Z is for Zenobia

Here as promised is the 2nd page for Linda's album Women of Letters. Zenobia is the only woman in the Z section of the encyclopaedia and here is her full description:

Zenobia: Queen of Palmyra. She married Odenatus, who shared the Roman Empire with Gallenus, and on the death of her husband she made it her ambition to elevate Palmyra to pre-eminence in the Eastern Roman Empire. She took the name Augusta and claimed to be Queen of the East. Her subjugation of Egypt caused the Emperor Aurelian to lead an expedition against her in A.D. 271. She was captured and allowed to retire to Tibur, where she died.

Quite a girl, in other words!!

I used a background made by using gesso on calico (muslin in US speak), sticking down texts and covering with fluid acrylic paints in various colours. I then dived into my supplies and managed to come up with quite a few Eqyptian themed items. It's amazing to discover what you have (specially when your studio is a messy, disorganized tip!). The image of the turquoise female face and the other large one are both paper and have been glued and stitched down, as has the paper text. The Z is from a sticker sheet as are the golden Egyptian images. The hieroglyphs at top left come from fabric and were bondawebbed and stitched down. Again I used size 11 seed beads around the large paper image.

Y is for Young Cinderella

Finally things are back to normal after the Christmas and Hogmanay celebrations. I know some people suffer from the post Christmas blues but in my case I feel energized once the 5th January is upon us and life returns to normal. And I kid you not, I even notice that the days are already getting longer, not by much, I grant you, but enough to persuade me we are going in the right direction i.e. towards Spring. And as I also feel quite virtuous, having gotten rid of some of my backlog and having finished hand quilting (now on to the beading!) a large quilt I'm full of zest for new art!

The Alphabetica project is now also coming to a close as we're on the last letters, Y and Z, and I'm making these for Linda Eustace whose album is themed Women of Letters. I found someone for the Z immediately I opened an encyclopaedia (see next post) but Y mystified me at first until I decided to put Young in front of whoever I wanted to work on. I then discovered a remnant of one of my fabric/paper collages using roses, a really lovely image from the Happily Ever After sheet from Alphastamps and the page started coming together nicely.

The rose collage was stitched onto felt, the image was stitched on with zigzag stitch and I also added the rose (from Alphastamps Roses #1 sticker sheet) as well as the black shadow images of Cinderella etc by using the Alphastamps Cinderella Borders sheet in sticker form. The word Cinderella is also from that sheet and the letters forming Young are from a sticker sheet I bought ages ago. I added size 11 seed beads around the paper image and the page was done!

X is for SeXy Sadie

Of course, there are actually no titles of Beatles songs starting with an X as far as I can discover, so I had to fudge this one a bit and select a title with an X in it and SeXy Sadie seemed to do nicely, apart from the fact that I can't remember ever hearing it. My loss, no doubt!

Anyway I ended up with a bit of a naughty page. The background is a page of faces ala Andy Warhol but in sort of sixties colours with a lot of brown. This was layered with wadding (batting) and machine quilted along the line of the faces. I added a musical note fabric at the left side and a sexy silhouette of legs with red shoes by using Bondaweb. I also stitched both down, to make sure! A sparkly X was added as shown and one verse of the Sexy Sadie lyrics as follows:

Sexy Sadie, what have you done

You made a fool of everyone

You made a fool of everyone

Sexy Sadie, ooh, what have you done.

W is for With a little help from my friends

Another month, another Alphabetica album to work on. It's time for Judy's album which has as its theme Beattlemania. I had quite a few choices for W from songs, and settled on With a little help from my friends.

I've never been a huge Beattle fan and vintage is more to my taste than the sixties, probably because I can still remember the sixties and it makes me think of my age (not a favourite subject!!) but once I started searching among my fabric stash I was quite surprised to find rather a lot of sixties fabrics among it. These are all modern fabrics but sort of in the style of the sixties.

I choose one of Peace and Love as the background, cut to 8 x 8" size, layered with wadding (batting) and machine quilted. To this I added the fun bathing ladies which went so well with part of the text of the song i.e. :

How do I feel by the end of the day

Are you sad because you're on your own?

I'm sure these juicy ladies never feel alone! The text was added by stitching and metallic rub-on was added to them. A sparkly W finished off my first page for Judy.

U is for Umbrella

Finally the collage for Mimi's other page is dry. It seemed to take forever, a sign of the increasingly cool and damp weather. But today I could get to work on it. She wanted her book to look like an old-fashioned ABC book and after much thought I came up with the U is for Umbrella. I know the pictures look rather like parasols, but really it's much the same thing!

When making my fabric/paper collage I used vintage capital U letters as well as ABC napkins and napkins featuring umbrellas, which also dictated the colours that I used. I added a fabric image of a vintage lady with a parasol and superimposed a transparent umbrella (from Paperwhimsy) on top and I also added another 2 identical transparencies (apart from the colours of course).

I stamped the word umbrella next to 2 of the capital Us, using loose letter stamps. Love the brightness of this page and hope Mimi will too!

V is for Vintage

I finished my first page for Mimi in our Alphabetica album exchange where we make pages for each other based on letters of the Alphabet as well as on the theme of the album for which we are making the art. This month my partner is Mimi, who has as her leitmotiv the old-fashioned ABC albums of the past. Observant readers will realize that I have made her second page first. I'm doing both U and V for her but for the V I immediately realized I wanted to use the remnants of the fabric/paper collage that I had made for Debby's album several months ago, so I concentrated on that page and made a new fabric/paper collage for the U this morning, which is now drying and hopefully I'll get around to that page soon. ~By the way, the napkin I used in both Debby's and now Mimi's pages was a gift from Debby! Doesn't it look great in the collage?

I decided that the V would be for Vintage and I used a lovely vintage image of a girl playing a really old-fashioned game. I added the vintage letters, which were self-adhesive but I also stitched on size 11 orange seed beads to make sure they would not come loose and also because I love that hint of sparkle beads provide. The vintage lace was first dyed in coffee and then further antiqued with a spray of gold Glimmer Mist, then sewn on and again seed beads (green this time) were sewn on, as was the fabric butterfly image (from a Divasdeste collage sheet).

I also added several small stitched versions of the letter V (programmed into my sewing machine) and free machined a larger V in the top right.

T is Time for Tea

You might remember the Gothic Arch I made recently on the theme of Time and for my second page for Debby I used the same fabric/paper collage I had made for that arch, as well as the theme Time for Tea I used on the arch. The background is a gorgeous gold-flecked batik fabric which was machine quilted using one of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine. The collage piece was placed on top sort of tilted and stitched on, using a gold zig-zag. I added the vintage girl image (Altered Pages) by stitching and then beading around it using size 11 seed beads. I also added the clock transparency (Artchix Studio) with a gold brad and the Time after Time words transparency (also Artchix) by stitching.

The words Time for Tea were again from the 7Gypsies rub-on alphabet sheet.

S is for Somebody

We're moving fast towards the end of the Alphabet in our Round Robin Alphabetica swap and this month I'm making S and T pages for Debby whose theme is vintage children. My first page was going to be S is for Sepia but someone else had already made a page for someone else's album with that title so I decided to find a different S word.

I made a fabric/paper collage and there seems to have been a lot of interest in that process as I've received various e-mails asking for details. I have just written an article describing it in depth for a Dutch magazine (ARTspecially) which will come out either in October or January. When it has been published I will put a full English translation (the article is in Dutch!) on this blog with pictures of the process so keep an eye out!

For Debby's page I used a paper napkin which she had send me for my birthday in August and I painted the page using ecru and orange Dye-na-Flow but I had used them too sparingly and I felt the page needed a bit of a lift so I sprayed it with Tattered Angel (a sort of red/orange shade) Glimmer Mist. This is not permanent on fabric but is fine as long as you don't wash the item in question. As this is an album page it won't matter. I also used a vintage image from the newspaper (an recent article on children at play in the early 20th Century) and vintage music text which included the word Somebody several times.

I added the glitter S (from Glitterbugs) and a vintage velvet flower (Lost Art Creations) which seemed to have been made for this page. The Somebody text was added with a 7Gypsies rub-on alphabet sheet.

