SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING

I teach a series of Masterclasses each year.  This years are called Layers, lace & lusciousness!
We are a few ideas and classes in and are now going to make books to contain work using a de-construction item with a history.
It is fascinating to see the various items that the students have bought in and after the preliminary design stages the inspirations they all have

My item is Grandmas jewellery box.  A broken, sad old box that was used to store all sorts of odds and ends, it had a secret compartment, with nothing in and was full of face powder!

This is the front of the box before I took it apart. Lovely shaped pieces with inlaid banding.

SOme of the comments were that they didnt want to destroy their item.  I feel that taking an unloved and discarded item and giving it another life honors the many makers of the components and the many hands the item has passed through

We have been astonished at just how many components are in each item.

Inside mine was green velvet, wadding, orange tape and the best of all on each part of the bok the maker or makers had written code.

I am thrilled with this

A series of mark making will ensue, including stencils, stamps and impressing.

Also if you look at these marks they could be my initials S F

The first image is of all the screws, keys, lock and pins.  I have used some filters to give the aged appeal

I am very excited about this project & have oodles of ideas

Here is a little piece stitched, the orange is tape found attached to the sides under the velvet and the green is torn green baize under the box, I have added a hinge which I attached by machine, this little fragment will be added to a page of one of my books

These overlapping shapes are part of the box, look at the shape - what can you see?  Its a sewing machine!  Spooky al of this.  This paper has been further worked into on both sides and has been turned into a book using sticks.  Well actually kebab sticks, although I did go on a walk and collect a big bundle of sticks, but I thought that my students might just think I had gone a tad too far, so they are laying on my window sill, twigs smell lovely in the sunshine!

This is an old mobile phone when the screen was levered apart, this is what happened, fabulous colours and an eye shape, looking at us, the screen will make a lovely frame or mount for a piece of textile work.

Here is a students quick drawing of a childs toy.  This was a wind up toy which contained a spool of coiled wire, wonderful for machining over

I will add more on this adventure from time to time & I am so looking forward to seeing what my very creative students will stitch

Hope you have enjoyed seeing one of the sides of me.  Creative stitched workshops using processes & products and the other side traditional & contemporary patchwork, one day I will hit on a successful way to fuse the two sides together, but I do love being able to switch from one type of creativity to the other

Dont forget the STASH DASH 30% patchwork fabric sale over on www.studioapatchshe.co.uk
Ends 9pm Friday 10th January 2014, there is no limit & the 30% & relevant reduction on postage will be refunded through paypal, as soon as I have checked that the fabric is still available.
Parcels will be posted on Monday 13th January 2014,

Back to cutting and packing parcels before Stargazing live comes on, great to have a physics program on for a few nights.