Collages

Today I've been doing some more coursework, namely making collages from geometric shapes using complementary colours:


I chose the papers for the background of this one, then realised that they are fire and water!




This one was great fun to create, I loved choosing the papers for the square.


This one is inspired by this image from a collection I made last module. It was great fun to tear all the pieces of various papers and colour them.

Creative Sketchbooks Module 3

I handed in Module 3 of my course last week.

It was an enjoyable module, I had to collect inspirational collections of images.

I then used one of these to paint a range of papers using colours drawn from an image of a bird, and further worked into the papers with oil pastels and PVA glue.



The biggest challenge for me was the drawing part of the module, where I had to sketch various plants. Having not done any drawing for about 13 years, I was rather scared of that part of the module. Hannah gave me some good suggestions, the most helpful of which was to set a timer and just sketch for 5 minutes, getting down whatever you can in that time. I did these 3 sketches of plants int he conservatory on holiday:







I need to get into a habit of drawing more things, so that I can keep on working at the fear of doing it, and hopefully get better!

The next module looks fun, lots of work with collage and stencilling.

DJ DJ!

On Tuesday Night, Helen & I DJed at Stitches'n'Hos, a local knitting night at the Hare & Hounds pub in Kings Heath.

We'd volunteered to do it a couple of weeks earlier, armed only with our impeccable taste in music! We'd never DJed before, and had no idea how such strange equipment as decks and mixing desks worked.

We spent a couple of our Tuesday evening get togethers planning the kind of things we'd like to play, and picking the first hour of music, to give us time to get used to the decks and make sure the crowd weren't throwing knitting at us because they didn't like the tunes!



We had a fabulous time, got some knitting done, and played lots of songs we love. Some of the tracks are available on Spotify, so here's a Spotify playlist of those I could find.

There are so many good songs we didn't get to play, so we're looking forward to the next time we can get the CDs out!

Tiny Robot Love!

I can't quite remember how, but David discovered these fabulous little robots:



Their creator makes them and sets them off into the world, with a destination on the flag, but they can only travel in straight lines, so they need help from passers by to make it to their goal.

Check out Tweenbots, the video is wonderful!

BARG#4

Yesterday, Mr Wonderfuls and I went off to join the BARG peeps for a day of fun at w i d e o p e n s p a c e, a day of games based round the bullring and Curzon Street.

The first game we played was Hat Snap, which involved wearing a rather fetching newspaper bonnet with a number on the back:



There were about 10 of us, and the object of the game was to take as many photos as possible of other people's numbers, while trying to stop your one getting snapped. It was great fun, with all these people who had moments before been strangers running round after each other, sliding along walls, sneaking out from behind pillars and generally bemusing people who were having a quiet afternoon shopping in town.





I won! I got 22 points, partly I think due to my camera having quite a good zoom in comparison to some of the camera phones in use. It was great fun, and I caused many giggles walking through Smiths looking for batteries with my hat on, though when I told people what I was doing, they wished me luck.

We headed over to Curzon Street next and set up a chalk labyrinth for a few goes at The Lost Sport, where a blindfolded runner needs to work their way out of a labyrinth guided by the rest of the team who are walls and cannot give any guidance other than humming.



This is what the game looks like from the outside:



Here's a little Wall's Eye Point of View:



After a few people had worked their way out of it, I decided to have a go. It was a thoroughly bizarre experience - you're trying to balance going as fast as you can with not falling over, crashing into people, or treading on too many toes. There were several moments where, apart from the humming, it felt as if I was all alone in a wide open space, and plenty where I was walking into the walls. The turns were particularly difficult - you're heading along fine, and suddenly you crash into someone and need to work out what way to go next.

duncautumnstore recorded a couple of audioboos of my run, which are here and here, complete with many apologies and giggles.

We also played the 'Waving At Trains' game, as lots of the train lines out of the city run past the car park where we were playing:



Quite a few people waved back (more on local services than cross country ones) and a few train drivers even honked at us!

There were more games later on, but Mr Wonderfuls & I decided to head home. All in all, a fabulous day, thank you to Nikki for organising it, we'll be looking out for BARG#5!

Very Crafty Weekend

This weekend I've made rather a lot of things. As well as the finished quilt top for Thomas, I made two skirts.

I ordered a couple of Clothkits in January, and hadn't made time to sew them till this weekend. First, I sewed up the Trellick Tower skirt:



I love it. It's ever so slightly crackers as a skirt, but is really rather fabulous.

Here, thanks to the wonders of Zemanta, is a pic of the actual Trellick tower, in London:

Image via Wikipedia

The second skirt I sewed was their 'Hold Me' skirt, which is an absolutely beautiful design from a papercut by Rob Ryan, an artist whose work I recognise, but never knew, and am now utterly in love with.

The way that the Clothkits work is that they send you a piece of preprinted fabric with all the pattern pieces marked on. You chalk the side lines onto the skirt pieces, cut them out, and use them to cut the lining.


The fabric as it arrives

You then follow the nice clear instructions (as much as I ever follow instructions) and make it up into a skirt.

I'm really pleased with the Hold Me skirt, the colours are gorgeous:





I also carded 5 merino-silk-wensleydale batts in beautiful sea blue-greens, and sewed all the ends into my Treat scarf. All in all a good weekend!

Finished Top

I've been working on Thomas's quilt, and yesterday I pieced all the squares into 6 strips to form the central panel. Today, I've sewed it into this:



The observant among you might notice that it differs slightly from the plan. When I was assembling the strips, I seem not to have managed to put the squares together to make a railfence. I'm calling it Crocodile Whirlpool.

Now to do more crafting before going to Wrapped In Wool's birthday crafty shenanigans, and more sewing is planned for tomorrow, including teaching Mr Wonderfuls how to sew cravats.

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!