Quiet

I've been quiet lately, I know I have.  The final year of my course is speeding along and I have been trying to find a way of working that suits me.

Perhaps because my work is quiet in feel, I find I work better in my own space at home rather than in the noise and bustle of the university studios.  Plus each day I stay at home saves me 2 hours of travelling time and quite a lot of petrol money; yet I can't get over the silly feeling that somehow I am 'playing truant'.  Despite this feeling, since Christmas I have been strict with myself and have stopped dashing around, giving myself time to think about my work and where it is going.

a sneak peek

I have also been worrying that my work has been getting so restrained that it is barely there at all; this timely post from Fiona has really helped me to resolve that in my own mind.

So this week I shall be quietly arranging and rearranging my fragments of glass and hope soon to have some resolved pieces to show you.

Red threads

Sometimes ideas take a long time to crystallize. I knew when I first starting making collagraph prints that I wanted to stitch into them, but the question was, how? I tried stitching into a couple but I wasn't particularly pleased with the results, so I left the idea for a while.

So I was leafing through my pile of test prints the other day mulling over a friend's suggestion that I should use them to make cards. They are really too big to use on a card as they are so I chose one and tore it into quarters.

And then... I thought, what these really need is a bit of red stitching. So out came the red thread, and then a collection of vintage shirt buttons, and this is what I ended up with.

I quite like them arranged together like this on a plain canvas.  I've realised that the reason the print fragments shouted 'red stitching' at me is that they really remind me of little map fragments and of course the red stitched lines are footpaths.  I'm not so sure about the why of the shirt buttons though, nice places to have lunch perhaps??

Anyway, after dithering for a while I decided to stick with my original idea and use the stitched fragments for cards.  I'll be listing them in my hypsela shop on Etsy starting later on today.