Cold

As it is very chilly, my theme this week is “cold” Not sure how to go about portraying this, so jotted down some ideas. Cold as ice, chilled to the bone, frozen, ice, blue with cold, cold nose, cold hands, chilly, brrrr..!, frigid, raw, bitter cold, cold cutting wind, icicles, frost, hail, glacier, mountain, ski-ing, snowmen.

On a pale gray fabric, small marbles were rubber banded to create a dyeing opportunity. With blue textile ink, I wrote “Shiver” with very diluted ink, then I went over it again, with less diluted ink, the ink spread across the damp fabric, and reminded me of ice on water. I have not tried zigzag free motion stitching, so want to try it on this project.

I limited the colour palette to blue, I was surprise how many tones and hues of blue I had in my threads. It was fun free motion zigzagging ,but I definitely need more practise. I flipped the fabric over and reverse bobbin embroidery with some variegated blue crochet cotton in the bobbin.

With silver metallic thread, and reduced the zigzag to 2, highlighted the word “Shiver”.
I like the layers of thread and how the eye travel across, moving from the bright blue to the white, and back to the bright blue again.

Blizzard

Winter has hit us with snow in the South Island, and frosts and cold fingers in Rotorua. White on white, snowflake and icicles. Using a striped white on white fabric, I cut different lengths and staggered the joins. I wanted to duplicate the fractured frozen ice on a pond, but in reality, it just looks like steps to me.
I cut a small snowflake from folded paper and cut it out. I then cut out the spotted white taffeta into the snowflake shape.
Some white wool unravelled and some taffeta threads pulled from the scraps were used as icicles, the light reflecting off different angles and textures.

A fine white tulle was machine quilted over the snowflake and icicles. Silver metallic thread and a darning plate in the machine, I tried some machine embroidery around the snowflake.
3 strand embroidery thread created icicles in feather stitch, but they look more like branches covered in ice. Daisy chain stitch and straight stitch made more snowflakes. I also outlined details of the snowflake and used glass seed beads and sequins to make the snowflake magical. More beads highlighted the snowflake.

Next time I would facture the white striped fabric more randomly, like ice on a pond. I would also put more threads and other embellishments under the tulle.

Poppies

“Are they what I think they are?”
For several months now, I have been considering using the outside green wrapper, which I think is polypropylene, on the packs of “naturals range” of Libra pads. It reminds me of the tyvek building wrap which is strong and doesn’t rip.
After laying the wrappers from one packet out onto the painting sheet, I painted them with yellow and red textile ink, and mixed up the leftovers for orange. The stuff soaked up the colour fantastically, even though it began as a pale green base.
While I had the ink out, I painted some cupcake liners red and yellow, then decided they needed a “center, so a dab of black or purple paint plopped into the centre of each pleated circle.
When the wrappers were dry I cut them into 1.5 cm strips and wove them to create a background. They cut well and there is no fraying. The leftovers I melts together to create a nest mixture. Texture and all that.
The cupcake liners also hold the colour and creases well, and remind me of poppies, so they started my piece. Silver paint stik was used to stencil poppy leaves around the outside. I also cut some poppy leaves from an unpainted green wrapper. Using the melted “nest” and the green leaves, completed the composition.
Quilted in red thread around the sliver leaves, and stitched the green cut out leaves with green variegated thread.
The poppies needed more, so I popped some yellow seed beads in the centre.
Surprisingly, the products worked well, and I will use both of them again.