I Went To Ikea and I bought...

Well, I didn't buy what I went for which was some shelving for my shudio. I had a jolly good wander round but (a) couldn't make my mind up and (b) couldn't inflict a load of self-assembly on my DH. I've now got my eye on a shelf unit/bookcase from Homebase which will probably still involve some DIY from DH but hopefully not as much as the shelving I fancied at Ikea.

~

~

I had a lovely time strolling round the household and textiles sections and came away with one or two toys and some lovely birdie fabric which I can see me painting, dyeing and even fussy cutting birds to applique. The fabric was only £1.99 a metre and I also bought some plain cotton that I can dye. The rest of the purchases were icing sugar stencils, I particularly like the stripey looking one as the openings are angled in slightly different ways. The piece at the back with flowery holes is a small metal shelf that would usually go in your store cupboard to put tins or jars etc on. I hope nobody saw me but I was busy with a pencil and a piece of paper testing out its frottage capabilites before I bought one! I also bought several lint rollers which you can stick things to and print with and some knobbly plastic drawer liner for more texture rubbings and printing. It all came to less than £10. Can't be bad!

~

~

This is all I can show you of what I have been doing at our workshop/get together/playday today as it's a surprise for somebody but I'll reveal all hopefully in a few days. suffice to say it involved my sewing machine and a little frustration!

~

Did I show you this before? Oh yes, here.
~

~

After I had made the rubbing from my shoes with Markal oilbars I painted the cloth with fabric paints. Unfortunately I haven't got a photo of the result but I do have a photo of how it looks after my efforts today.

~

~

I have turned the fabric over and used the reverse side which looked very much like underwater to me and I've bondawebbed fish shapes which I've cut from commercial batiks. I've cheated and used fish designs from a design book. Tut tut! You can probably see that this is going to go in the direction of the Sashiko style stitching I did this week. I am still making up my mind whether to stitch around the edge of each fish or whether to couch a yarn round. Decisions, decisions! when I come to do the background stitching I am hoping to exploit the swirly shapes showing through from the other side. Hopefully this will be my April Journal Quilt.

~

And finally...........

~

This gentleman was enjoying a well earned 5 minutes outside our workroom today. He had had a heavy mornings' gardening in the border you can see behind him. I wasn't gardening but I knew how he felt! Hope you're enjoying the weekend!