Monday, 30 April 2012

Lost in Lace

I wanted to write a quick blog about the exhibition that I went to see in Birmingham just before the wedding. It was a week after my contract at work had finished, I had two weeks until the wedding, the dress still wasn't finished, but, I knew that it was the last day of the exhibition so I treated myself to a day off and didn't regret it, the work was brilliant and so inspiring.

Below are a few of the highlights:


Swarkozski crystal chandelier


War and lace


Lace imprinted in silicone


Black thread and dresses


Layers of vinyl with holes all hanging


Black paper with lace pattern


Rope lacework with floating feather bed
Love,

Mrs Jones
x

Thursday, 26 April 2012

Patchwork, Poppies and Painting

OK so I have not been well and been pretty miserable with some rubbish weeks, which is an excuse but a valid one, and the other problem that I have is that I am trying to finish off the "wedding makes" blog post and although I am really proud of everything we made, the wedding seems like such a long time ago and so the enthusiasm just isn't quite there.

In the mean time, I am carrying on with other projects and the blog is missing out on them, so, I will leave the wedding post to simmer and in the mean time try and keep you updated.

A lot of work has been going into my patchwork kit that I got from a friend as a wedding gift. The top is finished. I have bought the wadding and found an old bed sheet in a charity shop to use as the backing and I am currently trying to line all three up without any creases so that I can quilt it. This is really not easy, in fact it is ridiculously difficult and I am panicking about the quilting so I think I will be getting some advice and reading some instructions before I attempt it. Here is the quilt so far:


My first patchwork

Outside of this I have been continuing with my C&G work. I have completed my basic two-piece dress:



Basic two-piece dress
 and, am looking forward to making it into my own style. I dug out some fabric today but it didn't look how I thought it did so I may be heading back to the fabric shop!

I have also been working on my bodice, shirt and one piece dress too so watch this space.

On a design front I found a few blogs today that showed people's sketchbooks from their C&G and it really inspired me to get going again. Here are a couple that really impressed me:
http://lizbenjeddi.blogspot.co.uk/
http://madebymelanie-cityandguilds.blogspot.co.uk/

I created my mood board the other day and it is full of poppies and polka dots. I started with Mr Jones' fantastic poppy picture:


Poppies in Norfolk

Then drew out a poppy onto some solufleece, attached it to some denim and embroidered over it:


Embroidered poppy
 I am really pleased with the results. Then the rain came so instead of going out I decided to do a bit of painting. I started with the end of a pencil (the rubber end) and moved onto some bubble wrap to produce these prints:



Using the end of a pencil


Printing using bubble wrap


Still bubble wrap but adding centres for the look of poppies
 Hopefully there will be more to follow shortly although I am off Norfolk for the weekend (which is where the poppy picture was taken!).

Love,

Mrs Jones