Cut up and put back together

Remember all those bits of fabric from my last post Monochrome Mark Making?    Well I cut them up into rectangles and squares and machined them together.  Then I added some plain strips to edge them and join them to the next line of joined together fabric.

I cut this strip into 3 and turned the middle stripe upside down and rejoined the strips.

Here are all the strips sewn together.

And a closeup of it.  As you can see there aren't many straight seams!

And now to decide what to do with it.  It doesn't lend itself to being a book and I'm not keen on making it into a cushion (pillow for US readers!).

Anyone any ideas?

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Monochrome Mark Making

I have booked quite a few workshops at Littleheath Barn Studio over the summer.  These are on top of the Art Cloth course and the studio days I attend.   The most recent workshop was Monochrome Mark Making.

We started by doodling on a page in our sketchbook.

We were supplied with a wooden block each and bits and pieces to stick on to make printing blocks.

Also a piece of polystyrene.  I used mine to copy the patterns from the original doodling.

Liske supplied a choice of blue or white fabric or calico.  I used the blue fabric and calico and printed with copper fabric paint.

We used Formosul to remove colour from black fabric.

Then we were allowed to choose one other colour  I added some darker blue to the teal to get the turquoise with the block printing.  Then I used a Thermofax Screen that Liske had designed but used the teal paint direct from the bottle.

I used the screen again with the copper fabric paint.  I didn't wash the screen between the teal and the copper so got some interesting shades.

The question now is what to do with all these samples.  I expect it will involve cutting them up and stitching them back together.

Watch this space.

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