And more layers of text!

I had a really productive two days of Summer School this week, particularly the second day.

I cut up some of the printed organdie and printed muslin and pieced them together.  I’m going to put wadding and a backing fabric to finish it. 

I had some pieces of calico that were fine as process samples but didn’t work as pieces. So I pieced them together to make a sketchbook cover.

The cover is a bit loose so that I can still add to the book.

I used some more of the organdie and muslin to make a strip hanging.  The idea is to hang the two narrow pieces slightly in front of the other 3 pieces and hang it so the light shines through. I might change my mind about doing that.  I’ll let you know what I happens.

Thanks for being here today.
Bernice

More layers of text

In my last post I showed you the fabrics I had printed.  I also dyed two other pieces of calico.

I dyed this piece to use for a different non-text related piece of work - a companion piece to my river hanging.

I used the same colours on another piece of fabric.  I wrote on it first with masking fluid - the sort used by watercolour painters.  This will be another piece in my series based on chains. I used my pantoum poem: Dancing in Fetters

Unfortunately the masking fluid doesn't peel off fabric like it does off paper but that's okay.  However the second problem was that the lettering doesn't show up with the ochre dye as it's too pale.  You can see it if the fabric is held up to the light but the hanging is going to have wadding and a back.

I drew round the letters with an Inktense pencil so that once the wadding and back is on I can see where to stitch.

Next job is to start on this piece of work and use the fabrics from my previous post.  I have two more days of Summer School this week in which to get going.

Thanks for being here today
Bernice

Layers of Text

I spent two days this week attending the Summer School at Littleheath Barn called Layers of Text.

Liske's aim was that we would print less metres of fabric but have several layers on the fabric we did print.

I had written Captivity, Freedom, Identity on one screen with flour paste and Dancing in Fetters on a second screen also with flour paste.

When the flour paste was dry I scraped thickened Procion dye through the screen which breaks down the flour paste.  A different take on breakdown printing.

The piece above was printed onto Organdie with a piece of muslin underneath.  The image went through the Organdie and coloured the muslin below. 

 

 

I scraped flour paste over a piece of calico and wrote into the flour paste.  When this was dry the calico was screwed up to make the flour paste crackle.  I scraped thickened dye over the fabric.  With the small piece at the bottom I tried using Masking Fluid to write with using a brush before putting the dye over it.

 

 

The top fabric is Organdie and the bottom piece is muslin.  I used a Thermofax screen and a mixture of two colours of thickened dye.

 

 

I wrote on this piece of calico with a Copic Wide pen with what I had hoped contained a permanent ink.  I used thickened dye to write the rust and ochre words and a Thermofax screen for the chains.  However when I washed the fabric the black ink leached out leaving blue writing.

Not that it's a problem!  I can make the piece again on non-soda soaked calico and use fabric paints with the Copic pen.  That's if I decide I need to do it again.

In the meantime, this last piece matches the other fabrics I printed rather well, so I will cut them up and piece them together.

Watch this space!

Thanks for being here today
Bernice