Catch up time

Last summer, just after the bandages were taken off my hand, I spent a glorious 5 days at Committed to Cloth.  The retreat was called Breakdown Printing with Colour Studies.  I went with the intention fo getting as much out of it as I could even if all I did was watch and listen.  I wasn't sure my hand would be up to doing any of the actual work.  But I did.

I have at last spent some time cutting up the colour families I made and putting them into a sketchbook.  I haven't been able to grip the rotary cutter firmly enough to cut up the fabrics into little squares.  But now, here they are.

Leslie dyed a colour family in the washing machine to show us how it is done.  It  produces an all-over dyed  smooth finish (above) whilst the ones I did produce a variety of textures based on the unironed fabric.    Dark Brown - Turquoise

Lighter versions

 Dark Brown/Royal blue - Turquoise/Royal Blue

Various experments

Then a change of colour

I managed to do all the breakdown printing whilst I was there.  All 8 metres of it.   I used the various colour families I mixed on the breakdown screens.

I ended up with some lovely fabrics although I still have no idea what I'm going to do with them.

If screen printing or breakdown printing interests you, there are 2 books I can recommend.
Screen Printing by Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan
Breakdown Your Palette by Leah Higgins


Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Felting Workshop with Caroline Merrell

Recently Cath & Deb from Traverse and I went on a felting weekend workshop taught by Caroline Merrell.  We had a fabulous time learning all sorts of 3D and sculpting techniques.

On the Saturday we started by making one piece with different types of samples on it - a ball cut in half, braids, and a tube.

Laying out the various samples

By the end of the day I had one rather large piece of felt with various bits added to it.  On Sunday morning I cut it into two pieces: a third and two thirds.  This is the two thirds!

 The craters cut into the felt around the tails.

Further cuts into the felt revealing the felt layers below

I started a second piece.  This is the first layer with bubblewrap resists.


Another layer of felt and more bubblewrap resists.

This was covered with more felt and a top layer of brown which I hoped would make a contrast with the layers underneath.  It didn't really work out how I hoped.

I started another piece with tails in the centre.   The brown felt reminds me of the old brown underfelt that people used under carpets.

I needlefelted some fibres onto the top of this piece.


The final piece I started was using a bubblewrap mask.


I had put a layer of  fibres over the bubblewrap and then I decided to cut rectangles out of a piece of prefelt and put the on the top with a piece of fabric trapped in between.


Then I cut into the felt where the holes in the mask had been.


None of these pieces are finished.  They all need stitching at the very least.   I will write another post about what I have done or will be doing with the felt pieces at a later date.   At least one piece needs to be finished in time for Traverse's exhibition in April.

Just to whet your appetite - here's what I did with Saturday's sample piece on the Monday after the felting weekend.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

E is for Envision

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.

As you know from my previous post I did these pages before the D pages.  I stuck down the Teresa Collins folder on the D page so that it folded onto the E pages.

I had gone through some magazines and picked out images and words that attracted me.

The folder opened out with the white printed quote already on it.  Interestingly at church on the morning I did these pages a friend prayed for me and spoke about a changed perception.

I found the the coloured-in image in my stash.  It's one of Valerie's designs from her book: Colorful Blessings.  

I looked at the things I had decided to commit to in my first Word of the Year blogpost and printed out some photos.  On the page above there's a piece of finished textile work to go with my commitment to finish work.

I printed out a photo of a walk and a photo of me when I was slim. Or at least slimmer than I am now and somewhere I would like to get back to.  I was listening to Terry Savelle Foy talking about keeping the vision before you - an actual picture rather than just inside our head - so printed this out.  I put a photo of someone with their Bible and praying.  I also put a photo of my right hand as a reminder of what it looked like before I broke my fingers and the word 'believe' to confirm my belief that my hand will be whole again.

Here are the pages together in my journal.

Thank you for joining me today.
Bernice

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year

Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.

 Living Your Word of the Year 2019

Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

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