trimmingthesails

Not a lot, and right now ... (WOYW Wednesday 30 June11)

... not visually exciting for those of you who've popped in or are exploring Julia's great desks around the world on What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. Here there's just a clear space, splashed with sunlight. Which makes it hard to see the screen, so perhaps a closer peep will explain ...

Journalling about it has not eased it hugely, alas. I still feel full, despite also feeling we are doing our best. I have such a difficult relationship with stuff. :( Hoping yours is less fraught and you can breathe easy today ...

Over at ...

--- It's a Creative World today. with some inspiring books on pattern and print, for both paper and cloth ...

Wash, set, match!

Wash, set ...
For those of you interested in printing your own fabric, I can reveal that the Bubble Jet Set 2000 does indeed work: colourfast, washable pieces of A4 ready for sewing, scrapbooking, cards ... Here's the whole process:

• soak fabric in BubbleJet Set 2000 and dry flat
• iron on to freezer paper to make a 'fabric paper'
• print onto your 'fabric paper' using your computer and home printer
• peel off the freezer paper
• give the fabric a two-minute swirl in cold water and a mild detergent (I used Ecover Laundry Liquid), then dry.

And Bob is indeed, as the saying goes, your uncle ...

"Brillant", said Himself. "What are you going to do with it?" Hum, now there's the rub: it was such fun designing and printing, I hadn't got that far. All suggestions welcome! :)

 

Strawberry sticks ...

My cotton fabric is, alas, still drying out: the small print on the Bubble Set 2000 revealed that it had to be dried flat, with no short-cut spin-dryer allowed. So the printing results will not be available till next week. But in the meantime, I've been inspired by the Simple Aussie Girls first challenge to put together a few moments from this week:

(The journalling reads: "If you pick me some, I’ll show you what we used to do”, Mum said. “Oh, and a long stem of grass, too.” Our rampant wild strawberries had been the subject of my frustrated grumbling as we walked slowly round the garden. Every so often we’d stop, while she lifted some stems or leaves aside with her walking stick to have a closer look at something hidden in our unkempt and straggly jungle.
“We used to do this on the way back from Sunday School,” she smiled,”my brothers and sisters and me. And yes, there’d be a bit of competition to see who could find the most on the sunny bank, and who could thread most on. Keeping them on was hard too!” I remembered dimly the three miles of winding country lanes with the high hedgerows, and the distant roof of the long, low farmhouse above the waving grasses. “When we got back, we used to tiptoe into the dairy and sneak a teaspoon of cream to eat with them.” We smiled at each other, and I reached down to gently ease the tiny berries into the palm of my hand, just as she had done so many years before ..)

Thank-you for a great sketch over there! And hoping, wherever you are this weekend, that the strawberries in your life might just have a little bit of cream with them too. :)

Printing your own fabric (WOYW Wednesday 22 June 11)

I was a little bit testy. There was an unspoken question hovering in the air. If it had materialised, it would have hung there accusingly: "You'd think you'd remember buying a large bottle of special liquid for printing onto fabric, wouldn't you? Even if it was several years ago?" Himself did not even have to say "Doh!". Sometimes it's less embarrassing to get in there first.

So I have no idea if it will make the ink permanent and the fabric washable. But I will by Friday. Now that it has stopped lurking at the back of the cupboard and had made it to my workdesk, it is going to have a chance to strutt its stuff. I''ll bring you the results. But in the meantime, here's how I printed my fabric from last week. Please do try this at home. Or at work, if their printers are better :).

• This is 100% cotton fabric, washed and dried first to remove any surface glazes. Cut a piece of it to slightly larger than the size you wish to print: mine was A4. You could make your sizes exact at this point, but I found it was easier to get neat edges by trimmimg later.  I used my X-cut guillotine because I still can't cut straight edges with scissors.
• Cut a piece of freezer paper, readily available from crafting stores and online, to the same size. Place the shiny side of it under your fabric and iron your fabric on top. This  makes the freezer paper temporarily stick to your fabric and stiffen it enough, but keep it flexible, to go through the printer.
• Trim again to the correct size, making sure the leading edge - the one which will feed into the printer first - is nicely adhered (iron again on top if necessary).
• Place your fabric sheet in your printer. I removed any other paper from beneath so it was the only item in the printer tray. With your document up on your computer screen containing your fabric pattern, instruct it to print. I choose best quality for mine.
• Watch it print, camera at the ready. Peel off the freezer paper, and you're done: time to find someone who will admire it too!

If you have any queries, do ermail me, and I'll do my best to help. Hoping you have a lot of fun with it! Right, off to decipher the small print on the Bubble Jet 2000 label ... See you Friday? And do pop over to Julia's glorious list at The Stamping Ground for more peeks at workdesks all around the world!

Celebrations!

One ...

Many congratulations to Sandie, who is celebrating one year of blogging today! Thank-you for everything you've shared, Sandie, and looking forward to the years to come. Should you not know Sandie's lovely blog, take a little peak at these delightful photos - some of my favourite posts of Sandie's this year:

• Looking back with a smile ... (scroll to the final photo)
• The night before Christmas ...
• 2 plus 2 go away ...

Two ...

