Free Motion Stitching

31st January 2014

Yesterday did Pilates and I certainly know which muscles I used!!

Then had a play session with my friend experimenting with Transfer Paints. I took my samples to show and after a delicious bowl of home made soup we began. Unfortunately I had forgotten to take my camera so cannot show any of Jo's work.

Some of mine...

...this was a red+ drop of black background over printed with blue+black painted bubble wrap..

...not what I wanted as the 'bubble' pattern can't be seen but it will make a background for overprinting.

Not sure how I will use this, maybe a landscape with trees , sheep and flowers!!!

I borrowed Jo's lovely tree stencil and sponged the paint but of course forgot the rubber gloves so now have the most disgusting looking finger nails!!!

Transferred onto a muslin type fabric....

....laid paper over the sponged template to get this image and transferred onto a background that looks like sunset...

.....decided to see if I could stitch to improve....

...I am really pleased with this and have called it

Silver Birch at Sunset.

I outlined the trees with straight stitch then filled in with various widths of zigzag using a pale variegated thread with black in the bobbin which gives a little shaded detail.

Stitched Transfer Paint Samples and Book Sculpture

29th January 2014

I have had a brilliant day!

I had a couple of hours stitching three of my samples....

..using my 3mm twin needle with straight then feather stitch...

...fabric on a double layer of wadding.

I free machined around the lines of the tree in black...

...then used variegated threads to stitch the background, straight lines at the top and random zigzag on the lower part..

....next time I think I will stitch the background before I print.

This was stitched with a fine wadding backing.

Tried lots of threads, the plain are silk, with my twin needle...

..I might block print a design on this but not sure what!!!

This afternoon I attended the last Arts Council funded workshop.

Claire Bates travelled from Liverpool to show us how to sculpture books.

You simply start with a book, any size and fold the pages in a variety of ways to make a sculpture....

..I started...

and folded and folded while chatting away to the other ladies in the group...

...my first book sculpture!

Samples from others...

...just needs a black nose and 2 eyes and you have a hedgehog!!

The front is sloping -not obvious in my photo.

Love this shape...

..tree sculpture...

..if the back of the book is removed the tree will be a circle... 

...still a few more pages to fold.

Linzi was being very clever and this will eventually have a heart shape when the book is closed, quite tricky and time consuming!

Another lady made a sample book of different folds....

....last but not least Garth made his own star design which I really like...

..as you can see he had a very thick book and still has lots more pages to fold!!

These books were going to be thrown away so it was great to recycle in this artistic way as well as being very relaxing!!

Similar folding can also be done with magazines and catalogues.

Pilates and more playing with Transfer Paints tomorrow!

Monoprinting ( Free Class ) and more experimenting with Transfer Paints!!!

27th January 2014

Linzi from Squirrel and Tiffin showed us how to monoprint...

..we had a piece of glass which had ink rolled over it...

..a sheet of paper was placed on this and a design drawn on the paper..

..the paper is peeled off the ink and.....

..my hand pressed firmly on the paper.

It was really hard to mirror write! 

Samples from the group

A great couple of hours doodling and experimenting. Thank you Linzi!

I am going to a Book Sculpture work shop on Wednesday as there was a cancellation and sadly that is the last until the summer.

Just noticed I have reached 8000 page views on my blog!! 

I am thrilled.

Yesterday I played and experimented with the T. Paints adding a drop of black to subdue the colours.

I painted about 10 sheets in a variety of ways...

...red and violet cut and woven..

..red and vivid blue...

...I made sure I ironed each piece for at least 2 minutes....

..but must have ironed more on one side!!

Next I shaded....

...then printed again on the top...

Think I will stitch around the tree.

Same method...

...wooden block sponged with T.P...

...tried dried grass on the fabric as a resist....

....ironed on blue with a drop of black....

..rather like this effect! Might try with a feather next time.

Last sample but not sure what I am going to do with this but I love the colours....

....I am definitely learning and now enjoying the process and it is quite exciting ( I find myself holding my breath) when I peel back the paper!!

I have used polyester muslin and a man made 'linen' textured fabric.

One point to mention is that I needed to use new baking parchment each time as some of the paints transferred to it and then onto my ironing board!!!

Daffodil Card

26th January 2014

I have a friend who LOVES daffodils so thought I would make her a machine embroidered card for her birthday next month.

I used my transfer paint daffodil...

....and had a great time stitching...

...put it into an aperture card.

These are the threads I used, two variegated and three lovely silk!

Tomorrow I am on a free Monoprint course with Linzi!