Florida cut up

As you know I do lots of workshops at Littleheath Barn.  One of them was an Artcloth based on a landscape.  I chose to use the Atlantic coast of Florida for my inspiration.  I wrote about the course here.

Liske suggested we worked on 2 pieces of cloth.  One was the practice piece and the other was to be the finished piece.  The one on the right was supposed to be the practice one, but it ended up being the finished piece.

You may know that I love to cut up my work, especially if I don't like it.  I happened upon the work of Katie Fowler who paints abstract landscapes on cloth and then cuts it up.  She also cuts up her finished quilts!

So I'm in good company!

I decided to cut up the other Florida piece.

I was fortunate to find a large box canvas at Hobbycraft - and, extra joy, it was half price!   I found some soft calico in my stash and started auditioning the squares on it.

I ironed a small amount of bondweb on the back of each square and bonded the squares to the calico.  I machine stitched round each square.

 I ironed bondaweb onto some of the offcuts from the original artcloth.

 I cut small pieces of the spare fabric and auditioned bits on the squares.

 These were then bonded to the large piece and machined.

The calico is now pinned to a backing fabric with a pad of felt wadding.  I am going to do some hand stitching on the squares and then some hand quilting before stretching the finished piece over the box canvas.

Watch this space for the finished piece.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Art Cloth Day 4

Day 4 report.  You can find day 1, day 2 & day 3 by clicking on the links!  Day 4 had its moments.  We worked with formosul which removes dye.  I also used fabric paints and some more thickened dye - not all of these processes were successful.   I had washed all the pieces of fabric before the workshop day which has removed all the manutex.

I used the formosul on this piece through a Thermofax screen.

In close up

I used it on this piece of fabric also

The close up

I also printed fish or birds all over these pieces of fabric using a blue-grey thickened dye.  However I had forgotten that there was no longer soda ash in the fabric so when I washed them when I got back home, the fish disappeared.  Ho hum!

Liske's photo showing fabric before I washed it!

I used the formosul on this piece of fabric using a Thermofax screen and a stencil

Then I moved on to the actual art cloths - one of them is supposed to be the practice piece but they are both working well so not sure which is the practice one any more!

I used the formosul through a screen and a stencil

I also added fabric paint.  But I forgot to iron it before I washed it so most of the paint has disappeared.  There were a lot of wavy lines and stars - although to be honest the lines were a bit too much.  Here's Liske's photo from before I washed the fabric.

The same happened with this one.

Oh well, back to the drawing board!

I also folded this piece of fabric and cut it up to make a book.  I printed on the different pages.

This will be the front cover.

And this is one of the inside pages.

I'm going to handstitch on the pages and then sew them together.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Art Cloth Day 3

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to Littleheath Barn Studio for part 3 of the Art Cloth course.  I continued to work on fabrics I had made last month.

This piece was thickened dye through a screenprinting frame with torn masking tape on it.

I had set up a screen for breakdown printing at the end of the last session and this is what it looked like before I started printing.

I printed on some of the pages of my sketchbook.

I printed on the fabric from the first photo.

I used Thermofax screens to print onto my large art cloth.

I used a Thermofax screen to add the scribbled spirals.

As I had already washed this fabric at home I was able to try some Formusol through the same screen which bleached out some of the dye.

When I got home I washed the fabrics to remove the Manutex that's in the thickened dyes.  It also washes out some of the dye which means the fabrics are paler.

The Art Cloths are also paler but I still like them!

Next time we are printing with fabric paints.  I might make some fun foam stamps.  However I've got until mid-May to think about what I want to do.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Together Again

You may not remember my friend Elaine - my son's wife's sister's husband's mother - but I wrote about our road trip last year.   We got together again this week but in the English Midlands not South Carolina!

We had a quiet day on Tuesday.  On Wednesday we woke up to a beautiful day.  We drove to Kingswood Junction and walked alongside the Stratford Canal to the Fleur de Lys pub for lunch.

And back again of course!

On Thursday I went to Littleheath Barn Studio for day 3 of my Art Cloth course.  More about that next time.  And Elaine had a day to herself which included a coffee shop and a facial.  In the evening we went to my Lifegroup meeting.

On Friday we drove to Shrewsbury where we planned to do a 4.5 mile walk.  However we missed a bit out at the end because I was exhausted from the heat!

Shrewsbury School which is housed in an old workhouse.

Shrewsbury School and its rowing club.

 

We drove on to Oswestry where we stayed the night.  On Saturday I did a Mixed Media Textile Book workshop whilst Elaine did a 2.5 mile walk and visited coffee shops!

After the workshop we drove back to the centre of Birmingham to have dinner near The Mailbox.  Then we walked along the towpath to Symphony Hall.

We went to see Remembering Fred.  Roger had bought me 2 tickets as my Christmas present - one for me and one for a friend.  Isn't he wonderful!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice