Experimental textiles 2012

I have been experimenting recently with techniques unfamiliar to me, and relating particularly to my focus for this year's college, where I will be working on textile books and journals.  This is a focus I started in 2011 and I enjoyed making books so much (see my website for completed textile books) that I decided to continue and expand in 2012 with a third, recently acquired passion, Altered Books (my first two passions are books of any kind, and birds).  This experiment has a base of a mop-up cloth from fabric painting; then I carved linocuts of abstract shapes which I printed in acrylic paints; layers purple and blue crystal organzas, and a piece of text from a book which I want to use this year with the message "Don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff."  I used some contrasting yellow silk thread to attach the layers, in running stitch.  I outlined some of the shapes in their colours in silk.  To see larger, click on image.

Notice the loose threads - I don't do "neat" now if I can avoid it.  That was me in the past.