Text in Textiles day 2

Another 9am start!

Julia had invited us to send photos of our work from day 1 and of previous work which we discussed.  Hearing Julia's comments about my work and other people's work was really inspiring.  Even when your work is totally different from another person's work, hearing suggestions for the way forward for them often sparks ideas for me.

On this second day we concentrated on using dissolvable fabric.  I handstitched 'in fetters' using backstitch and then went over it again with chain stitch.

 

 

The result was too heavy and thick for where I intended putting it on the smaller collage. So instead I wrote the words on tissue and chain stitched the words directly onto the fabric.

In conversation with Julia, she suggested I might add musical notation.  I drew the notes on acetate and laid it over.  Although the placement is random, the sizes are too regular so this needs more thought.

I also tried laying the acetate on top of the larger collage.  As before needs more thinking.

As I said at the beginning, hearing suggestions both for your own work and others, sparks ideas.  I have at least 3 ideas for pieces about dancing in fetters beyond my original idea.

This is one of the ideas based on the nonet I wrote.  I was thinking about making the links with wrapped cord but Julia suggested I might make it with metal chains.  Interesting.  A visit to B&Q looms!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

 

 

Text in Textiles day 1

At the weekend I did a Zoom workshop taught by Julia Triston called Text in Textiles.  Julia lives in Denmark so was working on Central European Time which is an hour ahead of BST.  So 9am here was an early start.  I haven't been dressed at that time for quite a while!!!!!

I got everything ready the night before.  Not usually so organised!!

We did a variety of warmup exercises.  We also made paper collages

and fabric ones.

We had each been asked to choose a word or a phrase to work with.  I chose 'dancing in fetters'.

I wrote dancing with a wide chisel nibbed marker on fabric.  I put mistyfuse on the back of the fabric and then cut it up into 3cm squares. I bonded these randomly on the fabric collage.

I wrote dancing on a piece of tissue and stitched it with straight stitch, using black embroidery thread.

I haven't shown you all the things we did as teaching is how Julia earns her living.  If you're interested in finding out more go to Julia's website.

I'll tell you about day 2 in my next post.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice.

Summer School 3

I mentioned in my last Summer School post that I had chosen to make a not-a-book.

So what is a not-a-book?

Well, it's when you put fabric together which could be folded up and made into a book but isn't folded into a book!

I'm not sure that is any clearer.

I cut up bits of my fabric in different sizes and machined them together. 

I put bits of fabric onto Mistyfuse to use as collage bits.

I put lots of pleats into the strip of fabrics.  I used the preset stitches on my machine.

I've attached the fabric strip a piece of  Pelmet Vileneand machined it some more.

This is finished for now.  I may come back to it when I've finished other pieces and add some hand stitching.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

And another one's done!

Here's a final update on the cream and neutrals silk noil book.  Last time I left you with the images of the pages being stitched.

All the pages are now done.

I put Mistyfuse on the back and then ironed the pages together to make the little book.

Thanks for joining me today

Bernice

Choice made

Back with the fabric books!

So which one did I choose to work on first?  (see Choices Choices)

This one: the cream silk noil concertina book.  When folded up the book is 8x9.5cms.

Using the bits and pieces I showed you in the Choices post I made little collages on each page.  I used Mistyfuse to bond the pieces to the fabric.

Now they are ready to stitch.

I've used cross stitch, seed stitch, running stitch and fly stitch.

3 pages down.  13 to go!

Thanks for joining  me today
Bernice

Beaded

I'm still working on my silk noil book.  I've added beads to some of the collages.

I took these photos with my new iphone and the colours are much more accurate than with my camera.

Next job is to sew pairs of 'pages' together back-to-back to form double-sided 'pages'.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

More silk pages

After my last post I continued to set up the fabric collages on the silk noil 'pages'.

I started stitching the collages using threads supplied in the Inspiration Pack. I've used extended fly stitch, running stitch, whipped running stitch, seed stitch and cross stitch.

I'm showing you the pages laid out but when I assemble the book these will be folded in half.

I'm not keen on the collages on the right of the next two pages.  I think it's because I like things to be quite geometric - as in square or rectangular - whilst these two have curves.

I like these next two.

All of these are still works in progress.  I may put more stitches.  Possibly beads.  Or maybe some text.

I think I'll work on all the remaining pages first and then see what is needed before assembling the book.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Silk book

I bought an Inspiration Pack from Clare Bullock. You know that I have more than enough fabric but I couldn't resist.  I want to use the contents to make a fabric book.

I decided I would use some silk noil that I had for the 'pages'.  I tore it up into 21x10cm pieces.  I used the fabrics from the pack to put together little collages.

Then I realised the silk noil was too thin and needed backing.  I ironed a Vilene interfacing on which I had found in the cupboard.  It's a stabiliser more than a stiffener.  To iron the interfacing I had to remove all the little collages.

Looking at the fabrics I decided it was lacking in texture, and whilst I can add texture through stitch, I thought I would have a rummage through my bits box.

I had tried using little bits of Mistyfuse to bond the collage pieces.  Although it worked it made things a bit flat so I was going to pin everything.  However in the end I used a glue stick!  These collages are not necessarily how they were before I took them off the silk noil.

These pages will fold in half so the finished size of the book will be approximately 10cms square

I plan to stitch on top of thes collages and add other bits of fabric and ephemera as I go along.

So far I've only put together half ot the 'pages'.  I like to have thinking time away from my work.  I shall go back to these and check they are what I want before working on the next 5 pages.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice