Karen Ruane

white, pockets, loops....

 

White.....bullion loops, sealing pocket bottoms. This is this piece. If you compare the two you will see there are more loops, a little more embellishment. This was titivated before I went away. I am now craving needle and thread but that will have to wait until tonight, much later tonight.

I have had the most amazing time, I can't even begin to express that, how the past five days have been. There are a lot of pictures here. It rained on Saturday, enough to establish the mud. Aside from that the weather was glorious.

Today I'm struggling to get ''with it''. I don't party hard in an alcohol sense but I do stay up most of the night, deprive myself of sleep. So I am now slowly returning to normality, staring at the unpacking and the piles of dirty washing and wondering when those elves are going to show up and get those chores done. If you see them can you ask them to hurry up please......there's embroidery to be done and I need a clean space.

Next Monday I go back to school, another eight weeks of pocket making, doodling, working on the ''human cloth'' which is the body bag. I can't wait. If you want to join us for those eight weeks and get access to all the previous resources then the shop is now open.

(to my girls.....my girls in class. I'm coming, soon, as soon as I make sense of the piles of laundry I will be there. I missed you)

Finally....I was here, I am in this crowd. Can you see me?

 

 

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more desk pad doodling....

bright white. like porcelain.

more pockets, tiny pockets.

Tiny pockets, a gathered pink spotty pocket and a tiny square green spotty pocket. These are on the surface of what will become a lager pocket.....watch this space.

Things are winding down here. I'm packed. Ruane towers is spotless. It's just a matter of waiting now....waiting. I will be posting on Instagram whilst I'm gone. The shop will be closing later today and if you get bored whilst I'm away??? See the categories list on the right of the blog? Just click video..there are over FIFTY videos there to keep you out of trouble.

Miss you already.....

pockets...with pockets on top.

Anyone short of a pocket or two? Just pop round here, there's plenty. This is a pocket with added pockets which will be used to back the pocket in the last two pictures...they are laid side by side....You can probably get a sense of what I've been up to, yes, pockets.

Do you want to make pockets too? If you do you best be quick because the shop is shutting tomorrow. If you want access to the secret blog  and private Flickr group where pockets are taking over then you only have one day to sort that out. You will have two free weeks whilst I am gone to catch up, to peruse, to fill your house with pockets!!

 

(I will only be away from here for one week. I will be away from class for two. I will be here tomorrow!!)

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White

the first pocket from class

a human sized pocket

pages

I've started, started ''composing'' pages for the artist books I have been mentioning. This is the very beginning, the collecting, the gathering, the composition of pages, done this morning, killing time (in a pleasurable way) before I tackle the mammoth task later today which is gathering all my stuff together for Glastonbury.

So far we have doodles on pages, snippets of doodles cut from paper, snippets of postcards and tiny Suffolk puffs. This was actually a very lovely way to spend an hour or so...I can recommend it, you should try it. 

These pages measure 5 x 5 inches, they are tiny. 

My ''bits'' on the table before I started....

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graph paper and a label

more desk pad doodling....

three pockets in hoops...

In various stages of progress, three pockets.  One is almost finished, one is half way finished, the third is only pinned...Two of these have pockets on the surface, pockets on pockets. This is what we are up to in class, I'm cracking the whip.

The white only one was put together earlier this week. There is an absence of doodling on that one. I have yet to decide whether I will actually put any patterning on there. I'm thinking about it. I will stitch it a little first and see what it has to say for itself once it's been titivated a little.

 

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doodle doo and doodled cloth

more desk pad doodling....

ledger planning

 

Yes, I know. My images are all different sizes, little, big.... thing is they are all stolen from my old blog when I had even less knowledge about saving and cropping and pixels and layers than I do now. I did try to resize them but they went all blurry....... never mind, it makes for an interesting scroll down the page...guess the image size.....

Why the old images? Because I have been asked for more of these books so I am revisiting, considering options, thinking about cutting paper, thinking about page sizes, page content, how many pages....that kind of thing. This afternoon I am going to cut some paper in preparation. It's quite exciting. Please don't hold your breath for anything even nearly finished though.....it may take some time.

These were all sold. Did you buy one? I would love to know what you did with them. Did you use them to mop up spillages? To wrap potato peelings up?  Did anyone actually doodle in one of these?

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more desk pad doodling....

playing with composition

I was gathering bits this morning, little pieces of stitching, samples, offcuts, some torn paper pieces. These tiny scraps have been carefully stored, kept for this reason, to play with, to move around and arrange into complimentary groupings, to create mini design sheets. It's a refresher, a warm up, a little like doodling. One stitch here laid next to another piece with a different surface can spark an idea, prompt a direction.

None of these are stuck down, the little pieces are put away safely again now. All that's needed to remember these is a few minutes looking through my image files....something else I do a lot of.

graph paper and a label

I got distracted by some graph paper I saw online. What can I say, it's a curse. It's an excuse for another finger limbering up ten minutes though in the tiny 4 x 3 inch ledger. Print graph paper, stick it in a book, get some lettering stencils, a black fine liner, a needle and thread and a fabric label and the world is your oyster!!

(the world is your oyster

if the world is your oyster, you have the ability and the freedom to do anything or go anywhere)

 

I got the graph paper here.

 

 

In other news.......This time next week I'm off to a party which will last for six days.....Glastonbury. (I will be on my best behaviour I promise) The shop will be shut next Monday. If you haven't been there for a while there are a lot of work on your own classes available now and the current class ''embroidered pockets.....'' is still listed. We are only four weeks into that and will be taking a two week break from this weekend. There will be eight weeks to run when I get back into school mode on my return. If you want something to do whilst you bask in the sun this summer go here and take a look, see if I can tempt you.

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gimp and lace

mix and match....

What's new on this piece? The cotton strip with doodles has more embellishment..........new. There are web stitches and running stitch edged petals.....it's delicate, it's pretty, it's colourful. I wanted to see how it looked against ''old'' work, how it lived with ''old'' design sheets. Why oh why did I do that? I now have a million ways to take this forward, a million new ideas because I have nothing else to do right? I guess I'll just have to make copious amounts of notes instead.

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the first pocket from class

a bullion loop seam and lemon running stitch

more desk pad doodling....

Desk pad c. Marks and Spencer.

Remember this? I'm adding to it. I'm going to keep it going as an ever present warm up exercise, a finger limbering up task. Five minutes here and there will soon add up to a full page of doodles. Each five minutes of effort may not look like much on its own but after a few weeks? Who knows.

You can doodle while you are watching TV, while you're in bed, while you're waiting for the kettle to boil. Do it on a scrap of paper. Do it on a newspaper. Do it on anything, a tissue box,  a pasta packet.

I can't recommend doodling highly enough and that's from someone who had a phobia of pens and pencils up until quite recently. (I'm still working on my phobia of paints) You can't conquer everything in one go! 

 

Go forth and doodle.....

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