Fusing fabric the healthy way!

For sometime now I have been wanting to do something spiral using the techniques within this book. Fusing Fabric by Margaret Beal

BUT before I begin I need to have a respirator/breathing apparatus device for Health and Safety purposes as the fabric will give off fumes. I will also need to be in a well ventilated room!

SO

I've just nipped out to the local builder's equipment hire shop to buy this...

It's not pretty and I apologise for the hideous model, but if it keeps me safe I don't care what I look like! Off now to meet up with some girlfriends for a coffee at the local family run coffee shop.

Inspiring magazines in WHSmiths!

I nipped into WHSmiths while doing the shopping this morning and found these.

I love Inspirations and enjoy the rich pages of wonderful things I just haven't got the time to make - but might do one day - and I am looking forward to sitting down and having a long luxurious browse through it's pages. The other two I bought for the quilts inside which gave me ideas for the "Challenge" quilt in the forthcoming show in June.

The Challenge is "Wales" as this year we will be based at St. David's School for Girls and I would love to adapt the pages shown to create a Boutis quilt with a Welsh Dragon instead of a Chineses one - Yes, there is a difference! - and maybe change the Hares for Dragons. What do you think?

So many ideas so little time...

My Favourite Kind of Shopping!

I re-read through the Distant Stitch Course chapter on buttons last night. I have a few samples made using shop bought kits and they are nice in their own way, but there's something to be said for creating the buttons from scratch. So I have been shopping for button forms, (the base onto which you will put the textile top, in case you don't know), but not the usual packets you can find in haberdashers. Oh, No, I went to the local Homebase and perused the plumbing and hardware sections. I like to look at the things you would use one way and then think how I could use it in a textile way. So washers, wooden dowel plugs and foam guards for furniture become my forms for the buttons I shall be creating. I also went to Woolworths and Ryman's for bubble wrap and foamboard. And to British Home Stores for tights to hold all the padding down.

My Button Form Shopping

I returned from shopping to find my neighbour had kindly taken delivery of this lovely bunch of flowers. Happy Valentines Day!

Valentine's bouquet with a yellow rose!

I love yellow flowers, they brighten the soul, yet yellow roses have a bad meaning if you read some "The Meaning of Flowers" books. I don't care, DH can send me yellow roses instead of red any time of the year, I'm not a conventional girl!

What I did today...

...I visited the Make it Show at Farnborough and spent money! I bought a new gadget - a cutterbug, which is a cutting & embossing gadget which you place cutting dies or embossing plates so you can make paper more interesting. Most people would use it to make shaped paper for card making or scrapbooking. I'm hoping that it can cut fabric so that I can do interesting stuff with needle and thread, we shall see.

I also bought some stamps - Paisley designs to use with my current module as I had abit of an idea before Christmas and it is gradually taking shape, hopefully.

Unfortunately the weekend has been ambushed by the Mothers Union jumble sale, as I'm on'th Committee I am expected to be there from 10am til 4.30pm, and Husband has organised a family day out on Sunday to the rugby at the Stoop, (daughter not keen and I'm praying for dry weather! Son's ecstatic, Husband would rather be at his beloved Sixfields), so no playing with gadgets and stamps til Monday.

Is it possible to sew and watch rugby? I have been known to embroider during a football match much to the disgust of the diehard fans who believe a woman's place is next to the kitchen sink!

Off now to find a space in the workroom for the new toys.