bits and pieces

I found a third copy of the postcard of my mother aged 2 1/2, so Nadie requested a mixed media piece of her own ... paint, paper serviettes, wet tea bag and sheet music for a nursery rhyme from a 1920s magazine. This one was on a rectangular canvas and I don't think it works quite as well as the square ones... which I find really quite strange because when it comes to my [non-bed] quilts, I almost always prefer to work in a rectangular format
While I was still on this mixed media kick, I half-remembered something I'd read years and years ago about using turpentine to make transfers from photocopies, which is obviously a better idea than using up originals.
I don't know that it would work with the modern laser or ink jet printers - although I'll certainly give it a go - but 'old fashioned' photocopiers that needed toner and so on,
I also half remembered that fresh copies were best, but all I had on hand were some fairly crappy 15 year old photocopies of some family photos.
Still
nothing ventured and so on ...

This is the result of printing one of them onto a page torn from a Hungarian book bought at the Op Shop for 20c.
We have no family connection with Hungary. I just wanted the look of a foreign script on cheap old paper, and in the absence of something suitable in Italian, this fitted the bill rather well I thought.
The rather elegant lady is my late husband's paternal grandmother, the one responsible for my darling daughter's middle name of Antoinette.

The base is a painted canvas, and as well as Antonietta on her page, I've added some vintage lace, stencilled through paper lace serviettes, the inevitable paper serviettes, and more paint.
I rather like how this one has come out.
Things I've learnt :
working with old photocopies and turps is a bit hit and miss at best. Too much ink in the copy, or too much turps, and the whole things smears and dribbles.
Be prepared for failures but rejoice in the ones that work!


By the way this is my new patent-pending cat based yarn tensioning device:
so not impressed Mumand the overnight temp in Castlemaine last night ? 1 degree