Poster commission for Bazaar and Rummage

There has been a delay with my blogs lately as both my laptop and my desktop computer have both decided to give up the ghost and I've been working on them to try and get them up and running.  But as they are in progress I have decided to attempt to write a blog on my phone. First time for everything, So here goes. 

Well I can finally talk about the poster as it has now been published and problems have been solved.  It started when I was approached to set design for the local a drama society I'm a member of called The Sinodun Players whose home is The Corn Exchange theatre in Wallingford.   I have designed a set for them before (pictures in my first blog) and done other backstage and technical help from stage manager to lighting assistance.   This time I was asked by the director to draw up the set floor plan for the stage of her ideas to scale so the workshop can build the set for the up and coming production of 'Bazaar and Rummage' written by Sue Townsend.  Which I did the floor plan and submitted this a few weeks ago.  However, during this meeting with the director it came up that the production only had a temporary poster which was too low resolution to do anything with and would I be willing to look at it and come up with a final poster design. 

So I set about sketching ideas and listing elements I wanted to include based on the script.  I ended up with the final sketch which I emailed to the director and got her approval to move forward. 

  

From here I proceeded by taking a trace of the final sketch and transferring it on to some water colour paper.  I started working the piece in water colour but couldn't get the colours saturation I was looking for with the bright colours of the 80s clothes to I decided to work with my Derwent Inktense pencils which gave the saturation I wanted.  I went ahead and added a background as the play takes place in a village hall, but felt I preferred the design with no locational context. As this drew too much focus away from the original sketch. I again transferred the design to a new piece of paper but this time I used Bristol board for a smoother finish and worked the piece with the Inktense pencils. 

Once I was happy with the colours I again checked with the director if she was happy with the design and colours before I did all the digital work.  Which never having work with Adobe Photoshop I knew would take time.  She was happy so I continued.   Now I didn't have Photoshop so I researched into it and found a trial for a month so went ahead and downloaded Photoshop cc and scanned the work in at a high dpi (1200dpi i think) as I knew the image would require to be enlarged quiet considerably for the larger posters and banners. Once scanned I cleaned up the image and taught myself how to use layers and add text and backgrounds.  Very challenging but satisfying and worthwhile to do and learn.

The whole process from start to finish took about a week.  The poster has now been printed and published and is now up and it's one of the first things I've done that has been viewed by the public which was challenging and has given me a boost to my confidence to put more of my art work out for people to view. So I will be doing more sketching and artwork to continue to build my confidence. I would love any feedback people may have or even ideas of things to draw to challenge me to draw things I haven't done before.

Thank you for all your support so far and will blog when I can next, hopefully from a computer of some form. 

Speak soon

X

New Social Media links

I have had a few requested from readers to add features to my blog to enable my followers to be informed that a new blog post has been uploaded.  So I have been busy sorting my social media this week. 

Firstly, I have added Google + Follow button for those of you who are on Google + you can follow my blog and I post a new update I share this with Google +.

 
Secondly, I have now set up a Facebook Page for The Eclectic Craft Room under my name as an artist Jane C Webster which can be found at www.facebook.com/JaneCWebster where I post when my blogs have been uploaded so please like my page and follow to be informed when there's a new blog.

 
In addition to these I wanted somewhere I could post my work in progress (WIP) photos so I have converted my Instagram account into one for The Eclectic Craft Room also under my name Jane C Webster at www.instagram.com/jane_c_webster/ and have set up my twitter account as a public account (www.twitter.com/JaneC_Webster). 

So I hope these few ways will help those who wish to follow me and keep informed, do so.  

I have been busy today so far re arranging my crafting station in my Living room ready for some new shelves which are arriving later today.  So now I am just continuing with my cross stitch while I wait for the delivery arrive.  My next blog will be about the commission I was working on previously mentioned in another blog, but now it is out and published as a poster I can talk about the process and show the final piece. 

I hope you are all enjoying my blog as much as I am writing it and I look forward to my next blog.

Speak soon

x

Final Dress for Wedding

So on my return from the NEC Birmingham I realised that I would need to do a quick practise run of the dress as I have never used the Amazing Fit Collection before.  So I got started once I had had my two days recovery time.  I cut out my pattern and from there I used some old fabric and assembled.

I them paid a visit to my mums as making alterations to clothing your in is rather challenging.  I informed her where I wanted it adjusting and from there she made the adjustments with pins and baste stitched it to the right size on her machine and I retried the dress.  Having given a small allowance for the lining to fit as the pattern did not call for a lining but I wanted to line the finished dress as it was to be a smart dress, I was happy with the alterations.

