Day 26: other flowers

I've made my flower but it's still attached to the batch so I can't photograph proof. Thank heavens for that, I hear you cry. But wait! Instead I have some photos of some real flowers of the style that the pattern i am using is based on. It's a basic single layer, 5-petalled rose, as per the top photo. The photo below is of cherry blossoms which look very similar. Which is not surprising since they're all from the same family, which also includes apples, plums and pears.

Below is a photo of a different style of fabric flower. This is more of a Dior-style rose and they are lovely. I'd wear them all the time if I could. Why didn't I make flowers more in this style for the cape? Because 100 of these would weigh the cape down. Even now with only 24 single layer organza flowers the weight is noticeable, and they have to be stitched on with beads yet.

And lastly, I love these. If you're feeling inspired there's a tutorial on how to make them here. Go on - you know you want to. I'm going to. These are very professional but experience suggests it is possible to make quite a few fabric flowers that look like coloured dog poop before that pro look is achieved.

 

Day 25: quarter of the way...and dragons

Today features two flowers as I've reached the end of this strip. Plus I really wanted to see what the flower with the new variegated thread looks like. Quite pretty, I think. The second photo is a close-up so it's possible to see the colours a bit better.

 

I promised dragons and here they are. The dragons are from Nate who is going to create a new polymer dragon each day. We've selected two because they're cool and we love that they look non-scary. One's peeking over the top of the furniture, and the other appears to be protecting an egg.

 

Day 24: pink on red

Photographed on a piece of orange/red wool I'm using to make a cushion cover. No filters or other edits.

Some rather more beautiful fabric is shown below. It's from Lucy's project. She is in Honduras and is taking photos of Honduras from her perspective as a foreigner. The gorgeous fabrics here are actually from Guatemala. So different from New Zealand where we wear (mostly) black, grey and combinations thereof. How do you do a tango in a dark grey Warehouse T-shirt and track suit pants? You don't. More tangos! Less grey!

(Yes I know tangos are from Argentina but you know what I mean.)

Day 23: a double day

Yesterday being a washout, today two flowers were required. And here they are. I found a tutorial on how to change colours in photoshop so one flower is hot pink and the other is green. I also managed to tidy up (sort of) the edges of the green flower. There's a bit more work to do on this but I've bookmarked the photoshop tutorial so will try again another day.

This is a photo of Ruby. Ruby's owner, Jane, says Ruby has made her smile every day for for 6.5 years. Ruby is possibly part Shiba Inu (or some spitz-type dog with pointy ears). It doesn't really matter, though. Ruby is clearly well loved and that's good enough for us.

 

Day 22: dry July is over

Well, THAT was nearly the longest month of my life.

Others are not so slack. Here's another great idea from Stuart, and another of ana's clay wonders.

Podocarp means sticky foot, and NZ species include rimu, kahikatea and totara.

 
















Puff the magic dragon (he looks magic to me).

 

Day 21: the closest I will ever come to oil painting anything

Today's flower is photographed on a piece of grey wool and has then had a filter called oil paint applied via photoshop. That was quite fun, and I also manged to blot out some not so great edging with the clone stamp.

Today I stumbled upon Nicholas' project. He's doing a drawing a day. Nicholas describes his drawing skills as below terrible. He has no idea...The drawing here is of the not actually black dragon fish. We like the dragon fish because even though the detail is minimal the combination of the colours, and the randomness of the teeth give it a sense of menace. You wouldn't want one in your goldfish bowl, I think.  

Day 20: a fifth of the way there

Today's effort is another play with black and white. The flower has been superimposed on a bruised and bleeding Palestinian flag (shamelessly stolen from Neetflux) in memory of the Palestinian children massacred by the Israeli assault on Gaza. Yes, I too was brought up believing in the right of Israel to defend itself - Exodus and all that - but changed my mind when the Israelis bombed Gaza zoo. The peacocks might have been firing rockets at Jerusalem but it seems improbable. As I write this, news of another school in Gaza bombed. In packed Gaza there is nowhere to run.

