Summer School

After an uncomfortable two days of extreme heat for the UK, I spent two cool days (in both senses of the word) at Littleheath Barn with Liske's 'Art Cloth: Maps and More'.

We spent the two days trying out various techniques with a limited palette to produce some fabrics that sit well together.  My colours were basically rust, slate grey and a little charcoal dye.  The aim was to produce fabrics that were dark, medium or light.

Sadly the photographs don't really show the true colours of the fabrics.

For this fabric I put some white acrylic paint through a bought stencil.  I put narrow masking tape on a screen and printed through it.

right side

reverse

Liske had demonstrated how to make a breakdown screen which I used.  It didn't breakdown as much as I thought it would.

right side

reverse

This is muslin which I wrote on with dye.  I scraped dye over the one end and used a thermofax screen on the right.  I cut it into two pieces.  The top part shows the results of using flour paste as a crackle which I put rust dye over.  I scraped pale rust over the the bottom piece.

I used soy wax and drew lines over my screen and scraped dye through the screen.

right side

reverse

I made a screen by spreading a thin layer of flour paste on it.  On one half I put a bought stencil.  On the other half I scraped lines and shapes when the paste was dry.  I also used the stencil to fill in the gaps so I have positive and negatives of the design.

right side

reverse

I scraped dye over this piece of muslin so I have some matching plain fabric.

At the end of the day I had a fabulous piece of dropcloth.  I had started the two days with a new clean cloth.  I cut this piece from the dropcloth and sprayed a soda ash solution over it to fix the dye. It's cotton drill which is heavier than the calico and muslin I had used so it will possibly become a background.

We're back next week for another two days of composition, planning and making using the fabrics. Although we may start with adding more layers of design using fabric paints.

I've no idea what I shall do with all these fabrics.

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

A Companion Piece

Last month I told you about a new hanging I am making using fabrics I printed and dyed on the Text, Texture, Tile workshop.

With the fabric I had left over, I cut strips and randomly sewed them together.

I cut the assembled pieces into narrower pieces and laid them out.

Instead of having all the pieces running vertically as in the previous hanging, I tried putting some horizontally.

I tried the pieces in different places and then bgan to sew the strips together.

The bottom half of the hanging assembled, with added narrow blue strips.

I carried on assembling the pieces together.  I really like this with it's strange edges but I think it will probably need to squared off.

I cropped the photograph to see what it would look like.

I have bonded the uncropped version onto acrylic felt and a backing fabric ready to sew.  I'll share the sewing expereince in another post.

See you soon.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Adding layers

Last Autumn when Liske was able to run workshops we started on Text, Texture, Textile.  These are some of the fabrics I dyed and printed at that time

Last week we were at last able to go back to the studio.  I hadn't really taken to the fabrics I had printed which is why I hadn't done anything with them.  So last week, I added more layers of text and shapes using thickened dye through stencils and thermofax screens.

I'm still not totally in love with them.  But I suspect they'll be fine cut up into smaller pieces.  Or I could put another layer on using fabric paints.

I've also wondered about over-dyeing them all with one colour.

Watch this space!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Using your zine

In my last post I showed you how to make a zine of zine with a woven spine.  Here are some photos of what I have done with it.

I used printed paper stickers

And transparent stickers

I've left empty pages for sticking pictures in or doing some journaling.

I stamped with waterproof ink.

If your sticker is too wide for the page then put it up the other way!

This isn't finished.  It will be an ongoing project.  I might give it to a friend.  Who knows!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice