Tiot, Inspired by and Tag Tuesday

Hi Everybody!

We had a cold, grey and frosty day here. I saw on the news that there was chaos in some parts of the States due to ice, so take care those of you living in those places.

Today I made one piece for two challenges, Try it on Tuesday and Art Journal Journey, Inspired by.... At Tiot our new challenge runs for 2 weeks, and you are asked to use fabric (not ribbon) on your creation, so I hope that lots of you will join in. I was inspired to make this woven art-journaling by Sheila Hicks, an American Textile Artist, who makes wonderful art with weaving. I started off by making a little frame out of cardboard, which I threaded up with twine.I wrote a quote onto a piece of paper, which I placed under the strings.  I then stitched it to a piece of partly peeled and painted corrugated card in A4. I wove various strips of fabric - vintage linen, vintage braids, string, fibres, fancy yarn and burlap through the frame. When it was finished, I stitched with zig-zag stitch down the sides to hold it all together. For the background I took a slightly larger piece of chipboard, painted it with terracotta and added some gold Utee round the edges before gluing the woven piece onto it. The quote I used is, 'We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning' (Henry Ward Beecher).

I like the idea of having a message hidden in the work. To finish it off I added some beads threaded on to twine and a couple of feathers. I will use this as a journal cover.

At Tag Tuesday our theme this week is 'Texture'. I used corrugated card, partly peeled and gessoed for the base. I added some strips of paper recycled from old projects and a piece of fabrick as matting. I stamped the image of Da Vinci's Leda (Lost Coast Designs) onto card with archival brown, clear embossed it, and distressed the card with vintage photo. As embellishments I used various scraps of ribbon, a wire flower, some fibres and a muse token.

Also linking to Moo Mania and More, anything goes.

The sun kept trying to appear, but didn't have much success.

Two ravens were my first visitors this morning, which annoyed all the other little birds....But I love their glossy blue-black feathers.

The Rhine is sinking further, so that's good, although there is still too much water.

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!