dear diary: part 10 – spherey good indeed

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16/01/20
One of the blogs I follow is Ann Woods Handmade , and I really enjoyed this post last January full of ideas for using up fabric scraps
https://www.annwoodhandmade.com/the-2019-annual-scrap-festival-10-ideas-for-your-scraps/
I was interested to see that she posted a follow up this week. This is taken from it..

The second annual international scrap festival is in the works and it’s expanding to an entire month. February will officially and forever be International Scrap Month. That’s one of the nice things about inventing a festival, you get to be the boss of everything and do stuff like that.
Stay tuned for details, I’m gathering a bunch of cool projects for scraps and creating a couple new tutorials for you.And I wonder what you think of a scrap swap? Is that something you’d be interested in participating in? Tell me in the comments please. If you’re into it I’ll try to hook you up.”
Ann Wood Handmade

Ann also wrote

Looking ahead – I think and hope in 2020 we will see a resurgence of blogging. Blogging like it used to be. So many disappeared into social media. I love seeing people’s creative lives and homes. If you have a favorite blog please share it in the comments – I’d love to see. I also think smaller networks will continue to emerge – online meeting places where conversations happen and algorithms don’t choose for us. ”
Ann Wood Handmade

This struck a chord with me as I have a renewed enthusiasm for my blog, as you might have noticed, if you’re reading this. I’ve been increasingly frustrated with Facebook showing my posts to only a tiny fraction of the people who have liked my page. I feel I’d rather put time and effort into this blog that will be seen by everyone who chooses to follow it. Also it’s hopefully a bit more permament than Facebook posts that disappear off the bottom of the page. I’m not leaving Facebook, I still enjoy seeing other artists work and I love the textile and mixed media groups that I am a member of. I see them as the ” online meeting places where conversations happen” as Ann describes them. In my case conversations and collaborations. More of which later.

01/02/20
I just signed up for Ann’s “scrap swap” it is limited to the first 100 people , so we shall see what occurs.
02/02/2020
I have just received an email saying I have been paired up with Anne from England. We will now exchange 8oz (that’s 226.796 grams) of scraps by the 12th of February. I’ll share my selection once Anne has received it. There’s an Instagram hashtag to follow #scrapfestival2020

Speaking of receiving things I think my swap partner will get her parcel tomorrow containing these hearts I made. The first one is actually 3D, and therefore very difficult to photograph. Here are photos of the 3 different sides.

This is how I made it : I covered an A4 sized sheet of adhesive covered interfacing with scraps of fabric left over from making scarves. A large pile of these collects below my overlock sewing machine and I can’t throw them out, so I bag ’em up and occasionally use them for this kind of thing.
I then handstitched over the strips to secure them.

I cut out heart shapes using a flypress and a die cutter.

I stitched 3 of them together in a difficult to photograph shape, and attached a thread to hang it from. I hope the recipient likes it. You can see what I received in the swap in a previous blogpost

I also sent this brooch, made with one of my handmade buttons and a piece of fabric woven by one of my customers, she sent a small sample to me so I could select some buttons to match it. She kindly said I could keep the sample.

Another parcel awaiting delivery contains a jacket that I customised for a customer. First one of the year, I enjoyed working on it and hopefully have got my sewjo back!

Tomorrow is week 51 out of 52 of my Made on Monday project. I actually made the base for it last week , just after I made this one

I used scraps left over from these …

and with the addition of paint and stencils I made this…..

Hmm, looking at it now I quite like it as it is, but too late, I have added to it , as you will see tomorrow.

So, I got some new stencils and had a play with them, this will be cut up to make backgrounds for my handmade postcards.

03/02/20
Here’s the finished Made on Monday 5×5 inch mixed media number 51, I added a piece of painted and melted tyvek and a fabric button that I drew on with my Posca Pens. Better or not better with the additions?

I finished my contributions to the collaborative sphere project I’m taking part in , here’s what I did. Use the arrows to move between the photos.

I added 3 of my handmade buttons
I added the yellow beaded trim.
I added the straight orange stitches round the orange circles, then added beads and tassels inside the circles.
I added a spiral of metal teeth from a zipper
I added the square wooden buttons
I added the yellow plastic strip, found it on the floor of my partners workshop, it’s debris from an electric nail gun , apparently.

They head off tomorrow to the next participant, and then another 3 after her, 12 in total. They then come back to me, along with the other set of 6, and I allocate them in a random manner , one to each of the 12 participants and we all get one to keep.
They are looking fairly splendid already!

I mentioned in a previous blogpost that I bought some wooden buttons online hoping to use them on a jacket, but when they arrived they were much smaller than I had imagined. I used them on this sphere..

The first person to tell me where the wooden buttons were made will win a fabric heart, like this one, not exactly the same, I can’t show you a photo of it because I still need to finish it. I will post worldwide. Comment below this blogpost to enter.
ps. the answer is not in this blogpost.