then Violet Storms from set one going vertically. This over-dominated the piece so I added more Are You Cerise vertically, and some more Violet Storms horizontally. The effect is definitely tartan-like, if a bit subtle!

Here are both samples together.

I do like the vertical blue stripe and the horizontal turquoise one in the one on the left.

I would like to redo all these last brushed-on samples on different card to see if the brush strokes appear more defined.

Still to come: I want to experiment a bit with embossing ink with Infusions, as I have seen some interesting videos on Youtube about this, either stamping, or using Versamark through a stencil.

WOYWW 354–New Stash, Music and Decorating

Since there is no change in my desk since last week and not wanting to miss out on the fun of WOYWW, I thought I would share the new stash I bought in February. It’s on my desk somewhere under the clutter, and even though it was “posed” for the photos, it’s been there on every Wednesday, so I think it just about qualifies for a WOYWW post!

I have been so busy with other things lately that none of this stash has yet seen the light of day or got its feet wet with ink!

After our wonderful Diana Taylor posted over recent weeks on using things she hadn’t used recently, including some fabulous flower stamps and dies which I quite fell in love with, I got the details from her and ordered them – they are the Heartfelt ones in the pink packaging. I also raided Ebay for some more new flower stamps because I don’t have many. The ones on the right are smaller than I’d hoped but they will still be useful, and the ones at the bottom can be mixed and matched for layering or making 3-D flowers if I want.

The box on the right is Bo-Nash Fuse It. It’s like the glue on the back of Bondaweb, but in powder form. I bought this for sprinkling on fused Angelina fibre so that I can apply it to projects – this stuff fuses beautifully to itself but not to anything else! Centre stage are the final Perfect Pearls to complete my set. Below the Perfect Pearls is a new pot of gold embossing powder.

While looking for new flower stamps, I found the new PaperArtsy Eclectica Collection by Lin Brown.

I also bought the companion stencils.

I was totally blown away by these, particularly after viewing the Youtube video with all the projects people have made using them – I simply couldn’t resist!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn8OdbuEUlA

One day (soon, I hope!) I shall get back into the studio and start playing with all these goodies.

Meanwhile, I am continuing to work hard on my guitar and singing technique. Here are my fingertips today – just over a fortnight on from when I started.

They are less tender now, and they look a lot worse than they feel! You can see that there has been some bleeding under the skin. They definitely feel harder now so I’m almost there!

I have been working on strengthening my left hand by squeezing the rubber ball my hubby used for the same purpose when he broke his wrist. Today I discovered some good exercises online for increasing flexibility, stretch and dexterity in the fretting (left) hand, with some excellent Youtube videos.

I have noticed since I started singing again that there is weakness in my middle register, and looking online again for advice on this, I came across Felicia Ricci, an amazing singing teacher who is enthusiastic and fun, and who explains things which are hard to put into words – I know I am going to benefit from this.

I spoke to my minister after church on Sunday and he said to email him when I felt I was ready to sing, and he’d fix it. It won’t be long now!

We are also about to redecorate our gloomy and cluttered sitting room, which doesn’t get a lot of natural light. At present the walls are cream, and we have far too much stuff in there. The lighting is very poor, so the electrician is coming to see if we can have wall lights. We are going to replace the cream paint with white, with small accents of a nice sunny bright orange. My hubby took me to B&Q yesterday (he said, “I know how to give a girl a good time” lol!) to buy the paint. I have ordered a new storage cabinet/bookcase to replace the ugly white painted shelves and this will be a lot less dominant. We spend a lot of time in there, and it certainly needs a facelift. Photos will follow! Now that Mum is no longer in the flat, we are going to move some of the stuff through there and use it while ours is out of action, which will be nicer in the evenings because it is at the back of house and gets the afternoon sun. Watch this space.

My hubby has been working hard in the garden and it’s all beginning to look lovely. We can’t wait for our rock plants to start growing. The water feature is looking great.