There's a blog hop on to celebrate! Pop over to Den at Den's Crafty Diary for the next stop-over. Oh, and
before you go, do take a letter from here with you, for there's a prize for collecting each one and rearranging them to make a word. Then you need to head back to Sandie. The letter from here? Well, let's think. It's in hide, but not in seek, and there's an illustrated one above! Oh, and it's also in think. (I think!). If you have got lost, there's a complete list of the links at the bottom to help you reorientate.

Three ...

I promised some printables from the papers last week: here's a pdf for you. :)
DownTheAllotmentPrintablesA4
DownTheAllotmentPrintables8.5x11

Happy Monday!

1.  Sandie:   http://itchifingers.blogspot.com                                      

2.   Ann:    www.mafswife.typepad.com                                               

3. Louise:    http://louisegale.com/                                                        

4.  Angela:  http://theenglishromantic.blogspot.com/                   

5.  Laurie:    http://inkingaroundtheedges.blogspot.com/           

6.  Karen:  http://talesfromthescrapheap.blogspot.com/             

7.  Moira:   http://dandelion-dreamer.blogspot.com/                    

8.  Deb:      www.debs14.blogspot.com                                                 

9.  Alexa:  http://simplyalexa.typepad.com/                                     

10.   Den: http://deecie.blogspot.com/

11.  Lynn:   http://amomentintime-craftycooper.blogspot.com/       

12.  Ruth:  http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com/                        

 

 

Down The Allotment Templates ...

Templates 03
Thank-you for all the positive feedback about the digital papers and fabric this week - it's been a pleasure to make and share them. And, as promised, here are the Down The Allotment templates from Monday's layout this week, along with the leaf brackets created for the title, and a few brads ...

DTA12x12Template
DTA8.5x11Template
DTAA4Template
DTABracketsn'Brads

• Seasoned digi-swimmers, you'll know what to do!

• Digi-dippers who who have already dabbled may find it helpful to jog their memories on how to clip the photos and papers using these pdfs from last time:
  AlexaTemplate02HowTo
  PSEAdditionalHelp

• Totally new to digi or a little unsure? I'll post a new pdf next week to help, including using the png files: this is the format of the leaf brackets and brads. It's easy. I promise!

Fabric Fun
I haven't forgotton: photos and instructions on printing your own fabric at home also coming next week. I wish we hadn't evolved to need sleep ... :). Hoping you have a lovely and creative weekend!

Fabric Fun! (WOYW Wednesday 15th June)

Himself was dubious. "I am sure this falls into the category of Please Do Not Try This At Home', he said, with a distinct undertone of there-will-be-tears-before-bedtime, and a dollop of don't-blame-me-when-this-goes-wrong.

"I've read about it," I said. "Lots of people do it", with rather more confidence than I was feeling and hoping I wasn't going to be challenged by 'the usual reply of "Name one". "It'll be fine. You can watch if you like", I added encouragingly.

"No thanks", he replied, heading for the door. "Watching fabric mangle the innards of a printer is not high on my list of favourite things to do".

But it was fine. Of course, it may not be washable but I'm sure I can use it for scrapping. Designing scrapbook papers was very enjoyable in the first instance, but who'd have guessed that printing your own fabric on an ordinary ink-jet printer would be so easy, or such fun? Here it is, on my desk ...

... and I'll take some photos for you on how to do it, in case you would like to try this at home!

And as promised on Monday, here are the zipped scrapbooking papers for those of you who would like them:

DownTheAllotment(Part1)
DownTheAllotment(Part2)

Some of you have emailed about the template I used in the layout on Monday this week - I hope to have that for you on Friday, with a few extras as well.

So please do hop over to the inspirational Julia of The Stamping Ground, to see what else is lurking on wonderful workdesks around the world! Oh, and Himself was warmly impressed. Eating hats is not quite on the menu, but a cup of tea and a handful of liquorice allsorts said it all. :)

1950s and the allotment

"Oh, I remember this fabric!", I exclaimed as we sifted through the scraps bag. It was just a fragment of browns, beiges and rusts in an abstract pattern. "What's it from? Where did we use it?" Mum looked up. "I really can't remember", she said. "Curtains? A cushion cover? We often made one of out of the other. The nineteen fifties, that I do know. I think it was from our first flat." The decade of my birth ...

Scraps of memory as small as the cloth: linoleum beneath my feet, a TV in a wooden surround with thin metal legs, and a Ladybird book on the table... It set me off on a hunt for designs and scraps from that decade: a mixture of organic and natural shapes alongside those suggested by discoveries and inventions in science and technology: molecules, space-flight, television sets, aerials, and pylons. At the same time, Himself and I have been working in visiting our bit of the allotment (another great 1950s stalwart of family life). Looking at the shapes of the potatoes, the curving lines of the poly tunnel and the watering can, the ladder propped up against the shed, shadowy ideas began to form in my head, wisps of thought coalesced and, eventually, were translated into my first foray into digital scrapbooking paper. And a layout, of course. :)

Although the papers have had to be designed and put together in little pockets of time, as and when, it has been great fun. Here's how they are looking so far ...

I'm hoping to put them together into a zipped file with a couple of plain ones too. I know that they won't be everyone's cup of tea and not all of you are into digital, but if you'd like a free download, do pop back on Wednesday.

Now, if only the allotment bugs could be as much fun to work with!

 

 

Short notice ...