Grids

For the last session of Textile Explorations, Liske suggested various activities.  One was something she had learned from Jayne Emerson called 'Crashing'.

I had a go at it.  It involves a layer of fabric, a layer of Bondaweb and a layer of water soluble fabric. I machined my grid very evenly.

After steaming it looked a lot like smocking!

I used a gelli plate to print onto another piece of fabric, using the 'smocking' to make a pattern in the paint.

The paint on the 'smocking'.

One of the other activities was to repeat the grid activity that we did in January but without the watercolour wash.

I didn't do it at the Studio.  I wanted to do it at home as I wanted to use all things gridlike to print with.

I used a Posca pen to write on the fabric and then Indigo acrylic paint to print with.

When that had dried I added white.  Hard to see!  After that had dried I used Payne's Grey for the last layer of print.

Here are the masking tape strips after I had taken them off the fabric and put them onto a large sheet of paper.

And now the BIG REVEAL.

A grid of grids!

 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  I could keep it as a panel and stitch it or as ever, I could cut it up!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Exploding books

If you've been following along with my Textile Explorations posts you'll know that I have been making 10cm square samples of different techniques.  I ended up with 40+ squares.

You may have been wondering what I was going to do with them.  Or maybe you haven't but I'm going to tell you anyway.  I used 26 of them to make two exploding books!

First I cut squares of heavy duty Lutradur.  For the first book I melted the edges of the squares before painting them.  Then I folded them.

They fit together like this so that the whole thing can be closed up and explode!

I tried out the squares in different places

And finally settled on this combination

I painted the second set of lutradur squares with copper coloured acrylic paint.

As with the other set I cut 8 of the squares down to 9cm square and then cut them in half diagonally.

I assembled the whole thing with doublesided tape.

And what have I done with the remaining squares?

Well, that's for another day.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Batik experiments

At the Art Textiles group on Thursday, Liske had lots of ideas that we could try.  Sadly I had arrived without any oomph!  It seemed to leak out of the car during the 25 minute journey from home!!!

However, one of the ideas roused a little bit of curiosity.  I'm so glad it did because I really love some of the results I got.

Liske had a hot wax pot - actually an electic grill - and various tools including a cork, brushes, and a large cookie cutter.

This piece was originally splattered with acrylic paint.  I think it was probably newsprint that I had put under another piece of work I was doing.  I put the hot wax on and when that was set I put watercolour paint over it.  When that was dry I repeated the exercise.  With each of the pieces once everything was dry I ironed it between newspaper to remove the wax.

This piece was a part of a map with tissue paper glued on top.  I scratched into the blobs of wax to reveal the layer below but the scatches were not significant enough for the paint to bleed through.

On this paper I collaged some text and some music and tissue paper before adding the wax and the yellow paint.  Another layer of wax was added and then the turquoise paint.

This was an acrylic paint monoprint to which I added the wax.  I used black acrylic ink over the top.

This is a piece of thin white cotton material.

And this was the paper underneath the fabric where the wax and some of the paint went through.  I then added some more paint as there was quite a lot of white.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Machine Stitching

This week we had the next session of Textile Explorations.  You may remember that at the last session I used cold water paste to stick lots of fabric leftovers together.

In this session I cut the piece in half - mostly because the size it was made it awkward to use with the sewing machine!

On the left half I added foil.

On the other half I machined all over it with a preset stitch on my machine.

 

 

I cut the foiled piece into four pieces and put net over two of them and then machine stitched them.

I haven't decided what to do with these two pieces.

 

 

I cut two 10cm squares  from the right hand half after I'd machined it.

I didn't have enough of this piece to make 4 squares because of where I had chosen to cut out the above squares.  I decided to use the left over machined piece with some other leftover bits from the last session to make a long narrow piece which may become a scroll book.  The pieces are currently held in place by a small amount of Mistyfuse whilst I decide how I'm going to stitch it all together.

How would you stitch it?

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Playing at Littleheath

This month's episode of Textile Explorations was postponed 2 weeks ago but the wait was worth it.

Liske had two ideas for the day.  The first was to layout shapes on fabric using masking tape.  I used some cotton poplin (top) and a smaller piece of calico.

I aimed for 5 inch squares.  The other pieces I have made in this project are 10cm or 4 inch squares.  But I thought I would make 5 inch ones which I can cut down.

Using mark making tools, stamps, Thermofax screens and acrylic paint, I randomly printed over the whole fabric including over the masking tape.

Then I flooded the fabric with Koh-i-nor dyes.

I tried putting some freezer paper masks on the fabric

And painted over them with acrylic paint.

In the afternoon we used cold water paste to glue the remnants of fabric onto a backing fabric.  This is how it looked wet.  At this point I really didn't like it much.

However when it dried it looked much better.  It now needs machining and then I shall cut it up.

When I got home I decided the fabric was too pink rather than the orange it was supposed to be so I painted over the fabric again with orange watercolour paint.  There should have been crisp white lines between the squares but the original dyes had leached under the masking tape.

 

 

I cut the fabric up into approximately 5 inch squares.

They are now ready for the next stage.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Online and In-person 2022

If you are a regular reader you will know that I frequently write about how many courses and workshops I've signed up to.  Most of which I don't complete.

So, what am I up to in 2022?

I currently have two online courses that started in 2021.

Notice What you Notice with Christine Chester started in September 2021 and ends in August this year.

There's also Saturday Sketchbooks with Hilary Beattie.  This started in October last year. There are livestreams once a month and pre-recorded videos once a month. Apart from starting to make a book pf patterns and making a few collages I haven't really done much with this yet.

The in person workshop that started last September is Textile Explorations, where I'm making small fabric collages.

You may be wondering by now what I have lined up for 2022.

Not as much as usual really!

At the beginning of 2020 I had a discussion with Leslie Morgan about my continually booking workshops.  I came to the conclusion that I should book less workshops.  And then I had to go cold turkey!  Covid-19 brought about the cancellation of most workshops through 2020 and I made better choices from those that were available in 2021.

So back to the question of what is lined up for this year.

Three days with Christine Chester doing Paper Lamination and four days with Liske Johnson doing Art Cloth: Maps and More.  Both of these are in July at Littleheath Barn Studio.

Plus an online course with Hilary Beattie called Inspired by.  The first class being Inspired by Tulips.  

I was clearing out a cupboard over the weekend and found this tulip stencil I made in 1996!!!!!

Strange the things you hold on to.   Mind you I also found some work from my college finals in 1970.

What creative things are you planning this year?

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

More fabric collages

Last week we were back at Littleheath Barn for the next session of Textile Explorations.  Liske suggested some ideas for experimenting.  One of which was to use water soluble fabric.

They have yet to be cut down to 10cm square.  And I'm not sure what backing fabric I'm going to use.

A second suggestion was making two contrasting squares and cutting them exactly the same to mix and match the pattern.

The bottom two have had foil added.  The one on the left had glue applied through a Thermofax screen and the one on the right had little strips of bondaweb ironed on.

I tried the four samples done with water soluble fabric on different colour backgrounds

Which colour would you have chosen?   This is my choice

 And here are the other four cut to size.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice