Quilted Wall hanging

I bought this panel from Oughterard, County Galway, some time last year and it has kept me busy through the cold winter months. It is very rewarding to quilt by a warm open fire. Now that summer has arrived, the quilt is done.

I tried my hand at trapunto quilting and there are several techniques found on youtube. I chose the one that I like and then there's no stopping.

The term "trapunto" means "to embroider" in Italian, and "to prick with a needle" in Latin. When speaking of this quilting technique, both meanings apply. Trapunto is a technique which may be done by hand or machine that creates a noticeably raised design. In trapunto, also known as "stuffed work" by American and English quilters, extra padding is slipped behind the quilt top to create the puffed effect. 

I prefer to do it by hand. In addition, I did shadow quilting (stippling) as well in the areas surrounding a trapunto motif to further accentuate the effect.

I have a few more panel pieces and I can't wait to work on them!

A Box Divided Against itself Can Stand

Boxes are very versatile things to play with. More so, a box divided against itself! Found this little box and Michael said, 'Will you leave it alone?' No siree!  That's why the business to go into these days is selling embellishments and I'll be a loyal customer.

A perfect display box for four varieties of tea. Tea certainly tastes better when it comes in a pretty box.

With my head still boxed in by boxes, I found these two box-frames. Gave them a good coat of paint and filled them with potpourri.  Colour coded even. Talk about an extreme case of OCD.

All cracked up

I did some crackle effect on small pieces of chipboard years ago. So recently I decided to try out the crackle medium again. This time round, I bought Rust-oleum Crackle medium from Stakelums, Thurles and had a wonderful time experimenting with the different crackle sizes.

Sue Thomas gave me the wine box and another friend gave me the lavender serviette and I bought the lavender stencil. It is very amusing that whenever my friends have some lovely stuff that they have no use of, they would think of me and pass them on to me to turn them into something beautiful.

You can never go wrong with nature, so I complemented purple with green.

I decided to use the box for my spare cutlery.

This is the original box

Then I progressed into something bigger. This time it is a bedside locker.

Embellished the drawer with trimmings and a lovely new Roman numeral knob.

This is the original bedside locker

Now I have another bedside locker, so I'm going to do something different. Watch out for the   next post!

Upcycling Exhibition

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

                                                                                                                            Pablo Picasso

And Picasso was absolutely right. We hold the emotions and then release them again into beautiful works of art. Such is the variety of upcycled objects on display at the Upcycling Exhibition held at the Killaloe-Ballina Family Resource Centre today.

Upcycling is "the process of converting old products into new products of better quality or for better environmental value." '

It is amazing to see furniture and household objects being transformed into works of creativity. 

Not unlike Cinderella going to the ball in a coach made from a pumpkin and drawn by mice turned horses.

I invited my friends who came mainly from Limerick. They formed quite an international crowd: Scot, Hungarian,Brit,Polish and of course the Irish too.

Throughout the weeks, I went round hunting for interesting stuff whenever we visited other cities and towns. These are pre-loved objects that I prefer to refer to as posh junk.

                                                                  A stool from IKEA

                                                             Chair and table from Kilkenny

                                                   Bird house stand from Ennis

                                         Wooden clogs from Garrykennedy (Hachi my dog chewed them)

And turned them into Gorgeous stuff!  After all, one person's trash is another's treasure, right?

                                                            With Nathalie

For the love of Willow

 Michael and I were in Graiguenamanagh, Co. Kilkenny recently. It is home to several Cistercian Abbeys and along the banks of  River Barrow stands a statue of a monk holding a big bundle of willow.

I love the smell of willow from the tip to the bud. I had the opportunity to go for a few basket making classes  conducted by Hannah from New Port and Pete from O'Briens bridge. Willow basket making is very addictive, for me anyway.

                                        Willow soaked and tied in bundles according to thickness and length

                                                         Starting point at the base

Weaving the base like a spider

                                                                   The uprights

Hannah the expert basket maker

After three lessons with Hannah and one with Pete these are the willow products that I've made......

A basket of coal

A basket of onions

                                                                   A basket of books

                                                           A Wigwam for my climbing plant

                                                             With Pete at his studio

A touch of Glass

I've always found glass cutting intimidating. Could it be the sound of glass breaking or the idea of being cut? But glass is so lovely so I was really excited when Nathalie who is running the upcycling class informed me that we could do glass mosaic projects. All I had to do was to bring a jar or bottle.

I brought more than one.

I bought these triangular bottles from a charity shop in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh. I find that there is a great variety of things in charity shops in Northern Ireland and I have not been disappointed.

So Nathalie taught me how to cut coloured 3mm glass into strips and then to clip them into little pieces. These pieces are then glued on to the bottles with PVA.

                                                                    The Rising Sun

                                                                          Flowers

For the one below, I used grout to fill in the gaps so it has a stained glass effect.

Love

The sea gull and the wave

        I bought the following tealight glass holders from the Christmas market in Nenagh last year.
                                                  So I just decorated the sides with broken glass.

           I've made twelve of these little glass jar candles for a special occasion for 12 deserving people.

Mosaic Madness

What do you do with a lovely pot that has been blown down by the wind and is broken beyond repair? Turn it into a piece of art, of course! When Kathleen's prized aquamarine pot suffered great damage, she immediately thought of moi. As usual it was raining, lashes and lashes of it even and she called me to tell me that she had two bags of broken bits in her car and she had parked by the lane, so could I please go down to her car to collect them?

Putting on my mac in a jiffy, I went down to retrieve my loot. We both carried the bags into my house. Suddenly, we had enormous masculine strength. So I gave the bird house and stand a new look.

The bird house was in shambles and the birds decided not to call anymore. So I re-thatched the roof and gave it a coat of Ronseal paint. Daddy bird suffered a mishap during a storm and broke his leg. I decided to give him a new prosthetic leg a.k.a. a popsicle stick.

This is the base of the bird house stand made up of Kathleen's broken pot pieces, grout and glass beads.

Now, I do believe if the birds have taste, they will certainly come a-visiting.

 This was the former bird house stand before the makeover.

Still obsessed with the passion for mosaic creations, I bought these two terracotta pots.

And stuck glass mosaic tiles on the bigger pot.

For the smaller pot I used left over ceramic pieces that I made about 10 years ago!

Now that I'm quite satisfied with my mosaic pieces, I'm moving on to more challenging stuff.......cutting glass and making glass mosaic designs!