Trial dress 

So I returned home with having borrowed 'Diana' my mums adjustable manikin to help me in any final alterations on the final dress.  I used the trial dress and cut this all the edge of each seam and from there drew out the pattern with the semi allowance on paper.  I was then ready to start on Monday 28th March the dress in the final fabric.

So I cut out the ploy satin main fabric, the lining fabric and after a trip to my local haberdashery store 'Village Fabrics' in Wallingford I cut out my lightweight black fusible interfacing.  Now this was the first time I had worked with a satin fabric and most people said I was mad using a fabric I had not used before for the final dress but I always like to push myself and my knowledge if I can.  My first test was where to pin the pattern pieces to the fabric, now if you haven't worked with Satin before it is so unforgivable and if you put a needle or a pin where it will show you will see it in the finished garment as it does not heal itself like cotton fabrics do.  So I worked out I needed to pin in the seam allowance.

Cutting pattern pieces from the satin

I applied the fusible interfacing to the required pieces and then set to sewing the dress together.  As the pattern did not give instructions as how to add a lining I repeated each step that I carried out with the main fabric with the lining fabric.  In the end I ended up with two dress fronts and two dress backs which needed to be attached together.  I laid out the dress so when turn the right side out the wrong side of the dress and the lining would be together. Once the sides of the dress and the lining had been sown together the next step was the neck line.  The pattern had its own neckline pieces which I had earlier interfaced.  Once attached right side to right side the neckline was folded inside and top stitched around the neck line simultaneously attaching the neck line of the lining to the dress.  

Finished Dress

All that remained now as the sleeves, the zip and adding the hem to the dress and the lining.  In hind sight I should have also added sleeves to my practise dress as the pattern piece for the sleeve gave very little movement to the dress and as the fabric had no ease to it once I added the sleeves I found to restrictive so I made a decision and cut the fabric of the sleeves and reshaped long sleeve in the design and adapted them into short cap sleeves by adding a rolled hem on the edge of each sleeve.

I decided to add an invisible zip which as i didn't purchase an invisible zipper foot for my machine meant i had to sew the zip in by hand.  This added a handmade element to it as it added a pit of puckering at the base of the zip.  But as this was my first dress with an invisible zip in a satin material and first lined dress I was pleased with my result.  This only left the hem which I trimmed the dress and the lining to the correct length and added a rolled hem to both.   All in all it took me about 3 days from start to finish and the dress was admired at my friends wedding and I may have opened a market with friends who require alterations, dresses, baby clothes etc. All in all it was a fantastic learning process and I got myself known out there for doing craft and sewing for my new home business I'm setting up. So good all around.

Speak soon
x

NEC Hobbycraft, sewing for Pleasure, goodies

Having spent a few days recovering from the two day trip to the NEC Birmingham Hobbycraft, Sewing for Pleasure, Embroidery and Fashion and Cake International,  I then worked on a dress for a wedding which was an intense week but a very valuable one.  Unfortunately I then came down with the flu and have just started to get over it and am able to sit a type while having a sofa day. So my blog is a long time over due.  But I started on my return from the NEC finding homes for all my lovely purchases and testing out a few items. 

While at the NEC I spent quite a bit but a lot of the purchases were for set items up my home business to expand my card making abilities.  So in this blog will be a fairly long one with lots of pictures and I will cover what I got at the NEC and I will upload a couple others this week catching up to where I am today.  I have split my two days up and took photos of purchases.  

Day One

So I arrived on the start (Thursday) with my mum and we parked at our hotel and made our way to the NEC.  We started day one by working our way around Hobbycraft show, then on to the Sewing for Pleasure. After searching through many stalls I came across some dies which I have been looking for and ended up purchasing the Creative Expressions Craft Dies with Relatives names.

Male Relatives

Female Relatives

Grandparents

I then continued along and Met Wendy from Card-io who was doing demonstrations on how to get the amazing effects on her beautiful cards.  I knew that I wanted to purchase some of her stamps but as the show had only just opened and everyone had reached this stall together it was a bit crazy so I added this to my list of stalls to return to and returned on Day two and purchased the following.

Small Medium and
 Large Stamp Pegs

Card-io Majestix Sweet Strawberries and Summer Meadow

Card-io Cottontail Capers and Woodland Walks

Card-io Tall Trees 

Docrafts Artiste Spritzing Ink
Forest Green and Gold Stone

I stocked up with lots of useful items at 'Every Craft a Pound', one of my favourite stalls for stocking up on crafting items.