P is for Purple

For Trudi's Purple page I used as background calico (muslin in US) that I had painted and stamped with acrylics. I added a lovely female image (from Divasdeste Purple collage sheet) and added a Violette soap label (from Altered Pages) as background. The purple butterfly is also from the same Divasdeste sheet. I beaded around one of the stamped flower shapes and added purple 3D roses (which meant that I had to photograph this page rather than scan it!) .

The letter P in glitter was added as well as a transparent purple ribbon with purple sequins and beads. This page is definitely my favourite. It turned out so much better than I had anticipated!

O is for Orange

My partner in our Alphabetica exchange this month is Trudi, who selected Women in Colour as her theme so I was most pleased to have her for the O and P swap (no idea what someone is going to to with Q??!!) as the colours this immediately suggested to me were Orange and Purple.

For my Orange page I used a lovely leaf patterned fabric in shades and tints of orange, which I machine quilted along the lines in the pattern. I added a transparency (from Altered Pages) to go with the quote from Colette: The earth belongs to anyone who stops for a moment, gazes, and goes on his way, which is in vellum. The page was further decorated with German scrap at the top which was also beaded, 3 vintage buttons, self-adhesive butterflies and the letter O in glitter as well as a small self-adhesive O at the top right.

N is for No Woman, No Cry

After yesterday's break, I went back to making Abby's next page which had to feature a song starting with N. I had nothing whatsoever in mind but suddenly found myself humming the No Woman, No Cry song by Bob Marley so I suppose my subconscious mind must have been working overtime and this is what it came up with.

I always imagine people sitting on ranch house porches for this song (check out the full lyrics on line!) and I had a fabric with great images of these already. As a background I choose a fabric which went well with this in colour and which I originally bought some time ago in The Netherlands. It's a vintage brown/blue check. This was ironed onto Fast2Fuse and machine quilted with blue thread using the lines in the check. The fabric houses were stitched on as well as a transparency of a similar porch house (from Altered Pages). Now I needed a woman who looked like she could be about to cry which I found on the Alphastamps Emotions fabric sheet. I added a tear drop shaped bead.

Before I went any further I had a bit of a think about why she should be about to cry and I decided that it would be her past life in seedy bars and other sad events in the past, like getting involved with a dismal guitar player and you can imagine the rest. I knew I had this photograph somewhere and finally managed to dig it up. I think it came with a lot of vintage ephemera I once bought on Ebay and this was just the page for it. I also found some text about learning to play the guitar. You will notice that in both cases I used the original. Sometimes that's the only thing that will convey the right athmosphere. And it's not as if I don't have tonnes of originals left!!

I printed out the refrain of the song out on paper which was antiqued with Moon Spray Gold and stitched on. A vintage button and 2 charms forming the word NO were the final touches.

M is for Money

Another month and another swap for our Alphabetica album. My partner this month is Abby! Oh yes, the only online artist whom I have actually met in person as regular readers of this blog will have seen in one of my past posts. Abby has dedicated her Alphabetica album to songs and I had to think long and hard about which song I would choose for M. There seems to be a wealth of them but I finally settled on Money, Money, Money, it's a rich man's world, by Abba.

Yes, I know, showing my age here! But it's a song for which I invariably turn up the volume when it's on Radio 2 and I'm driving. Dare I admit I actually sing along?? Fortunately no-one can hear me!!

For this page I collected vintage bills and cheques, foreign money and imitation US bills and put them on my scanner in a nice arrangement. The resulting scan was printed out onto self-adhesive fabric sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper) and cut to 8 x 8" size (we're all using the 8 x8 7Gypsies ring album). I adhered this to a piece of 8 x 8 Timtex and machine quilted around the money etc. using gold sewing thread and my sewing machine. I then looked at my collection to find a rich man and located a likely one on an Altered Pages sheet. I found a vintage envelope with a picture of an hotel where it would be likely the rich man would like to stay and I stitched them on together. The envelope was open at one end and before stitching over it I tucked a tranparency (Altered Pages) of foreign currency inside which sticks out over the edge of the page.

