Christmas is a comin'

So, it turns out that being a student results in being extraordinarily SKINTO! I think it's had something to do with my terrible budgeting when it comes to visiting people and having the odd night out. Whatever the reason, Christmas has been done on a definite budget!

I went to an exhibition "from carriers to coffins" over summer at the Verdant works in Dundee about the history and future of jute. It was really cool! They had some awesome pieces which I loved, one of them being a chair which was covered in jute sacks

I went to the exhibition with my mum and granny, granny seemed pretty taken with some of the stuff so it got me thinking about what to make for Christmas presents. I have about a million (or, like, ten) jute sacks in the attic which are waiting to be CRAFTED!!

So that was project number 1, a cushion cover for granny made from jute. It's actually turned out pretty well I think. I pulled out some of the fibres and replaced them with some spun sari silk, then backed the whole thing with some plain cotton. Pretty happy with the results!!!

time flies...

So, I have safely managed to establish that I am completely useless as updating my blog!! This is going to change! I want to get all of my work from the last few months up so that I can show off what I've been doing at university (also, I think people have decided I've just been making it up as I have nothing much to show for it!!).

First year in Textiles is now over, and hopefully I've passed everything. It's strange, I don't feel like I've worked as hard this year as I did last year at college- not due to lack of motivation, but more due to lack of direction. No tutors... not sure what's going on... non existant communications... oh and getting snowed into Gala with the uni being shut... all bad factors.

Anyhow, pictures and stuffs to follow.

Soon :)

INTO THE RABBIT HOLE

Start at the beginning and when you get to the end... 


I forget what the theme was supposed to be for this piece. I'm pretty sure it was still life. I started a one [wo]man rebellion on the matter. I don't much like set projects and I knew I had my interview for university coming up so I needed something more textile based in my folio, and so my tutors were basically ignored and I decided to do my own thing- whatever that is!

This all started because of the Twist Fibre shop in Newburgh. It's not big enough to swing a cat in but I could spend half my day and all<\b> of my (pretty much non existant) money in! So, I went there for a quick visit one day and came out with a random selection of wools, craft kits and MASSIVE STABBY NEEDLES. Yeah, they appealed to me a bit too much.

Basically... needle felting- I'd never tried it before and it looked like it could be fun. So I decided to do a wee bit experimenting with it, and it is pretty boss. Stabbing things is surprisingly theraputic :)

Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself! I decided for my art piece I was going to do an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland theme. Why? Because I love it. Not in an "OMG JONNY DEPP AND TIM BURTON" type way. No, I actually love it. Children's books are one of my guilty pleasures. Me and Peter Pan, we're pretty tight.

Initially I wanted to make a necklace out of wire and with charms on it. Y'know... just like all the things in the shops right now. That went out the window because, apart from anything else, I have no idea about enameling haha. Ahh dear. I am no jewellery maker, clearly.

So, rambling aside, I decided to go with the felting-a-necklace masterplan. I started with making beads using wool fibres, warm water and soap. Easy peasy! Made it into a simple necklace- being beautifully modelled by some random scene kid I found in the street :P

After that... well... it's all rather stabby-stab and that. I looked at the original illustrations from the books and decided I wanted to make a tree. This was all needle felted with lots of different colours of wool overlapping. I then made the base of the necklace from black and white patchwork (supposed to be representational of the chess board)... followed by- yes - more stabby stab needle felting of "grass". This is actually a fairly quick process. I thought it would take ages but it is pretty quick and effective :)

The rest of the necklace was pretty straightforward. I had load of ideas of what I wanted to put on it, but it all ended up way too cluttered so I kept it pretty simple. Probably a good thing. I think it sorta turned out looking like a bib. A very nice bib, but a bib nonetheless. For a first attempt I don't think it turned out that badly though!


See, the scene kid is back showing you how it's done ;) 

...stop.

Barcelona project

I love Barcelona! It's the most amazing city. If you've never visited it you really should, just for the amazing architecture (yes, I know, I sound like I'm about 60 but it's so true!).

I first went when I was about 13 and then dragged my parents back three years later.  The culture is completely different from the UK. Much more chilled out- and I like it!! It's definitely ear-marked as somewhere I would consider parking my ass when I finally get my act together and do something with my life!

Some of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen are in Barcelona, designed by Gaudi in the mid-late 1800s. The Sagrada Familia is this beautiful cathedral which has been under construction since 1882 and still isn't finished. It's got the most awesome view once you get about half way up as you can look out over so much of the city. 

We were set a project at college to do a landscape. The tutor wanted us to do somewhere which we liked. I decided I'd give Barca a bash... I'm not quite sure if I did it justice! I started looking at the street layout, and also the colours which I felt were relevant. After I had collected together some images which I wanted to use I set out a fairly abstract image. I think it probably would have looked better if I hadn't shoved the cathedral so far up in the top corner. I like the colours though! Pretty experimental work with inks getting thrown all over the shop and then going a bit crazy with oil pastels. Fun times!

