AVOWED

Curiosity begets creativity. A recent purchase of a new product, late night restlesness and a slew of fabric scraps. Put them altogether and what do you get? A new ATC.

I've been meaning to start on Christmas themed pieces. With that intent, I grabbed one of my myriad of Madonna and Child images. Didn't want to do another gel medium transfer. Don't want to get too predictable. So I decided to try something called "Transfer Ink!", a Stewart Superior product. Bought it from Collage at Art and Soul in Portland. It is a straightforward product . . . clear liquid in a spray bottle. If not for the smell, I'd swear it was just H2O. It probably is just water with some sort of perfumey additive (scent is similar to Febreeze). Certainly need to figure it out because it is a bit pricey, as with all these boutique products, and if I can kitchen-reproduce it, you bet I will. Maybe I will just try Febreeze. But I digress . . .

To do the transfer, I used an ink-jet printed image placed face down on a piece of Japanese sketch paper. Liberally sprayed the back of the paper until the image showed through, per the instructions, and then burnished the back with a brayer (and my fingernail). This transfer gives a nice muted watercolor effect, which is an interesting change from the gel transparency method. I then randomly stitched it - along with two scraps of aged, patinated paper scraps - to a craft felt background. For finishing touches, I embellished it with pieces of fabric, pom pom ribbon, mica and beeswax dipped text. Felt an itch to stitch a little more, so I free-motioned a heart in the center and then hand-stitched (very inexpertly, I might add) a rusted wire heart to the whole piece. Christmas being right around the corner, my mind turned to the meaning of the season, the promise and purpose behind the holiday, and, alas, the title was born.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and looking forward to spending time with friends and family !!

Ciao for now.

Shelly

HAPPY ACCIDENTS

We've all had them. Heck, stop and think about it . . . you may even have BEEN one. Know I was. Anyway, happy accidents are mistakes in our techniques that actually turn out to be pretty darn cool. Case in point: my most recent ATC, "The Madonna".

I started with an image transfer from a transparency. I've been using the 3M brand to do my inkjet prints, and while it is a pricey brand, the transfer quality is worth the price. My inkjet printer gives off some weird colors with the transfers, however, but since this was to be an aged-looking piece, the bluish tones were not so bad. I used Golden soft gel (glossy) to transfer the image to a piece of unbleached muslin. Everything went as planned. No happy accident yet. If you've done transfers, you know they leave spotty areas where the ink did not transfer. I like to burn things, so I got out my then-new Versa tool and lightly singed the blank areas to give it a grungy look.

Next was to stitch the image to a piece of text that I had dipped in beeswax. I love beeswax and look for any excuse to use it. It adds to the antiqued look of things which complemented this piece well. Part of the text didn't make it into the beeswax (bottom right hand corner) and that was okay, too. Added a nice contrast. Now, here is where the happy accident took place.

I needed to stitch the Madonna image to the beeswax-text background. Enter sewing machine. I am grossly untrained when it comes to sewing and rarely recognize an error when I make one. However, even with my limited skills, it became evident halfway through the stitching that the bobbin had not been wound properly. (This is sad, considering that I have an automatic bobbin winder feature on my machine.) Not one to scold myself for my snafus, I took the piece off the machine and was pleasantly surprised at the little loops that had formed over the Madonna like a halo. And there were more curly-loopy-things on the stray threads along the edges. I love stray threads as much as I love beeswax, so they stayed with the piece.

I finished the card by laying a piece of sheer fabric (can't remember what it's called right now - remember, I am new to this fabric art stuff) over the constructed card, snipping out the middle and burning the inside edges with the Versa tool. That smelled a little because of the synthetic fabric, so if you try this at home . . . beware !!! Toxicity alert. Having replaced the wayward bobbin with a properly wound one, I stitched the sheer fabric overlay to the card and attached the "every heart is loving" text (also dipped in beeswax) above her hands. The card was done and I was satisfied. Now if I can just go back and figure out how to improperly wind a bobbin, on purpose, to reproduce my "new technique". :-)

Ciao for now.

Shelly