At the top left I alsw sewed on an actual foreign backnote. The text of the song was added, partly using my Dymo writer and partly a transparency (also Altered Pages)

The page was bordered on all sides with gold transparent ribbon to stay with the Rich theme!

I've already thought of a song for N, now I just have to go off and hunt for the necessary ingredients!

L is for Loved

The other page for Sandee, this time using an adjective starting with L, came together a lot more quickly, as I immediately thought of L is for Loved and by great good fortune the image provided by LostArtCreations for our June Challenge featured a vintage bride and groom. What could be better to show Love! I used a velvety damask fabric as background and layered it up with wadding (batting). I overlaid this with a piece of vintage lace and also sewed on a strip of vintage lace along the bottom edge.

The LostArtCreations image was printed out onto glossy photo paper, and this was stitched onto the above background using a machine zigzag stitch. I was looking for a dreamy athmosphere to accompany this vintage wedding so overlaid the entire page with a white transparent fabric with sparkles. I then added pink size 11 seed beads around the image to pick up on the pink already there as part of the image.

The dictionary description of loving was glued and handstitched on with gold thread as well as the glittery gold heart. Two more hearts were added (self-adhesive vellum).

Quite a sweet page but I love it nevertheless!

K is for Knightly

My partner for this month Alphabetica album pages swap is Sandee, who has chosen as the theme for her album Adjectives. No adjective starting with a K came to mind at first so I sat down with one of my vintage dictionaries and read through the K section and I came up with Knightly, because I knew I already had a background which I made some time ago for another swap. At that stage it was for Camelot and King Arthur but after all, he was in charge of the Round Table, composed of lots of knights. I no longer had enough of the paper/fabric collage itself left to use, but fortunately I had scanned it into my computer so could print it out. I choose to use canvas to print on as it's still fabric but does not fray and is readily available.

I made sure the Knight was there already as part of the collage (see right edge) but added another knightly fabric image, from Alphastamps Jousting fabric collage sheet, which was stitched onto the canvas. In the image the lances stop rather abruptly so I extended them again by stitching.

I cut out the dictionary definition of Knightly and glued it on and antiques it with gold metallic rub-on. The glittery K was also glued on at the bottom right. It needed something more so I added Camelot itself (or at least a castle like it). This is from Alphastamps Medieval Castles Sheet and I used the new sticker form of the sheet. This was the first time I used the new stickers (all Alphastamps sheets can be obtained in this form) and I love the way you can still vaguely see the background through it. Wonderful!! Of course, these sheets are self-adhesive but I also stitched along the bottom bit of the castle image with green zig-zag stitch to integrate it better with the background.

I'm really impressed with how well the collage printed out onto canvas and loved using the sticker sheet, so this page was a real pleasure to put together!

J is for Juliet

This page came to me before Imogen (which required a Google search). As a lover of romance Romeo and Juliet are close to my heart and I also knew I had some lovely Juliet images from Alphastamps.

The background for this one is another of my gorgeous fabric finds in Cabbage Patch fabrics with a velvety pattern. This was layered with wadding (batting) and machine stitched echoing the pattern in the fabric. I added some vintage lace and on top a large Alphastamps fabric image (from the Juliet fabric sheet , portraying the balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet).

I added 4 white vintage flowers at the corners which are held down with a red rose and red bead each. More red beads were added to outline the image.

A smaller fabric image of Juliet (from Alphastamps Shakespeare's Heroines ABC sheet ) was also sewn on and beaded mounted on top of a fabric rose image (bondawebbed or wonderundered). I added a red heart in the same way with larger beads. Finally the quotation was sewn on which reads:

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet

A lovely little rosebud which I picked up from somewhere was the last item to be couched onto the page together with the sparkly J which was attached with Diamond Glaze.

I is for Imogen

It's time for our next Alphabetica pages swap and this month my partner is Linda Eustace (the winner of the Paperwhimsy Quiltie competition, see sidebar). The theme for her alphabet is Women of Letters and the letters I'm exchanging with her this month are I and J. I came up with the J woman first (see next post) and decided to stay with Shakespeare for the I as well and discovered Imogen, the heroine in the play Cymbeline. I'm not a Shakespeare lover and although he did get mentioned in my English lit. classes we tended to concentrate on Dutch writers in The Netherlands for obvious reasons. So Cymbeline was new to me!

Not anymore, mind you, as I read it online as soon as I realized that Imogen was a character in the play.

The background for this page is blue velvet which I have machine quilted in wavy lines in one of the decorative stitches on my machine. To this I added a quotation from the play which rather took my fancy as follows:

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust

This was printed in blue on plain white paper and a transparency was placed over the top and sewn down. The image of Imogen is by Herbert Gustave Schmalz (I've taken rather a shine to his work and am surprised noone has so far immortalized him on a collage sheet!) and is in the public domain. I printed it out onto glossy photopaper, sewed it down and added blue size 11 seed beads.

I added two pieces of torn wall paper (from an envelope send to me by Lenna) as shown. Wrote Shakespeare on one and added I is for Imogen on the other where the I is a charm.

Finally the edges were finished by stitching on a transparent ribbon as binding and sewing on 4 blue buttons at the corners.

H is for Heaven

I've also completed my other page for Heather, my swap partner this month in the Alphabetica Round Robin album exchange where we only exchange pages rather than albums. This has saved us a fortune in postal charges this year. Her theme is Life Defined, so finding definitions in a dictionary. I earlier made G is for Garden for her and decided to go with H is for Heaven for the other page.

I printed the background (from the CD Victorian Angels & Fairies by Joanna Sheen) onto a inkjet canvas sheet and cut it to 8 x 8" size. Then I added two different angels (one male and one female) from angel fabrics in my collection. They were stitched on as was the transparency of some beautiful ironwork gates (from Altered Pages). I found the text: It will lead you in at Heaven's gate in my book of quotations and added that as well as the much larger text H is for Heaven that was printed onto self-adhesive cotton fabric sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper). I added the beaded trim at the bottom and the red ricrac at the top.

The page looks quite religious which is strange as I am not. But I suppose heaven is by its very nature a religious concept and I hope Heather will like it!

G is for Garden

I met one of the readers of this blog today and she had wondered if I had been away as I had not blogged all week. I'm really sorry I haven't been here for such a long time as I have missed it too but I have been so busy teaching this week that I only had time to read my e-mails, reply to the urgent ones and then dive into bed so I would be fresh and ready for the next day. I had to pre-pack several of my courses too and John has been a knight in shining armour making me packed lunches.

One more teaching assignment tomorrow, a fabric ATC class in Purely Patchwork shop, Linlithgow and then I will be having a bit of a rest next week, just stitching and working on some swaps. I'm hoping my next Alphastamps assignment pack will also arrive as I'm so curious to see the goodies we get to work with.

Today I was judging the Journal Quilts made by Region 16 (Scotland) of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles, which was both a frightening and delighful prospect. I've done my best and the winning quilts are stunning. They will be revealed at our area day in Livingston in April (by me) and will be on show at the Loch Lomond Quilt Show this year. Do go and see them if you can, they truely are little beauties.

I did manage to make one piece of work to show you today. It's for the Alphabetica Round Robin swap where every month we make 2 pages for another artist based on the letters of the Alphabet and they in turn make 2 pages for my album. My swap partner this month is Heather Robinson and her alphabet is based on definitions. Just look in a dictionary and find suitable words. My first page G just had to be on G is for Garden as finally the garden is beginning to show signs of life. I wanted to play with fabric as I've done so much mixed media collage work off late that fabric was calling out to me. For the background I used a green velvety fabric (Cabbage Patch fabrics) with patterns of leaves. I layered this up with a flower fabric (also Cabbage Patch fabrics). I added strips of a red fabric to partially frame the image I used, which is from the Quite Contrary #1 fabric collage sheet from Alphastamps. To this I added the word garden (from a discontinued fabric sheet by Artchix Studio) and I substituded the letter g for a G charm. I sewed on green ricrac underneath and I also added a basket shape (which I think I received as a gift for hosting a swap, if I remember rightly). This was attached with a green button and red thread. I also added faux postage from Artchix on which I rubbed gold paint. Finally a hat charm was sewn on in the top right corner.

Queen pages for Caryl

Today I started work on my pages for Caryl's Alphabetica album. Caryl's theme is Queens and her preferred colours are rich and deep. I was SO pleased to get to swap letters E and F with her. If I had been made to choose I would have selected them.

E is of course for Queen Elizabeth I, and due to the fact that she wore magnificent, embroidered gowns, I had a wealth of images to choose from out of my various embroidery books. I finally settled on one which I liked best, specially as the colours of her gown were red and gold and as luck would have it I just bought a sumptious matching fabric from Cabbage Patch fabrics last week. This was layered up with wadding (batting) and machine quilted with gold thread. Queen E was printed out onto self-adhesive fabric sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper), stuck on top of the background and machine stitched with gold thread around her perimeter as well as on her gown where I used a decorative machine stitch. I added several jewels i.e. beads. The really glittery ones in her headdress and decolletage are an amazing buy from a Creative Stitches Fair several years ago. I had not quite realized how expensive they were till they hit me with the total when it was too late as in my mind I already owned them. I use them on very selective and special projects and I know Caryl will love them.

Then it came to the F page and after Viva la Frieda yesterday this proved yet another temptation too far for me. I have a collection of Frida Kahlo fabrics (you might guess why!) and I used my very favourite one so far, which I layered up with felt and machine quilted in a variety of coloured threads. I also added beads and sequins and provided Frida with a crown and a rose in her hair. The additional image of her as well as the Mexican wall tiles are from fabrik paper collage sheets by Bmuse. I added a red plastic Day of the Dead skull. The words Viva Frida come from another of my Frida fabrics and I added the word Queen as well as the additional E in the middle of Frida. These pages took me all day to do and were not what I was meant to be doing today but somehow they took over and I had so much fun with specially the Queen Frieda page that I could not bring myself to stop till they were done! After all, it's not every day you can turn yourself into a Queen!

Alphabetica Album Cover

We have already started our Alphabetica album Round Robin. For this project we keep our albums at home and participating artists send the pages to us. Every month we swap partners and make pages for each other. We're all working in the 5 ring, 8 x 8 7Gypsies album to make things easier.

I had managed to make my own A and B pages but the album looked really bare without a front cover and I thought I would rectify that, specially as Alphastamps produces such gorgeous ABC Books collage sheets.

I selected a furnishing fabric for my background. Conveniently it was divided into little rectangles already which were green velvet on a ivory ground. I layered this up with batting (wadding in U.S.) and machine quilted it with green metallic thread along the straight lines both vertically and horizontally.

I stamped The Alphabet (from Alphastamps) on a piece of hand-painted cotton, using green Fabrico (now called Versacraft) ink and heat-setting it by ironing. This was stitched onto the background in the top left corner and I went around it 3 times straight stitching with the sewing machine. I added the fabric images in the top right (from Alphastamps ABC Books#3 collage sheet) and bottom left (from Alphastamps ABC Books #2 fabric sheet). In the centre I added the large ABC (also from ABC books #3) and to the side of this the smaller ABC (from ABC Books #2 again). Have a good look at the picture to see the various position. I've simply stitched these on using a straight stitch and green metallic thread.

I stamped the letters of the alphabet (from AS The Alphabet sheet) onto a transparency sheet using black Staz-On ink and I overlaid this in the centre of the spread, again by stitching. Have a look at the detailed picture of this section above.

Finally I added a glitter A , three black A, B and C and 3 large ABC letters by glueing them on.(with Judikins Diamond Glaze) The large letters were blanks which I coloured using Golden liquid acrylic paints. All the letters are from Doodlebugs. I added Diamond Glaze to the top of all the letters apart from the glittery one.

A vintage trim was added at the bottom and a green eyelash yarn was stitched to the other three sides. Finally I added gold beads around the edges of two of the images and green ones at the top of the trim.

Still the inside front page and back of the album to do but at least it now looks like a proper album ready to receive new pages!