Following The Plan...

seems, on the surface at least, a reasonable thing to do.  So I did.  I made green and brown transfer dye papers, because I needed to for a project.   I needed two or three.  I ended up with nearer twenty.  Oops.

All of them were supposed to look like  this;

I'm going to make some leaves... the blue isn't really blue, honest.  Or I hope it isn't.  In fairness, about half a dozen of the papers do look like this; one has some red added, another, yellow, just for fun.  Mostly, though, they're brown and green.

And because I wanted to use up the leftover dye, the small amount that was left in the bottom of the tubs I was using, after I had put the excess into sealed containers for next time, I thought I'd do some mark making. And ended up with lots more papers than I had intended, and had to take some dye back out of the sealed containers... well, you know how it is... when you're on a roll, you're on a roll...

This is what I ended up with.. at least, a sample of it.

I really enjoy working with transfer dyes, though admittedly don't enjoy the heat transfer bit, but we can't have it all...  It'll be interesting to see how these look with added stitch... Evolon here I come...

I'm glad I didn't follow the plan.  Amongst other things, it reminded me that I don't like to be too tidy, too calculated; another reason to go upstairs and sort out Even More Fabric to get rid of.  If you are on Facebook, and want to join my stash busting group, click here .  I'll be starting with FQs of commercial fabric, and progressing through the hand dyes, and then, I think, will probably add some small pieces of work.  Mwhah.

Not Just A Picture Of A Cat...

honest, it isn't, though if Mollie could talk, she would be saying that it may be batting to me, but to her it's a remarkably soft and fluffy bed...sigh.  But, cute as she is, she isn't the reason for the image. That honour goes to the unfinished red piece that is lying in front of her.  It is one of the 'Linescapes' pieces, and, as you can see, it is far from finished.  What's interesting about the cloth, is that it has printed marks dyed onto it.  

One of the things you learn, when you are dyeing, is that transfer/disperse dyes only work on polyester.  Nope, sorry, that's just not true; the red of the cloth in this piece has been dyed using Procion MX, as you might expect, but the printed squares have been dyed using transfer dyes.

So, why did I do it?  Well, it comes down to the effect I was trying to achieve.  I wanted marks that were noticeable, but not overly strong, a sort of faded look.  I could have fiddled around with thickened procions, but I would have had to have worked quite hard to get the sort of effect that the transfer dyes have produced here.  There are marks, but they are pale and fairly random, just the effect I wanted.  

The paler strip down one side is painted Bondaweb; you can just see some of the marks on here, though in fact the cloth is covered fairly well with these little square marks, some of which are very pale indeed.

Rules by themselves, like the rule that says, only use transfer dyes on polyester, are useful things... providing you know WHY they are rules (in this case, because the results are not anything like as good as they would have been on polyester cloth).  Nine times out of ten, I will observe that 'rule'; but every time I want something indistinct and interesting, I will break it.  At the end of the day, it comes down to knowing your materials, and using the right material for the right job.  

Lino Cuts...

are such versatile things... especially if you make them on Evolon.  I made a cutting of a fern frond; this is it with stitch;

The fabric was, of course, white; the print was made with fabric printing ink, and the purple in the background is made entirely of stitch.  But I wanted to ring the changes... so I made this one;

Dark Fern has a layer of Lutradur 30 on top of it, immediately changing the colour of the entire background.  Stitch is a variegated metallic stitch, simply outlining the fern frond.

Finally, there is this one;

This is Autumn Fern.  The piece has been transfer dyed in layers, and then hand stitched.

Just for a change, I used stem stitch for the central vein of the leaf.  It's interesting to see what a strong contrast it makes with the long stitches delineating the edges of the leaf, and the small stitches creating the background.  On reflection, I think a back stitch might have been better for the delineation task...but it's fine as it is, I think.

All three pieces have been stitched on cotton wadding.  I think, myself, they're closer to embroideries than to quilts, but technically, I suppose they qualify...what do you think?

The One .err...Two...That Got Away...

No, I haven't been fishing.  Heaven forfend.  But I have been transfer dyeing lutradur to turn it into samples for my workshops and stand at Festival Of Quilts.  Yes, it's a bit late in the day, but as you know, I've been battling demons for the past two years.  The good news seems to be that I've turned a corner, and feel well for the first time in a long time.  So, I'm applying myself with gusto, to make sure that I'm really well prepared to teach and demonstrate.  It's the first time I've done this under my own steam, having demonstrated for Colourcraft in the past.  It's scary, and a big risk.  This kind of thing is Very Expensive, and I haven't been making much in the way of money recently; illness will do that to one, especially a self employed one.  But I'll be bringing books, kits and myself, to show you what I'm up to, and hopefully encourage you to try some of it for yourself.