Once I'd done this I decided to work on another piece, focusing on the bat weathervane which I  have at the front of my first picture. This is on the top of a building in the city centre and it's one of the things which really sticks in my mind from my trips to the city. So... again with the muchos throwing of inks, oil pastels and paints. I think this was one of those "just do whatever" moments, which is really not like me. But I think it turned out pretty well!

Once I'd done this I decided to work on another piece, focusing on the bat weathervane which I  have at the front of my first picture. This is on the top of a building in the city centre and it's one of the things which really sticks in my mind from my trips to the city. So... again with the muchos throwing of inks, oil pastels and paints. I think this was one of those "just do whatever" moments, which is really not like me. But I think it turned out pretty well!

The Dress

Ok, so about three years ago now- having just dropped out of uni and started working in the glorious Edinburgh Woollen Mill (sarcasm-fo sho!), I was invited to a couple of mate's joint 21st birthday-bash. Everyone was wearing ballgowns. I tried on my dress from my highschool dance and lo- I couldn't get it done up!! What a surprise...

This induced some form of panic. I was working so few hours that my wages were literally only covering my transport. I couldn't afford a dress. Stress much! Let's be honest though, I was working in a very non-taxing job! I couldn't afford to go out much and therefore had a whole load of free time on my hands. So I decided, in my wisdom, That I would just make my own dress. How hard could it be right?! I had a massive old duvet cover and I figured this would be some kind of funky cheap way to make a dress, and at least I would have something that noone else had. Even if it wasn't that special it would (hopefully) do up at the back so was already beating the dress I owned.

Plan in action!

It turns out that making dresses isn't THAT easy when you've never so much as looked at a pattern before. Not taxing, but y'know.... you don't want to cock it up because then people will ask if your outfit was made by blind monkeys. So I worked my ass off... pinning the damn thing to myself, and eventually had the finished article. A white monstrosity. Rectify with green dye and add decorations (made from fabric samples stolen from the curtain department of Rejects- I am nothing if not resourceful!!!)

et voila!

Yes... my very own lime green dress, complete with butterflies! This was entirely even better when I turned up at said long awaited party- only to discover that the majority of the girls were dressed in black.

I like making an entrance. And standing out like a sore thumb apparently. That aside, the dress held up. So I win.

It made a second outing at my (ex) boyfriend's grad ball. I think he was completely appalled by the whole thing- appreciated my "style" little enough but couldn't exactly protest me wearing it as I'd worked so hard on it!!! Suck it up! I got to touch the big shiny cup. Me and my dress were living the dream :D

The end.

College placement

So, we had to do a week's placement for our hnc. Sarah and I were given a week at Newburgh primary school redecorating their somewhat dilapidated outdoor play shelter.

First impressions: this looks like a crack den



So, day 1: the UBER clean up!! We literally spent the whole morning scraping scabby bits of paint off the wall, along with a large quantity of spider webs, moss and slugs. Fun. After that we painted the best part of the shelter white so that we had a good base-coat before beginning our painting.



Day 2 and 3 done "sans Rachybell". I was dying from ill for the best part of a week, and have been assured that I looked like hell. I would have felt a lot worse about missing 2 days of placement if I wasn't so spaced out on co-codamol. Luckily sarah got a lot of work done while I was lying in bed watching Goodnight Sweetheart and eating jelly.

Day 4: well, that was a general continuation of the work Sarah had managed to power on with. Touching up pictures and getting the base mural sorted out. We both took one side of the shelter to paint our own picture on. Sarah decided on unicorns (apparently a dry run for her bedroom!!) and I decided on a rainbow spider. These were all based on pictures which the pupils had drawn as part of a competition. Apparently a lot of them like rainbows. And fish...


As you can see, Sarah had both time and skill on her side, so she managed to make a much better go at her picture! Still, I like my spider in my own special wee way..!!


After we did our pictures we got wee groups of kids out so that they could paint pictures of themselves onto the wall. This was the p1-p2 class so the kids are all 5 or 6. And Hyper. Very hyper.

So, the suggestion of "painting yourself" was interpreted in a very enthusiastic and somewhat abstract way. It was good fun though, even if one kid did actually believe he was Batman.. prompting another kid to decide that he was, in actual fact, spiderman. Apparently Newburgh is full of superheroes. Who knew?!So here's a couple shots, looking at the destruction that thirteen 6 year olds can cause in the space of only a few hours. I'm not liking the html, it keeps mucking up, so I'm only putting a couple of pictures up at the moment until I can get my poor wee head around it! I think you can see from these that it was pretty damn colourful anyway!!!

There may have been a sight paint fight following the suggestion that hand prints on the wall were a good idea, followed by the best part of the picture being annihilated by the wee darlings we were working with. Hand prints everywhere... even Sarah's ass. I think I look too fierce to be messed with, I got off fairly lightly. Well, up until Sarah attacked me with a handful of paintbrushes. But that is a whole other story anyway.

All in all seems to have been a success, anyway. I would like to think that the kids have a nicer shelter to play in and, what I feel is more likely, the teenage stoners have something slightly more psychedelic to get high in and set on fire. Good work team Sarah and Rachel. Good work indeed!!!