Recycling and learning

Below is a fancy shirt I was given by a lady that owned a very chique boutique at the time we were living in the Netherlands. The shirt had not been sold and since she knew of my interest in all kind of textiles, she asked if I could use it for the materials. Now I can imagine you don't want to wear something so heavily worked with sequins, but of course it became one of my hidden treasures that I kept on my shelves for over five years.

Lately I have been diving into all kind of things Indian (from yoga to food and everything in between) and these glimmers certainly play a role in that: time to recycle!

the shirt in all its glimmer glory

it is heavy!

I only took off a small part one of the sleeves' sequins and

this amount will probably serve me for a long time ahead. Anybody interested? You understand I can't simply throw them away...

I am a fan of Mary Hettmansperger's metal jewelry and like to browse the pictures of this book every now and then. Now, to start another passion would be crazy with all I already have and want, but by recycling the above shirt I got inspired to transform a little piece of the glittery fabric into this pendant.
It is chique for the evening and really a troublefree piece of jewelry, no need to rob me for this one...

On to the learning part:
- I found an excellent workshop on the web to learn making brushes for Photoshop. Brushes, you know, the swirls and the flowers you can see on many magazin covers and other pictures. This workshop was very clear and easy to follow, and I made a personal motive that you can see in the corners of my present blog header. It is an old motive from the Carib Indians that lived on the neighbouring islands.

- and then there were these: shisha's (mirrorwork)
Many of us remember them from the flower-powerperiod (I guess), but they can be seen in Indian embroidery like pillows and bags. I was visiting 'I'd rather be in India', Tiggy Rawlings' blog and she showed a few rope birds that she had made. It was there and then that I discovered that these tiny mirrors are called shisha's and of course then the googling led me to another workshop: making mirrorwork.

this is what I made until today and you can see the progress when you click the image

As this new extension fits in my already existing textile passion, I will give it some time to incorporate it into my work. Though my new sewing machine can make a lot of beautiful embroidery stitches, I think it can't beat the handwork.
That was last week: a week of making collages, of recycling and learning, of brushes and shisha's
I am so grateful for all this learning material that people put on the web, thank you, thank you!

See what this week will bring!

Discoveries

For Arawaks and Saint Martiners
original collage 5 x 7"

magazine papers on cardboard

Having fun with paper

Finishing the evening bag

has been a jumpstart for creativity in my mostly turquoise world.

Yesterday morning I made a new series of collages, of which I show the first one today.

I called it the Discovery series, because they all have a part of an ancient map of the Caribbean. Islands always seem to represent discoveries in some way or the other, from the discovering of new land and new people in the time of Columbus to discoveries of treasures like wonderful shells and sea-urchins today

Discover your treasure

original collage, 5 x 7"

magazine papers on cardboard

E ta kla!

which means: it is finished

(in Papiamentu, one of 'my' 5 languages)

detail of the antique patch of embellished fabric

that I wrote about in this post

(the first two pictures were made in daylight on the veranda, the next ones inside my studio)

Because I expected the fabric to be rather fragile,
I sewed it onto a backing fabric with tiny running stitches first


an easy, natural choice for me would have been to add some black
or anthracit fabric around it, since I love black and love wearing it too!


But this time I chose this deep purple velvet that I had on hand.
It is a beautiful complimental colour for the rich dark orange/golden swatch


Some of the paillettes on the big circle were missing
(if you click the second picture you can clearly see this)

I had been recycling an embellished bag before and found similar
ones to restore the embroidery.

For this I used gold metallic thread.
The little bag is bordered with a purple linen
and is finished now.


This is going to be my favorite evening bag (or do you call it a purse?) this year!

It feels good that I finally finished something, at last, a fabric item,
made by hand and on my sewing machine.


Think I must leave that machine out on the table some more...

On my table...

...

is this very old piece of heavily embellished fabric.

It may have been part of a decorator item, a pillow maybe. Anyhow, my guess is, it is from India and it is very old. I bought it years ago at Quilt Europe in Karlsruhe (Germany) and this morning I rediscovered it among other treasures. Finally it is going to be used! I think I will make it the focal point of an evening bag... time for partying is almost there!

Michigan - part 1

It is time to move on again with my report on our recent USA-trip!

After having visited Shipshewana (Indiana), our destiny was the state of Michigan. To tell the truth, the word Michigan did not mean a lot to me before, other than being one of America's states, but the change already came during the first days of our trip while we still were in Montana. We met a fellow-camper and fisherman in the Bighorn Canyon who was originally from Michigan and he was so truly and warm-heartedly promoting this state for its beauty, its unique qualities etc , that we decided to spend some time there. One of the very remarkable things we noticed, was the fact that there seems to be a huge number of inhabitants of Dutch origine. While driving on one of the states highways it could even have been Holland, because of the way the landscape had been used, you will understand that I felt very at home ;-) !

The busy traveling throughout the western states along Lake Michigan made us longing for nature, and less traffic, so some researching on the internet led us to the Sleeping Bear Dunes Nat'l Area in the north. It turned out to be a great choice, what beauty, what nature...

If you click the map below, you can see the details

I had heard a lot about the lighthouses on the Great Lakes; this actually is the very first one we visited: Point Betsy Lighthouse

we decided to drive a scenic byway and this was one of the 'not-to-be-missed' places.
OMG, one would expect to dive into the water immediately, isn't it?

this is the view from a little distance. People were being warned via big signs, the trip back (up!) apparently was very strenuous, we saw youngsters lying like fish on the land, gulping for air...

Our 3 day stay in the Sleepy Bear Dunes came to an end and we continued to our next goal. All along Lake Michigan's coast it went, via Traverse City (which looked remarkably attractive, despite its name) and the Cherry route up North:

Another thing the fisherman had advised: the Mackinaw Bridge and Mackinaw Island.

We decided not to leave our camper behind in order to visit the island, so it only was the bridge, which was impressive.

In fact I love bridges, I discovered...

Next time I will continue from St. Ignace (Michigan)!

With only a few parts reporting our trip to go, I hope you will tune in once again, see you!

Regina

Amazing...

Last week on Curacao we visited one of the beaches and found these amazing rocks

As an artist I am delighted by the colour combination of land and sea...

normally the rocks rise up from the water, but this one hangs above and you can even see the water lighten up below them: I would not dare to swim underneath it!

Colours of the Caribbean!

I got a message from Seth of the Altered Page that a part of my studio will be shown on his blog next Sunday in Studioscapes. Have a look, it is great to see where all the art is being created!

A lovely Friday,

Regina