Little Fish Creations

I’ve had excellent cotton dyeing results using Adriene Buffington’s book Hand Dyed Fabric Made Easy. I don’t follow the book 100% but I normally chart out my plans prior to dyeing and generally achieve a beautiful range of coloured fabrics to add to my meagre stash.

Today I decided to experiment, go with the flow, splash some dye here, splash some dye there. I ended up with metres upon metres of utter crap. I am now the proud possessor of much burgandy/maroon fabric and a few metres of greyish/purpley fabric and various miscellaneous pieces I’m not too sure about.

hruuumph 🙁 Only two larger pieces have promise and there may be a few khakis that I have a little bit of inspiration for.

Since I try to provide a photorific blog, here is a scan of a pinky greeny fabric from today’s disaster:

Tonight’s Jewels:

Once again, too much stitching. The orange piece was very good before I went crazy and stiched it to oblivion THEN hacked it up, then sewed it back together, then sewed and sewed, THEN hacked it up. Still, I think its wearable.

I’ll be away for a few days. Tommorow night I’m away for work, then Wednesday we are staying in Melbourne for the Tori Amos concert. I have to go pack now, cheerio.

I’m not 100% happy with this piece. But, wasn’t I just saying recently that I need to accept the crap with the good otherwise nothing would be created at all?

I wouldn’t go so far as saying this is totally crap, but it isn’t a strong as I would like. I like the grid type arrangement in the previous pieces, so I’ll probably try a few more like that. The main aspect of this piece was that it was too ‘candy’ coloured and I needed to add a lot more stitching to tone it down.

What I do like about the piece, and the others, is that it has a nice textured surface. You probably can’t see it from the scan here, but each matchstick is padded with it’s own sliver of batting (wadding). This does mean that I have to add a fair bit of stitching anyway to cover up bits of white showing up the sides of the sticks.

Where is everyone this weekend? I’m still unsubscribed from the QA list so I rely on my blog buddies to keep me entertained LOL.

Actually I don’t miss QA much, so I don’t see myself subscribing again soon. I figure that the best thing was for me to MAKE work rather than spending my time reading other people get narky with one another. And I could never participate in that list as I HATE it when people get narky with me 🙂

The gallery opening was great, best one I’ve been to for a little while.

The works were truely wonderful. The artist, Jenny Peterson, is a printmaking lecturer at Monash Uni in Churchill and obviously much loved by the art stalwarts of the area. I’m very new to this scene so I went armed with few preconceptions and was blown away by the lovely work, her box series was particularly good.

ALSO, my jewel 😉 earned me quite a few comments and offers of putting some in various gallery shops. I had to laugh as I’ve made a grand total of 2 ‘objects’ so far. Still it’s nice to hear such things.

About 9 O’clock last night Riscy was called into work and didn’t get home ’til 4am, so I slept badly thinking he had run off the road on the way home (you mustn’t blame me, I spent a fair portion of work time last week reading crash reports, which always sends my imagination into overdrive).

Whilst Riscy got his beauty sleep this morning, I had a little road trip down to Yinnar to visit the ARC Gallery. A lovely little town and a nice arts facility. I tried to buy some earrings but we couldn’t get the big glass cabinets open… It was quite comical us pushing and pulling on the glass door. There was also some fantastic (and reasonably priced) pottery displayed, I would have whipped out the credit card, but with our trip overseas next month, I thought the better of it.

Ok treasured readers of Little Fish, you may have wondered if I was off my nut yesterday when I mentioned that I would like to explore quilt jewellery.

This is a little piece in homage to Melody’s matchstick moons, executed with about 1% of the finess of Melody’s work, of course, but here it is. Matchstick Brooch:

I’m gonna wear it to a gallery opening tommorow night. I haven’t worked out exactly how I’m going to fasten it to my clothes but I suspect a safety pin might be called into service.

You can also tell that I’m loving the deep orangy red fabrics used in this piece and other recent work… Of course my dyeing is totally unscientific and I have no idea how I got to this colour or how to reproduce, but then again, next month I might just fall in love with a totally different, equally accidental fabric, so I’m happy 🙂

I also love the gold rayon thread used here, love love love 🙂

EDITED TO ADD:

I just made another and thought I’d add it here before I go to bedfordshire.

Imaginatively named Matchstick Brooch 2:

First, I want to show you a simple little bag I finished tonight. It is 25cm (10″) high, from tip of handle to bottom, and 20cm (8″) wide at the base. The body of the bag is made up with the left over fabric I quilted for another bag recently.

I’m going to the Geelong Textile Fibre Forum this year for the first time. I’m going on my own so I hope I’ll be able to make some friends along the way 🙂 Anyway, in a fit of insanity I signed up to have half a table for the bazaar.

I’ve written out a number of lists of things I could make and I think my main ‘thing’ will be bags and perhaps quilted jewllery (similar to the item featured in my last post). I aim to complete 10 bags. But, not just any bags, I’m keen to make them very original, art type pieces… this one doesn’t really qualify, but it’s a good warm up piece.

I’ve also been asked by an aquaintance to make her a bag. She wants one like the bag I use every day, but I really want to do something more complex so I can refine my techniques, I told her that and she is fine with it, so I’m revved to go.

Motivation: I seem to have more engagement making ‘things’ like bags, jewellery etc rather than 2 dimensional wall pieces. I know I’ve mentioned here previously that I am interested in the idea of quilted jewllery and the little quilted, then appliqued, bird on the amulet has given me some confidence there.

So I’m going to focus on these areas (things) for the time being. NOT in a craft way, these pieces must be totally original and pushing my boundaries, this was the hard decision I took a 2-3 months ago (to follow an artistic path), and also why I’ve seen a decline in my productivity relating to a lack of confidence, fear of failure and thinking every piece must be a totally wonderful. I know I’m not alone here LOL!!!

Fitness: In one month we will be in Fiji, kayaking for 10 days. Recently I have been riding my bike to work so I can get some fitness. This morning I went riding with a group of people from work (for the 2nd time). This meant I was up and riding before dawn. I’m not a morning person. But it is good for my fitness and I actually enjoyed it (apart from the sore bum part).

It seems like forever ago that I signed up for the Amulet Challenge hosted by Becky Kelly. It’s a round robin format with four participants in each group. The moment has now come, I’ve started my necklace and attached the first amulet:

The Amulet is about 1.5″x2″, so in effect, a really tiny quilt 🙂 The bird is my rendition of the west african symbol ‘Sankofa’, my take on it is that you must learn from the past, or, as I have written on the back of the amulet ‘don’t forget’.

Thanks to Elle who pointed me to this site the other day after I mentioned the symbol in my blog 🙂

A little journal will accompany this necklace and I’ll also include some scraps of fabric etc. Note, this is just the bottom bit of the necklace, I’ll attach it to some string so I can loop it around my neck.

Sorry I’ve been such a boring blogger lately. It’s bloody hard to stay focused.