Dovecraft 3D Pearl Effect Colours

XCut Dies Snowflake and Butterfly

Westcott Craft Knife and
replacement Blades 

Westcott Scissors

In addition to these items I also picked up some double sided tape, 3 Precision Applicator bottles, a set of 12 Derwent Pastel Pencils Skin tones as I want to try and work on my portrait skills, 5 different Royal Soft-grip brushes, Paper and card stock and finally in the Hobbycraft show I picked up 2 Really Useful Storage boxes one with 4 trays in and the other with a custom made cotton tread holders.

Jersey Fabric

After a rest break of water and a sit down we moved on to Sewing for Pleasure. I bought less in this show as I was looking for specific items.  I was looking for fabric to use to make the final dress for the up and coming friends wedding.  I found this fabric which was a jersey fabric which I loved the look of and would work with the dress I had practised.  As we continued round we found the Simplicity Stall and we began searching through the many boxes.  Now last year I think we ended up buying about 20 different patterns and had decided we didn't need many patterns this year.  However when we found the new to us 'Amazing Fit Collection' from Simplicity we got excited and went on a hunt for all these patterns and ended up with about 10 in our hands.  We carefully went through the patterns we had and refined out selection down to four patterns.

 

This then gave me a dilemma as I thought I knew which dress i was buying fabric for but now I had new styles I really liked and that evening made the decision to change to dress pattern Simplicity 2247 which gave me day two to find fabric.   I also picked up a few other sewing bits such as little more hand scissors (which I had previously picked up last year for cross stitch but wanted some to keep with my sewing machine) and what was called a pink poky thing for poking out corners of cushions and other awkward folds.

Day Two

We started day two with Cake International and made our way around the competition and exhibition area where the competition pieces where being judged.  Now I'm only just starting with cake decorating so this was more of a trip into what the height of the level that can be achieved.  We started going around the circus carnival tent where the cakes where themed to circus and carnival theme. I will add a few of my favourite photos at the end of this blog as I have so many.   We continued around Cake international and I purchased a Fondant Ribbon Cutter/ Embosser set for £10 so I can have a play along side the items I got for Christmas and have a go at decorating cakes. I also Picked up 3 different Windsor Cutters and ejector sets (Multi Blossom, Multi Daisy and Multi Star) again to have a practice with.

After watching a demonstration of making Fabergé style eggs and tea cups and saucers out of fondant icing using Easter egg moulds and old teacups and saucers I purchased a little Wilton Dust-n-Store pot for applying and storing icing sugar or corn flour. 

Now I love subscription boxes not that I can afford many.  I currently subscribe to Scrawlrbox which is a monthly art supplies box, now when I found the stall for the newly launched Bake Box and was told I could get the already released box 1 and the up and coming box 2 for just £20 plus p&p.  I thought I was worth a trial.  So I signed up for box by box subscription.  Now The Bake Box is sent out every 2 months at £14.99 per box plus p&p.  I was able to take home my box 1 with me and I am currently waiting on a re-delivery of box 2 which should arrive on Wednesday as I missed last weeks delivery being in bed ill.

So from here there was one talk we wanted to watch and we had sometime to pass so we went on a mission back to Sewing for Pleasure to hunt down some fabric and lining fabric for my dress and we were successful.  I picked up a two tone blue and blackish green poly satin and black dress lining. We also sat in on the full demonstration of 'The Lutterloh System' which we caught the end on day one.  A very interesting and temping system which we may later invest into but we decided that we would sleep on this and buy it at a later date or show.   We also walked about Fashion and Embroidery while we were back over at Sewing for Pleasure. 

Eddie Spence MBE at Cake International Friday 18/03/16 Theatre stage

We made our way back to Cake International and had a rest while we watched the talk on the Theatre stage by Eddie Spence MBE who is a master in Royal Icing and he did a demonstration of the art of different piping techniques with Royal Icing and made a Jemima puddle duck cake.  He is very lovely gentleman to meet with a proud Scottish heritage and it was a great honour to meet him.

Eddie Spence MBE Proud of his Scottish Heritage

Jemima puddle duck cake

I will end this blog with just a few of my favourite cakes from the competition entries of Cake International March 2016 NEC  as promised above.  Thanks for reading,  please do at comments to my blogs if you have any questions and speak soon in my next blog.