Sneak peek

Here's a sneak peek at my latest textile piece

 And here's another part of it

It doesn't look much in these photos and I haven't shown you all of it.  There's a lot more machining to do.  And hand stitching!  And cords!

I've set a 2-3 week finished deadline so you will get to see the whole thing by the end of August.

Hopefully!

Thanks for being here today
Bernice

 

Chaos update

My Chaos to Calm piece is coming on slowly - mostly because I haven't really buckled down to it.

Since I last posted about it I have stamped some unreadable text on the dyed calcico using acrylic paint.  Because I wanted some of the cord to fall off the edge of the piece I put the partially dyed calico onto a piece of felt with black cotton poplin backing.  It's rare for me to think about how a piece will be finished before I even start!

Once the back was finished it had enough weight for me to be able to stitch down the thick cords.

I wrapped some of the thick cord with torn fabric and stitched that on over the top.

I placed the small fragments I had made.

I made some different thicknesses of cord using the zigzag stitch on my machine.

I stitched the fragments on using cross stitch.  I have now started adding the thinner dyed cord.

Once the thinner cord is attached, I shall be adding more fragments and then the thin machine cords.

I'm really pleased with how it's going.  I've set myself a deadline of April 11th to finish the piece.  I'll let you know how that goes!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

A Grid Book

I will be The Festival of Quilts at the NEC next month in the Creative Textile Studio showing the various books that I have made.  In preparing for the Show I discovered I have not shown in full how I made two of the books.

This is a calico book made when I was thinking about Grids.  If you go back to that post you can see how I built up the layers until I ended with this piece of painted calico.

I tore the fabric up into strips and reassembled them putting the torn edges onto the right side of the fabric.  Then I folded it like the diagram below and cut where the red lines indicate.

I  bonded the pages together and then machined it with orange thread for contrast.  I also added some cotton fabric I had printed using my inkjet printer.

Closed, the book is 15x13cms.

It's very different from the books I usually make.

Thanks for stopping by today
Bernice

Another Textile Book

I really like the finished bird textile book so I thought I would make another one.  I didn't think the first one was particularly mixed media so I wanted to see if I could add more.

And of course I need a theme for the book.  Can you guess what it is!

 Well, of course it's Venice.   What else would it be!!!

I started by laying out bits of fabric, paper, painted Bondaweb and book page on the calico.

Eventually it ended up like this.

I machine stitched the bottom third of the fabric but forgot to take photo.  I did some handstitching on it at our Traverse weekend.

The next step was to machine again and this is what met me when I went into the craft room aka the dining room.

I was able to put sufficient away to be able to get the machine out.  Who am I kidding?  Nothing got put away, I just moved piles of stuff to make piles of stuff somewhere else!

 I machined around the bits of fabric I had bondawebbed on and then machined the spaces.

Sorry the photos aren't very clear when I'm trying to get the whole book in.  Here's a close up.

Instead of finishing the book with the turned in edges as last time, I left the frayed edges when I added the back.  Then I folded it and pin tucked the fold to make a zigzag book.

Here it is again showing the folds.

I still don't think it's sufficiently mixed media to be called a mixed media book.  I'm going to give some more thought and maybe make another one with beads and bits of metal.  And maybe some stencilling.   What do you think?

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

A textile book

Yesterday I spent the day at a workshop run by Ineke Berlyn at her studio.

We were learning how to make a Scroll Book.  You can learn online if you wish.

I used Thermofax screens to print on some plain calico using fabric paints.

I layered up bits of fabric.

And then I started sewing.

It isn't finished yet and I don't know whether I will because I am inspired to make a different one with different fabrics.  I'll let you know what happens!

Thanks for stopping by.

Bernice

Take Me Deeper: January

At  His Kingdom Come we are hosting a year long devotional: Take Me Deeper, with weekly postings.  Each month of the year has a theme and this month's theme is Transform.

I am a Moderator of the Textile group and I have decided that my textile response to this is to make a #12 size tag book using calico.   Below is a photo (heavy) tutorial of how I made my tag.

I cut a tag out of card to use as a template.  It's 10.5 inches by 4.125 inches.

I used this to cut out a piece of pelmet vilene (Pellon Peltex #70).  I also cut a piece of calico larger than the tag.

I used Bondaweb (Pellon Wonder-Under) to fuse the vilene to the calico.

I also ironed Bondaweb onto some offcuts of fabric.  These are Batik fabrics which don't fray so are ideal for this technique.

Using the Bondaweb backing that I had peeled off I worked out how large I wanted my branch to be.

Then I made it wider.

I could have drawn it frrehand on the backing paper already attached to the fabric but I used my try out piece to trace the image. You have to remember that you need to draw the mirror image.

I cut it out and ironed it on.

On the peeled off backing I stamped some leaves to see if they were the right size. I could have drawn them freehand but I had the stamps.   Always use waterproof ink when stamping in case for any reason at a later stage you want to apply a wet media like Gel Medium or paint.

You could stamp on a piece of paper and cut out a template but I chose to stamp directly onto the backing paper.

I cut out the leaves.

I peeled off the backing and ironed the leaves onto my branch.

If you peel the backing off carefully you are left with some pre-printed leaves for another project.

I ironed some Bondaweb onto a page from a Bible that I bought from a dollar store. You could use book paper or dictionary paper. I stamped some letters on and then cut them out.

Using fabric with Bondaweb attached I cut out a caterpillar and a chrysalis.  I used a butterfly stamp on paper and cut it out to see if it was the right size.

I stamped on the back of the Bondaweb on two different fabrics.

I cut the blue one out the full size of the stamp and the orange one smaller to fit inside.  I ironed the caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly onto the tag.   It was my intention to do the same with the transform letters.  However I could not get the backing to peel off so I used Gel Medium to glue it down.

I stamped the words using a small set of wooden letter stamps and Archival Ink.

I machined lines on the leaves with black thread and some zigzag lines on the caterpillar.  At this point it would have been possible to add more machine or hand stitching.

Up until this point it was my intention to back the tag with some more calcio and fray the edges.  But then I changed my mind.  I trimmed the calico down and using doublesided tape folded the calico over to the back and stuck it down.

I cut a piece of Mixed Media paper the same size as the tag and using doublesided tape adhered it to the tag.  I decided it would be better to have a paper backing in case I wanted to journal on the back.

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