Happy WOYWW everybody and may we all have a fulfilling and creative week, whatever form that creativity may take!

WOYWW 339

Well, I haven’t been around much lately, I know. There’s been a lot going on in my life and I’m pretty exhausted, and my creative mojo has fled again for the second time this year… My poor ARTHaven has become the dumping ground it always is when I am not using it, so I thought as a reintroduction to joining the human race again, I would show you just how awful it is, and how little creativity has been going on of late! So here’s the guided tour of Shoshi’s Dumping Ground.

First stop, under the window.

The box with the transparent lid contains the finished cards from my card factory (to which I must return asap!). You an also see my camera case, the purple box that belongs to my lovely cleaning lady – she wants me to alter it for her. Beyond that is a pile of fabric scraps and bits and pieces given to me recently by a lady from church, and under the window, my packing foam pieces that I was making into heat-set rubber stamps, and a pile of dried teabags!

Moving over to the opposite side of the room, this is supposed to be my textile zone and drawing zone, but as you can see, it’s just got stuff dumped on it.

The saddest sight is my main work area. On the desk itself is a collection of dried leaves I picked up outside the hospital a few weeks ago, thinking I would do something with them but now I can’t think what to do with them.

You can see that the dowel that supported my bags of rubber stamps has broken and collapsed. This happened two or three weeks ago and I haven’t had the energy or the enthusiasm to do anything about it. My hubby, bless him, got me a metal rod to replace the dowel, and you can see that on the desk, waiting to be installed.

Here’s a close-up of the wreckage.

How sad is that. It says it all about the state of my creative mojo at the moment!

However, to happier things. I saw the oncologist yesterday and we got the result of my recent post-chemo CT scan, and it is clear, so I have been pronounced cancer free! This is of course very good news, but I am having some problems processing it at the moment as I need a huge mental adjustment to transfer from being a patient (VIP, receiving incredible care and support, all given with kindness and even love, and feeling affirmed and very special) to being a normal person again (ordinary)! I am also wrestling with some feelings of survivor’s guilt, having met some truly amazing and wonderful people on the chemo unit whose stories are working towards an end very different from my story, and whose indomitable spirit and cheerfulness never cease to amaze me – I find myself asking myself “Why me, and not them?” Fruitless question, I know, because cancer is no respecter of persons and the whole thing is a huge lottery with no rhyme nor reason to it. I know I shall move on from this rather complex response to what I know is brilliant news for us, but at the moment I can’t match my hubby’s simple and honest and uncomplicated response of utter joy and relief! I am also wrestling with the fact that my response is a total surprise to me, as I was anticipating feeling the same uncomplicated joy as my hubby.

I have been through a lot over the whole of this year and a couple of weeks ago had an investigation under general anaesthetic which knocked me back somewhat, and I’ve been a bit low in spirits – I think it’s all a reaction to what has been a complete rollercoaster of a year emotionally and physically. I will get there in the end, but for now I need a period of readjustment to my new status as Cancer Survivor and Ordinary Person lol!

I am not feeling brilliant physically either, because I am plagued with peripheral neuropathy as a result of the chemo – this is not the transient, acute version one gets after each treatment, which diminishes towards the end of each cycle, but the persistent, chronic version which is different, and quite intense. I have also developed a couple of rare neurological effects which may or may not have developed because of my existing neurological condition (M.E.). There is no guarantee that I shall fall into the percentage of people whose post-chemo peripheral neuropathy eventually clears up, or whether I shall be part of the significant percentage for whom this is a permanent legacy. Either way, it is a small price to pay for a cancer-free life, and if it does end up being permanent, it will serve as a constant reminder, along with Kermit, my stoma, of what I have been through in order to become a cancer survivor, and I shall be glad of that, because I never want to forget, and I never want to take what I have for granted, and I always want to be reminded to count my blessings daily.

Stamps from Packaging Foam

The first of three posts for today.

I received a parcel recently with some grey packaging foam, and as I took it out, it bore a striking resemblance to a piece of foam I bought at a craft show ages ago, called a “Magic Stamp” which you are supposed to warm up with a heat gun and then press onto something textured. This makes a stamp which you can use as many times as you want, and when you want to make another one, you just warm it up again and repeat the process.

I thought I’d try warming this packaging foam and see what happened – nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Here is the stuff I used for my little experiment.

You can see the “Magic Stamp” on the left – the blue block in the plastic bag. Next to it is a twist of kitchen paper with some pistachio nut shells in it that I saved ages ago to use in art, which I thought might make an interesting texture.

Then the stamp I made, and my heat gun. Front row: packing foam blocks, the stamping I did on a scrap of card, and a distress ink grabbed at random.

Here is the stamp I made. I could have warmed it more and pressed it harder onto the nuts, but the result came out OK!

The stamping. After stamping twice, I cleaned off the stamp by pressing it several times onto the card to give a softer impression, then wiped the stamp over the edges of the card.

Definitely some potential here! I am thrilled that this foam, which I was about to throw away, is going to come in really handy! I think it will also be a useful asset once I finally get going with gelli printing.

Shoshi’s motto: never throw anything away until you’ve thought about whether you can make art with it!!!

Priming Clear Stamps

The first of two posts for today.

I recently acquired some stamps from Inkylicious, a set called “Simply Trees.” Their website wasn’t terribly clear, and while some stamps were listed as “clear polymer stamps,” some were not described as rubber or clear, and I assumed that those not labelled “clear” would be cling-mount rubber stamps. When they arrived, they turned out to be clear. I am not normally a great fan of clear stamps because I’ve never got such good results with them as I do with rubber stamps – not only was the impression a bit ill-defined, but I have had awful trouble with the ink balling up on the stamp and giving a mottled result.

I knew you were supposed to prime them in some way but apart from rubbing them with a pencil eraser, I didn’t know much else, so today I decided if I am going to use these stamps and make them work as well for me as possible, I’d better find out how to do it.

I found some videos on Youtube and some tutorials on Splitcoast Stampers, and following their advice, I stamped at each stage in order to compare the results.

Most people seem to think that Versafine ink pads are best for clear stamps but I don’t have any, and I love stamping with Distress Inks – people say these are not suitable for stamping but I’ve never had any problems with them – I think they are brilliant! I grabbed one of my new DI pads that arrived with the stamps – Blueprint Sketch (OK, perhaps I should have grabbed a green one since all the stamps are trees lol!) and ended up stamping a series of blue trees. Oh well, the experiment worked, at any rate!

My first stamping was with the stamp straight out of the packet, with no treatment. It was OK, but I could definitely see an improvement after I’d done some priming.

The first treatment was with Stazon Stamp Cleaner. I was a bit reluctant to try this even though it was recommended by one person, because I’d read somewhere that this stuff could damage clear stamps and was designed only for rubber, so I only tried this once, and abandoned this treatment thereafter.

The second treatment was to rub the stamp all over with a pencil eraser, clean off the residue and stamp. To clean off the stamp, I used my stamp cleaning pad which is like a large flat kitchen scrubber on a foam backing – a brilliant tool.

The third treatment was to rub the surface of the stamp gently with a nail file – this file has sapphire dust stuck to the surface and is quite fine. Again I dusted off the residue using my stamp cleaning pad.

The fourth and final treatment was to rub over the surface of the stamp with an anti-static bag, again cleaning off any residue.

I was very pleased with the result of all this priming, so, omitting the Stazon stamp cleaner, I proceeded to prime the rest of the stamps in the set, using the pencil eraser, nail file and anti-static bag, and printed them all off to see how they came out.

The stamps looked much less transparent after priming, but they are still clear enough to see where to place them accurately.

