28 Sat Jul 2018
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I have finished my rag rug! Here is the finished article in place at my front door. Not bad for a box of scraps. I have a few posts showing the work in progress.
I have also been making little felt brooches to fund-raise for my children’s school.
I’ve got a few more projects in progress in my head but nothing to show you yet. Paper flowers may be involved…
27 Tue Mar 2018
It’s been a while since my last blog, so here’s a look at my current project. It’s a proddy rag rug. Inspired by hours looking at the rugs in Craftworkshop, I decided to give this a try since I have a lot of scrap fabric.
Rag rug in progress
Of course I didn’t actually look at any tutorials, I just looked at the rugs in the shop and guessed how they were done. I’m using scraps of fleece fabric and a knitting needle for the prodding. I’m not using a frame, but perhaps I should be, since it’s curling a bit on the back. I suspect my scraps are a bit densely packed too, but I think it will be ok since there is a recess at my front door which I am making this to fit into. I’ll just jam it in and stomp it flat when I’m done.
Back of rug
I’m doing an abstract design, just planning it as I go. It’s like a very slow motion doodle and is strangely addictive. Often I find it helps keep me interested if I don’t plan things out too fully. It’s also satisfying finding a way to recycle my scraps of fabric.
If you’d like to see a pro making one, here’s a nice video:
And this pdf tutorial even gives instructions for making the tools you will need.
Update: Here’s a more recent photograph with further progress on my rug.
17 Sat Feb 2018
Posted in fabric
I have done another fabric design for spoonflower. This one was for their limited palette challenge. They provided the colour choices, I chose the pattern. It was only afterwards that I realised the colours were very similar to my blog header image!
I was inspired by those pictures made from sand, water and air bubbles between two panes of glass. When you flip it the bubbles rise and cause the sand to dribble through slowly like an hourglass to form different landscapes (search for sandpicture and you’ll see what I mean).
If you’d like to vote, you have until 20th February 2018. There are a lot of entries, so bring a snack!
05 Mon Feb 2018
Posted in fabric
I haven’t done a blog post in a while – this is because I haven’t been making anything new. Here’s why:
Embarrassingly this mess is not because I’ve just moved house, it’s layers of stuff that I’ve been shifting around to different surfaces so that I can work somewhere else. However since the rest of the room is in a similar state, there’s now nowhere else to shift to. Combine this with my New Year’s good intentions and a birthday marking a new decade, I have been focussing on tidying up and getting things under control. It’s slow going since I can only do a little bit before I feel the panic building and I have to stop and do something else.
Since I don’t want to leave you with such a ghastly image, here’s one of the projects I’ve finally gotten around to doing. These were supposed to be Christmas gifts for my children. Yes it’s February!
My girls were very specific about the designs they wanted so I thought it would be easier to make them than to scour the shops for “a baby white unicorn, lying down, with a purple mane and a golden horn and golden hooves and rainbow wings”. A pink and yellow butterfly was easier, but I figured since I was already making one…
I got my designs printed by Spoonflower on minky fabric. Since the cost was similar to get two fat quarters as a whole yard, I did the two together and filled the background with a design combining the unicorn and the butterfly (this fabric is now available on Spoonflower).
My sewing on the plushies was pretty abysmal, so I decided to practice some more. I cut out a few of the motifs from the background fabric and made an even smaller unicorn.
I had to do blanket stitch around the outside since it was too small for an inner seam. I was tempted to put a bail on this and make it into a necklace, but my daughter has claimed this one too.
I also made another butterfly. I’m not sure if this is a pin cushion or a toy. It’s gone too.
15 Fri Dec 2017
Posted in fabric
I have created another fabric design for a Spoonflower design challenge. The theme is Arctic Animals. It features the incredibly rare Arctic Unicorn, based on a request from my daughter.
Arctic Unicorn Fabric design
You can find the fabric here. Voting ends on 19th December 2017, and you can find the contest link here, to see the other entries and hopefully vote for mine too.
07 Fri Apr 2017
Posted in fabric
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The Spoonflower competitions this month are floral inspired. Given the time of year, I couldn’t resist doing something with daffodils. I used the colours from my Yellow Palette.
The first theme is “Paper-Cut Florals” so I tried to keep the shapes simple and graphic. I didn’t think the cut-out look was coming across in the preview, so I did another design using elements of the daffodil design as texture. The idea is that the flowers are cut out from ornamental Japanese paper (chiyogami).
Again some of the detail is lost in the preview, but it retains the cut-out look. If you like it please vote (open until 11 April 2017).
31 Fri Mar 2017
Posted in fabric
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My fabric designing has been on hold for a little bit while I waited for my test swatches to arrive. I’m planning to do something using my spectrum palettes and I wanted to check the printed colours before I got too invested. While I was waiting I decided to fill some empty frames with mini quilts made from my previous set of swatches.
It’s the first time I’ve done quilting and I found it pretty addictive.
The mount windows are about 9cm x 9cm which is dinky, so they were tolerably quick to make.
I made these last week. Today my fabric swatches arrived, and I’m pleased with them so they are now for sale on Spoonflower.
17 Fri Mar 2017
Posted in fabric
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I’m still busy designing fabrics. This time I made a patchwork pattern for the Spoonflower Tangram competition. I didn’t use all seven of the tangram shapes, but the design was inspired by the theme so I entered it.
I have some more designs in progress, but the file sizes are getting quite large and my laptop keeps crashing, so it’s slow going.
In the meantime, please pop along and vote for the designs that you like.
10 Fri Mar 2017
Posted in fabric
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here. I have been busy clearing the project scraps from my polymer clay work boards (I couldn’t bring myself to simply mush it all into mud). So I’ve made a few beads, odds and ends and cabochons but no finished items yet.
I have just entered another fabric design in this week’s Spoonflower competition. I actually started the image a few years ago, but it fit the theme (Mandalas) perfectly, so I just needed to make some tiny tweaks for it to be ready.
Voting is open until 14th March 2017. I’d really appreciate it if you’d vote for my design (there are other pretties to see too). 🙂
30 Mon May 2016
Posted in 2016 Polymer Clay Challenge, Art Vessel, fabric, My work
This week’s vessel is pretty late. I did finish it yesterday morning, but I wanted to wait till it was dark to take photos because it’s another candle lantern. I used one of my spoonflower fabric test swatches on a glass jar with an edging of polymer clay. I wanted something a bit irregular, but also something that would maximise the windows.
Mixed media candle lantern by Cate van Alphen
Lantern with lit candle inside
I used flourescent pink acrylic paint to highlight the texture of the polymer clay, because who doesn’t have neon pink decor – right? The photo under UV light doesn’t really look like it does to my eye, but it does show the glow.
Lantern under UV light
I lined the inside of the mouth of the jar with scraps of fabric before adding the polymer clay around the outside. I was concerned about the safety of having polymer clay on the inside of the jar with the heat of a candle inside. I think it looks a bit more finished than just leaving clear glass with polymer clay on the outside.
Fulgorine 