Monday 12 September 2011

Quick trip out...

The two of us popped out for a quick trip to the local exhibition centre 'The Lightbox', to see the POP ART exhibition...

The art was a little disappointing for me, as it was not the obvious, blatant images that i would associate with that movement, but there was a section of 60's clothes and artifacts that were pretty cool...

Upstairs, we found a smaller exhibition, a selection of photographs of Paul Weller by Lawrence Watson. I found these photographs quite impressive and for me as usual i like the black and white portraits as i think they are more edgy and give off more of a 'mood'. I was surprised to learn that Paul Weller was born in Woking and 'The Jam' were formed in Sheerwater secondary school !!!

Wednesday 7 September 2011

threads 'n' shreds have an afternoon out...

At last we managed to get a day off at the same time, so we planned an afternoon out. We chose to go to Farnham, as there were a couple of craft venues that we wanted to check out. Firstly we visited The Maltings, where there were a few craft items for us to view, and then we went on to The New Ashgate Gallery.

This displays work from all independant artists in all different genres. Unfortunately upstairs was closed due to re-hanging for a new exhibition, but we had plenty of different items for us to view, with the knitted lampshades standing out for me, for being different...
We had a wander around the town, which has kept its traditional old buildings, and oldy worldy feel.


We checked out a couple of charity shops, and had to pop into the fabric store, where we picked up an off-cut to use for a future project. One of my favourite shops in the town is called Colours, this has a geat mix of clothes, and nik naks, and has a great eclectic mix of funky, ethnic and of course colourful items...


We then moved on towards Godalming, to a gallery called The Surrey Guild craft centre, which we found out about earlier in the day after picking up a leaflet. This was again a mix of different artists work, who all belonged to the Surrey Guild.

It was enjoyable looking at other peoples work, and i liked the 'wire pictures' and the 'seahorse' pottery. What really stood out to both of us were the kaleidescopes. They were amazing, and we could have stood there for hours looking at the amazing patterns that they kept throwing out...

Then it was home for another crafing session... We spent some more time researching rabbit features, but decided to put that project on the shelf for the time being, until we come up with a solution. Instead we had been inspired by the fabric we had bought earlier, as we imagined it being a luscious indian elephant, with fabulous big flappy ears.

So it was back to the drawing board, and another template drawn, and more rummaging through the material boxes to find some complementing fabrics for the features.

In susans bathroom she has butterfly transfers on her shower screen, and everytime i looked at them, i had the desire to do a butterfly cushion. So we put together the basic outline, and we thought that this would give us the opportunity to come up with some beautiful, ornate, and decorative cushions, using some very luscious colourways.

So thats another two animals to add to our menagerie, and we even had some help from Nim the cat...

Sunday 4 September 2011

cat, sheep & rabbit cont...

Threadsnshreds had another get together, we wanted to continue with the cushions that we had started the previous week. Susan meanwhile had been attatching the features, and whilst the cat and sheep were coming along nicely, and starting to take shape, the rabbit was still causing us plenty of issues. It wasn't looking like the cute bunny we had hoped for, it looked a tad scary, so we still need a solution to get the eyes right. The material we had chosen for the body we found was totally unsuitable, as it was too stretchy, so it buckled.
So out came the material boxes again, as we put together some more colourways. We found pieces of a beautiful oriental fabric and put it with plain turquoise, this will turn out to be our Persian!
Another cat was born with a mixture of green textured fabrics.



And lastly for the evening we put together another sheep. We found another cream textured material, but this time teamed it with muted pinks & purples for its features...


So all in all it was another successful evening till next Tue...