Chatting, Tea, and Playing!!!

Rochford Art Trail is NOW ON. Take a look around, lots to see, including an anonymous postcard sale, for charity.

I went out for my Playday with my friend Mary. Its been absolutely eons since we've done this. We didn't get so much playing done, as by the time we have consumed tea, lunch, I put some bits on Mary's computer for her, and we watched a Jan Beaney/Jean Littlejohn dvd, we only managed the one sample!!!
Having been doing this creative stitchy lark for sometime now - very little seems to be new any more, product wise. Sounds pretentious but it does get a bit, seen that, done that, lots of the new books which come out, I take a look and realise, did that 10-15 years back. Or I know techniques, or products by another name.  But as they say there is very little new to be discovered, just probably better ways to design and use, and of course the skills and individuality involved. What keeps every artist of any kind going... the need to keep trying things.... to keep on scratching that creative itch. The "what if...."
So what did we play with, something that is new to us.... Aquabond 2... its the sticky dissolvable fabric - of course both of us have used many different types of dissolvable over the years - but the sticky has been around for a while, but we'd not tried.  First problem finding an edge to peel it off its paper, and then to stop it welding itself to everywhere, scissors, table top, fingers. I used the sticky as it was, sprinkling chips of fabric on it. This is the difference between the two of us. As I go for just testing what it will do, so I'm more interested in will it hold, chiffon, net, cotton - but Mary sees design in everything and carefully cut out and placed her fabric shapes. I used pinks, reds, oranges, colours I never use, with a lime green thread, again a combination that I wouldn't normally bother with - whereas Mary considered the tones of her autumn colours, swapping out things until she had a pleasing design. She put her piece into a hoop to free machine, whereas I did it flat with no other support, again I wanted to know if you could move it around without need for a hoop - and yes you can. We've made dissolvable sandwiches before, but there's still an element of things moving during assembly before stitching. So we were pleased with the ability to place a fabric and have it stay.  Now I want to play with placing paper - will it disintegrate when the sticky is washed out........ I'll let you know - but actually that idea also sounds appealing!!! Here's my sample - its not about design, or beautiful stitching, just about playing with a product, which, ironically.... you can no longer see!!!