Another piece of advice I found was not to put too much pressure on the stamp when using it – they are a lot softer than rubber stamps, and you can squash them a bit if you press too hard, which gives a less clear result. Also, it is good to stamp using a foam pad underneath the cardstock – a friend recently sent me a lot of stash and it included the pink foam pad you can see in the photo below – it feels exactly like fun foam but is much thicker. If I remember, I think I may use this with normal rubber stamps in future, too, because it worked so well.

I got very good results indeed, following all this advice, and may be on my way to becoming a convert to clear stamps! They do tend to be cheaper than rubber ones, and have the advantage that you can see where to place them with a high degree of accuracy. Maybe it’s time to dig out my old clear stamps that I got when I first started, and give them a new lease of life.

In the photo, you can see that the stamps now have a somewhat milky appearance as a result of their surfaces being roughed up.

I hope others find this information as helpful as I did.

Mould Making and Stamp Mounting

I had my fourth chemo on Friday and although I felt awful for the rest of Friday, yesterday and today I am feeling quite a bit better and have managed to do a few things. The worst part has been raging peripheral neuropathy in my hands and feet and the only thing to do is to keep them as warm as possible – not easy doing things with 2 pairs of gloves on!! Last time I had a good weekend but then crashed for the rest of the first week, so I am hoping this won’t happen again. Things were much better in the second and third week though, so I think the reduced dose is helping.

Yesterday I spent some time working on editing images for one of the secret projects I am working on, and this morning I decided to make some moulds from the new metal embellishments and gearwheels I got on Ebay last week. For one of the projects I am working on, I wanted to use a particular rubber stamp from a set I bought ages ago but hadn’t yet used, and I hadn’t realised that I had never got around to mounting them, so I did that today, too.

Mould Making

In addition to the gearwheels, I also got a couple of metal pairs of wings and hearts from Ebay. All these metal embellishments are quite heavy for use on cards, and are better on albums and other projects, so I decided to make moulds from them – that way you can use the originals with impunity, but still have an endless supply! I make them up in Friendly Plastic or UTEE or polymer clay, or even Polyfilla One Fill (Joint Compound) – whatever takes my fancy.

I finished the EasyMold Silicone Putty (the purple sort) and then started the Amazing Mold Putty (yellow) to finish this project. Need to order some more of this!

The putty comes in two pots, one coloured and one white. You take equal quantities of each, and mix them together until you can no longer see any streaking, and then you press the object into it. It cures really quickly so you need to work fast – the large mould in the picture (the pair of wings and the heart) was starting to go off while I made the impression because I didn’t mix up enough to start with, so I am not sure how well that one will work. I can always make it again if it’s not a success.

Once they are set, you can pull the object out, but you shouldn’t use the moulds until they are fully cured. I usually leave them overnight to be sure.

Stamp Mounting

My last attempt at stamp mounting using EZ Mount Foam was a bit different! Usually this is a horrendously sticky and unpleasant job, and even with Tim Holtz’ wonderful non-stick scissors with their micro-serrated blades, they get coated with sticky gunk and have to be cleaned off, and it gets all over your hands… So last time I decided to use my hot knife, after seeing a Youtube video on this, and while it worked really well, it made the most humungous smell which took a long time to get rid of!

This time, therefore, I decided on the Talc Method. I always keep a jar of unperfumed talk on my work desk as it has all sorts of uses. This time I sprinkled some on the craft mat and rubbed some on the blades of the scissors and cut out the stamps which I had already stuck onto the ultra-sticky surface. I put the clippings into the talc and kept adding more to my fingers and to the scissors, and the result was pretty good!

Clean-up was easy afterwards – all the bits went in the rubbish bin and didn’t stick to my hands. I wiped off as much talc as I could from the surface of the stamps, and put them back on their packaging. The scissors had a bit of glue on them (minimal) and I used a quick spray of Stick Away from Crafters’ Companion (an essential part of my kit).

Nice job, eh?

More later, on how I use these things.

WOYWW 319

I’m feeling quite a bit better now, as the second week advances after chemo treatment #3, so I’ve been a bit more active on the creative front.

My desk today.

Annotated for your delectation and delight! You will be glad to hear that true to her cheapskate character, Shoshi has rescued some little twists of wool from the back of the settee – these obviously got down through the recliner mechanism to the floor since I completed my knitting project! Not one to throw anything away, however manky if it can still be used, these now sit in all their glory on my desk waiting to be cleaned up! You can see also that my paint water remains suspiciously clean.

Moving on, I have two lavender sachets remaining from that project, and as tomorrow I am seeing the two ladies I became friends with in hospital, I thought I would make up two more boxes to put these in. One of them will have the little chemo card inserted – she and I are neck-and-neck in our treatments, mine being every 3 weeks on Fridays and hers every three weeks the following Mondays (sad that the hospital is so badly organised that they couldn’t do us both together lol!!). The other one’s cancer was so well confined to her bowel that she didn’t need chemo (don’t I envy her!!).

You can see one of the box pieces waiting to be embellished. I am in the middle of sorting out which rubber stamps I want to use for this, and have got a selection out. The set on the right is a new Chocolate Baroque set that I haven’t used yet.

As always, there is stuff lurking around (usually carefully hidden out of shot!) waiting to be put away, and underneath the desk are a couple of Really Useful Boxes (RUBs) waiting for a home to be found for them, and the top one now contains various bits and pieces for art doll making.

Last week someone asked what I was using a screwdriver for! I was a bit mystified about this till I realised she must mean my Bosch hot glue gun which is a bit of a monster, I admit… It lives at the back of the desk on its charger.

Moving downstairs to Desk #2 (!! – my table in front of the recliner) I have got my doll making stuff out.

I downloaded a Tilda doll template from Pinterest last week, and sized it to what I thought would be suitable. It’s coming out quite small so I’ll probably redo it a bit larger, but I think it will be OK. You can see I’ve started stitching the pieces together. I know this would be a lot quicker on the machine but I am not able to sit in my studio for extended lengths of time yet and quite enjoy being in the zone with tiny back-stitching on the comfort of the recliner. On the left is a collection of cut out pieces of card comprising another angel template, this one a multi-layered felt one, inspired by an image I found on Pinterest. I’ve got a big bag of felt scraps and will cut it from these, and add some embroidery to embellish it. At the back of the table is the fabric I’m making the current Tilda doll from (the body is made from a beautiful old Egyptian cotton sheet which is so fine that I am having to use longer pins than my usual ones because they are slightly thinner, but they are still leaving marks which have to be smoothed out. I am using a fine Betweens needle to sew the pieces.

My tools and other bits and pieces are in a tray taken from one of my RUBs. Useful little compartments.

And now for those of you who haven’t visited me since the last WOYWW, I’ll put you out of your misery. Here is the “sneak peek”:

You can see the “funny stuff” as part of the embellishment. Here it is in all its glory.

It was part of some pot-pourri we had years ago and I saved it for art stuff. You can read all about it here. Nothing to do with angels!!

Finally, I thought you might like to see how the brainless knitting is coming along.

Progress is slow, but at least I’ve made some! It’s good to work on while having the chemo (till I start to feel too poorly to do it) and also if I feel up to doing something, but nothing too involved. In addition to this, this week I have revived Inkscape (free, open-source, very powerful vector drawing software) and have been designing some things to cut once I eventually get my Cougar cutting machine up and running again. (Long overdue…) I can do this on the computer with very little effort and it’s highly creative.

I am hoping to have the rest of this week, and all next week, feeling a lot better and managing to work on projects again. My angel project is moving ahead extremely slowly but I am still not putting pressure on myself to complete it by any given date. I’ll keep you posted.

Happy WOYWW everybody. I’m joining pretty late in the day so I hope you are all still there!

Edit – I have just signed up for WOYWW, only to read of the devastating news of the sudden death of Eliza, one of our regular members. It makes my last sentence take on a whole new meaning. I shall miss her posts, and the regular news of her beautiful cat Yoda who always made me smile week by week.