A Busy Half Term

This is a small piece that I made today, black cotton with cream totem shapes overlaid with natural cheesecloth. I free machine stitched the patterns onto the totems, outlined them by zig zagging some black wool around the edges, and then hand stitched onto the cheesecloth. I've mounteed this onto a small canvas.

Above are two images of another piece I have been working on for most of the week. The top image shows the whole, underneath is a section in close-up. I started by rolling on sweeps of royal blue print paste, inspired by a photo I took of some blue rolled up hose pipe. I drew in blue lines between the curved sweeps, and when the dye was dry, I scraped over the whole surface with some diluted brown dye paste.

After the fabric had been cured and washed, I had to decide how to continue with the surface decoration. I backed it with some loosely woven linen, and started by outlining the broad blue sweeping curves. I used the same technique described above, outlining by couching down blue knitting wool with a zig zag stitch in a heavy blue quilting thread. I then filled in all the spaces with a variety of free motion machine stitching in various blue and neutral shades of thread. It is quite dark, which is a shame, and in retrospect, I wish I had used a lighter coloured thread for all the stitching.

My final three photos show the results of a very enjoyable day I shared with my KAIROS friends on Saturday. We decided to 'have a go', at some of the suggestions in Cas Holmes latest book, The Found Object in Textile Art, and we played with paper, cloth, threads and wall paper paste! Great fun, and now I'm looking forward to working on these samples further, maybe with some machine stitch, one of my favourite techniques!!

Some stitch has now been added, results above with a section in close-up. I decided to stitch leaf shapes, as the colours in the piece were autumnal. This is really experimental, but I enjoyed using cloth and paper together, so will have to take this technique further.

Funky fun, bird and egg table mats.

Funky, bird table mats and coasters! I made three thermofax screens from my sketches, and printed with a discharge paste onto some black cotton sateen. I made each print, three of each bird, and six eggs into a quilt sandwich, and then free machine quilted with some cream thread. I've backed them with fabric gifted to me from New Zealand. They are fun, and will look good on the table, especially when the grandchildren are visiting! I also still have the screens, so I can print more funky birds and eggs.........maybe some curtains to match?........I think not, but they could be used for some fun cloth bags.

October JQ, The lost Button!

  

For the next four Journal Quilts a button, or buttons has to be incorporated somewhere. I decided to use a photograph that I took last year of a rusty drain cover as my inspiration. It was partially covered by gritty soil and bits of dried grass, so lots of texture for me to play around with! I used self dyed wadding for the base, and other self dyed fabrics. I trapped bits of snipped wool under a sheer, and then used hand and free motion machine stitch to complete the surface. There is a button, half hidden under some of the gritty soil, it obviously fell from someones cuff or shirt front!!

Nothing like colour to cheer the soul!

Nothing like a bit of colour to brighten up ones mood! I've also had my hair dyed a rather bright shade of auburn.....gorgeous. Because I've had a break from my textile art for the past six weeks while my daughter and grandson were visiting, I thought I'd cheer myself up by playing with all the scraps I had, no matter what the colour. This is the result....oh, and I've also added some dots and spots in white and dark grey paint.

This is the finished art quilt inspired by a moths wing that I showed a small part of a few weeks ago. Partly paper lamination, hand dyed fabric, and an old grey scarf, finished off with lots of free motion machine stitch.