Meanwhile, this from Associated Press:
The Associated Press        ✔ @AP Follow

As much of world watches Gaza war in horror, members of Congress fall over each other to support Israel: http://apne.ws/1pnTgIG 

10:00 PM - 29 Jul 2014 

There are no words for this injustice.

Day 19: we fade to grey

The flowers are still pink but I discovered how to make colour photos black and white tonight. So I did. Here's the previous two days' efforts liberated from the main piece of fabric and rinsed off, sitting camouflaged on a piece of quilting fabric featuring brightly coloured daffodils.

Today's awesomeness comes from Kirsten. Kirsten is painting a fish per day on "a beautiful piece of Schoellershammer illustration board". According to Kirsten they don't make it any more and she has decided to use it. This is to be commended, and I will show you an example of why below. In the meantime here's some of Kirsten's gorgeous fishies. As you can see they are a lovely mix of the fantastic and just plausible.

We have quite a bit of stuff they don't make any more around our place, too. There comes a time when you realise you might as well just use it because if you shuffle off your mortal coil then all that will happen is one of your facile young relatives will sell it on Trade Me to the next hoarder. So for you fabric-o-holics, here is a piece of wool gabardine I have recently started cutting up. It may be the last piece of fine Italian wool fabric left in the country. It might be possible to buy such fabric in New Zealand these days but I have no idea where. I'll come back to the problem with fabric in another post, but in the meantime here's some genuine gorgeousness.

 

Day 18: flowers with grapefruit

Yes yes I know we've done flower with grapefruit before but grapefruit is the only fruit we have apart from some manky old bananas. We have a fully-laden grapefruit tree so they're a cheap prop. Tonight's photo has the exposure adjusted to brighten the grapefruit and flowers and darken the background to a murky, slightly spooky mess.

 

My sewing machine has started grumbling and breaking the thread. I may have to change the needle again: the needle has possibly gotten bent from constantly changing the direction of the fabric, and since it's only a #11 it's not very robust. Amazingly the bobbin thread has held on for all the flowers so far, and looks like it might do for tomorrow as well.








Because we like them so much, here is another of Crafterzan's crocheted animals. Here, in memory of Ring of Bright Water, is the otter.

On a less frivolous note, Sarah is taking a creative walk through history. Sarah is creating mixed media vignettes of historical figures and events, partly, she says, to improve her history skills. We love the Nixon piece. Initially I thought it was Benjamin Franklin made to look like a spaniel but in fact the sketch is of Checkers, Richard Nixon's dog. Fans of bad television are probably more familiar with Checkers in Futurama (this Nixon, unlike his real-life counterpart, is comedy gold):

 

Sorry...back to Sarah. Bogans everywhere will love this. It's a Studebaker (acrylic paint and toy car) which, as some of you may recall, was a car no one messed with when you drove it down the Southern motorway. They did about 100 gallons per mile and went the way of the dodo. Still, it almost makes one nostalgic for the days of big cars with leather seats, endless cheap gas, no climate change, and beehive hairdos with capri pants.

Day 17: starting a new batch

Here's the first of a new batch of flowers: pink ones this time. There will be lots of these so don't worry if it's a bit much the first time round (ha! just kidding). I've also decided that since these photos all get processed through photoshop to make them easier to deal with, I might as well start having a play with the photoshop settings. So far all I can do with photoshop is crop, rotate and auto-contrast. I have a long way to go before I'm as good as those North Korean guys but there's 83 days to play around.

In our household we're suckers for small furry critters. You can sell me anything if it has a picture of a kitten, and I have no idea why I'm not allowed a kuni-kuni pig in the front yard to go with the chooks. So imagine my delight having stumbled upon Crafterzan's project. S/he is crocheting the alphabet starting with little animals. Each is an original design and they are amazing. Here's the iguana.

My crafty friend Rhonda, who is no slug herself in the crochet department, thinks these little critters are rad. Because I can, here's one of Rhonda's #monstabomb (photographed in Wellington, far far from home).