Our Lives are Rivers

I am going to try and post several projects here that were completed quite some time ago but that for one reason or another never made it onto a blog post. This one is the oldest and has been lingering on my work desk for so long that I kept overlooking it so used had I become to it's presence. I made it as part of my work for Craft Attitude way back in January. In face the completion date was the 25th of that month as I duly noted on the back. The size is approx.10 x 15".

It was inspired by a photograph I took even longer ago, on the 19th October last year when John and I visited the Stobo Water Gardens when they were at the height of their autumn colours, so very much at the same time of year as now.

As it was a project for Craft Attitude who in the end selected to use one of the other projects I made for them I did write a full tutorial for it and here it is, just in case you're interested:

Our Lives are Rivers

1. Print one of your painted papers (made using gelli plate, paint, stencils and spray ink) onto a cotton fabric sheet.
2. Print photograph of bridge onto Craft Attitude.
3. Attach Craft Attitude image on top of the printed cotton sheet from step 1 using WonderUnder (or Bondaweb if you're in the UK).
4. Attach WonderUnder to the back of the resulting piece and cut into 9 1” strips.
5. Prepare the 14.3/4” x 10.1/2” background by layering the fabric (French Journal Collection by London Portfolio for Michael Miller) with batting and backing fabric and machine quilt it in straight lines.
6. Sew on the yellow binding.
7. Appliqué on the 9 strips (don’t forget to use an ironing sheet!), spacing them regularly over the surface.
8. Stitch them down by machine along the perimeter.
9. From the background fabric cut and appliqué a bird image as shown, again using WonderUnder and machine stitching.
10. Layer the vintage text with painted fabric and, using the Xyron Create a Sticker machine adhere as shown. Hand stitch along the vintage text and cover with Diamond Glaze
11. Bead along the binding and the image strips using size 11 seed beads in matching colours. Also bead areas of the bird.
12. Add hanging sleeve.

This is the gelli printed paper mentioned in step 1

Craft Attitude is now available from Amazon in the UK. It's sold under various names such as Craft Attitude for Quilts, Scrapbooking or for Shoes or Glass, but in fact this is all exactly the same product, only the instructions are different for the different media you can use it on. Don't forget when you're printing on it that it comes in American letter size rather than A4 so adjust your printer settings. 

The vintage text comes from my favourite vintage book (and one I've used in most of the 52 Journals too): Proverbial Philosophy by Tupper. In fact I have just bought another copy on Ebay as the present one is falling to pieces rapidly. I do love this particular sentence almost more than any of the other gems I discovered in this book. A word of warning though, this is an ultra religious tract and some of the comments may offend. As most of you know I'm not religious and although I find some of the text objectionable I put up with it because he uses words beautifully and some of the feelings he expresses are universal. I also cut out sentences and once out of context they become more meaningful to me.

Here are some more detailed pictures although it has to be said that photographing this piece was difficult. It looks much better in real life to my eyes. This is something many visitors to the 52 Journals exhibition also told me: that seeing the journals online was very different from seeing them in the flesh so to speak. It is almost impossible to capture that sense of texture that stitched art has in a picture. I can only try my best here on this blog but you will have to wait till the next exhibition to see this with your own eyes.