Anyway.... yesterday, I painted a lot of papers.  Some of them are monoprints, like the red heart shape, others are painted pretty much at random, mostly intended for colouring lutradur for beads.  So far so good, huh?   The monoprints are fine.  It was when I looked at the results of the random painting, that the trouble started.  I liked them.  They were interesting.  This is the first one;

And what I saw, was a landscape.  Rats.  Fortunately, I was able to cut off one of the prints (I got four, which I merged into each other to make a long piece of cloth).  Well, okay, it was really two of the prints, because I saw a landscape with a tree in it.  So far so good, huh?  The second piece of cloth, I thought, was much simpler.  I saw a sunset, in an individual print, so I cut it off, thinking that I now had lots of multicolour cloth to cut up for beads...good, right?  So I squared up to it on the cutting mat and.... couldn't...  

Now those of you who have met me in person will know that one of my mantras is, cut it, there will be a better bit along in a minute....   But I really can't bring myself to cut this up...so I'll have to see what it suggests.  I usually have Much More Willpower Than This when it comes to cloth.  Clearly I'm Going Soft.  Telling myself I can hang it in my booth, doesn't really help, either....  Ah well. These things happen.  Sometimes.  Cough.  Oh well, back to the beads...

ps in case you're wondering what I'm teaching, it involves pretty postcards, lutradur beads, monoprinting and a wee bit of appliqué (or cloth) design...  hope I'll get to meet some of you in Birmingham this year.

  

More KISSes...

I did some printing a couple of weeks ago, trying out some new blocks; I wrote about it here.  I liked this simple leaf block, and it printed fairly well.  I'd intended the motif for using individually, on little cards, but thought it might be interesting printed on fabric, too.  So I tried it on a postcard sized piece of lutradur, as you can see here;

I began printing using red fabric paint (from Colourcraft, for those of you who like to know these things...), making the two strong leaf shapes to either side of the lutradur.  Boring, I thought.  So, without removing the remains of the red fabric paint from the block, I added some blue, and overprinted.  That, I thought, was more like it.  But I still didn't like the contrast of the white against the red and lilac/blue.  So... I decided to transfer dye it, using some yellow that I had lying around... and here's the result.

I'm really rather pleased with that; it's a lot warmer.  I can't decide whether the leaf shapes really are leaves, or whether they are massed shields... either way, they're ready for stitch.  Just have to decide what to put beneath it; lutradur being semi transparent, different colours behind will have differing effects on the piece.  Ah, decisions, decisions...

Above all, it's amazing to me what can be done with a simple block and an enquiring mind!

Workshop Fun

...and transfer dyeing is great fun, especially when there's a group. This was last week's workshop in full swing, working with transfer dyes and lutradur. A good deal of hilarity masked the fact that everyone was actually working pretty hard. We discovered lots about transfer dyes, and about lutradur, too, which, considering I was squashing elements of two different one day workshops into one two hour session, was possibly not surprising. As you can see, the dog was the only one who was completely disinterested in the whole affair; Lucky is a sweetie, but she doesn't do art....she does, however, enjoy the biscuits at coffee time.

It's interesting to run workshops in a gallery space; when you are looking for examples of good design, or a particular approach to work, there is always something to refer to on the walls. Or you can use them as inspiration, as you can see from one of the images here, which is a drawing of one of my totem dolls on a piece of lutradur. I thought, myself, it looked like Tina Turner in full flow... And if you want to refresh your memory about transfer dyeing, there's a post about it here

We're focussing on words this month... last night, we worked with found text, next week, we're making little translucent paper bowls with individual words trapped within them. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out!

Happy Days...

e
are here again. Not only is it Spring, it's warm enough to work out of doors, just in time for the first workshop in The Little Green Shed. We were working with Lovely Lutradur, and you can see the feverish activity within and outwith the shed. Judging by the laughter quotient, everyone had great fun. And we worked hard; transfer dyeing, learning about using transparency, even a little side trip into using Angelina fibres. Everyone went away with several pieces of lutradur, all ready to stitch into. I did provide chairs, but nobody actually sat in them, and lunch was terminated rapidly when someone said 'But I want to get back into the shed...' in a plaintive voice. Mind you, the bowl with the chocolate in it did go out into the shed with us... no surprises there! What's a workshop without chocolate, after all! If you're interested in a tailor made workshop for four people, I'll be putting up a post on The Other Blog in the next day or so.

Meanwhile, today was the day I finished 'Finding Your Creative Focus'...hurrah! That is, until my editor is done with it; there will doubtless be a revision or two... but that leaves me free to focus on Exquisite Evolon. Hurrah for that too!