Module 3 - Chapter 3

First I went through my stash  of thread to see what I had, and was surprised at how much I had.

Firstly the pinks - weaving yarns, knitting yarns, ribbons, ricrac braid, soft cotton, coton a broder, pearl cotton, rayons,  rayon machine embroidery threads, some hand dyed threads.

And then the greens - pretty much the same mix, but also some natural and synthetic raffia, and some very old cotton candlewick thread (the blue green in the top right of the picture, which I shall try overdyeing).

I couldn't resist putting them all together in a basket, and I added some green machine embroidery thread, which I realised I'd forgotten to add to the green threads.

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Since taking the photographs, I've found a pack of mixed threads, which I think I must have bought at Ally Pally last year - they are the perfect colour. I've also found some torn selvedges which I have added in to the pile.

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Apart from popping some threads and some torn selvedges into the dye when I am dyeing fabric, I think I have sufficient here for the rest of the module. However, I am off to the Festival of Quilts in a few days, and I shall probably bring back something to add!

Then I turned my attention to fabrics, and discovered all sorts of things I had forgotten I had. Included in the piles are some of my own hand dyed cottons, chiffon scarves, some wonderful shot tafetta linings which I bought in a closing down sale for next to nothing, organza, net, silk dupion, and some bits and pieces that I have no idea what they are!

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I need to inject a bit more brightness into the green range, and a bit more variety into the pinks.

So next I sorted out fabrics and threads ready for dyeing. I shall be using Procion MX dyes, but I have only ever used them on cotton, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Here are, in the left pile from top to bottom - silk noil, silk dupion, silk/cotton, silk organza and silk habotai. In the right pile from top to bottom - Empress Mills PFD cotton, Whaleys PFD cotton, cotton organza, muslin, polyester dress lining.

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Now threads. Along the top from left to right - bias strips of curtain voile,  selvedge strips of curtain voile, 4 different weights of cotton thread.  At the bottom are a variety of textured yarns which I found lurking in the bottom of my "natural" box of threads, and I have no idea what they are, so it will be very interesting to see what happens when I dye them.

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And finally, a couple of things for overdyeing. The top fabric looks like a piece of Laura Ashley curtain material, and I have no idea how it ended up in my stash. The bottom fabric is from first attempt at dyeing with indigo using scraps of curtain lining. The thread is the very old cotton candlewick thread which is lovely and thick, so I hope it takes the dye well.

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The Dyeing and the results:

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This batch of pinks are, in the left hand column, muslin dyed in three different colours. The middle one has been pressed, the other two haven't. In the right hand column, from top to bottom -

•  cotton fabric, fold and rolled, then one end dipped in magenta and the other in yellow. It's made a lovely stripy fabric.
• the next three are all cotton.
• silk organza
• cotton otganza
• another piece of cotton
• the polyester lining

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The green fabrics in the left hand column are -

• the top three are all cotton
• silk noil
• silk cotton
• silk habotai
• the polyester lining

In the right hand column are the pieces that I over dyed.

I also made a couple of simple shibori pieces. They haven't worked too well - I suspect they were in the dye too long - but they will make a nice background for samples in Chapter 4.

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And finally, the threads that I dyed. Reasonably pleased with these, they have all taken the dye to some extent or other, and I'm particularly pleased with the candlewick cotton, which I overdyed with yellow.

Monoprinting on fabric

I used acrylic paint in the same colours as I used with the monoprinting on paper, and I didn't add any fabric medium.  I used the 10" x 8" gelli plate.

I used 4 different types / colours of fabrics - the first four are on the shot taffeta, the next one on a piece of dyed cotton, and the rest on undyed cotton. The last one is made up of all the shadow prints. Some of these have worked beautifully, others less so. I don't think the photographs do them justice.

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Module 3 - the rest of Chapter 2

I wasn't happy with the monoprints in my last post but one, so I have had another go, and I am really delighted with this lot!

I made them using the 10" x 8" gelli plate - it was the first time I had used it, and I really enjoyed it. I used Liquitex acrylic paint in 6 colours - green gold, vivid lime green, brilliant yellow green, medium magenta, light portrait pink, and iridescent rich copper. I also used iridescent antique gold once, but didn't like it, so didn't use it again.

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This last print is made using about 7 or 8 ghost prints overlaid.

Finally in this chapter, are some computer generated images. First, I scanned in two of my images from earlier in the chapter, opened them using Paint Shop Pro X, and then used Effects - Distortion Effects - Twirl.   With the second image I used it repeatedly.

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And finally, some drawings generated using Scribbler - how much fun is that! I produced lots of drawings very quickly, but have selected the "stitchy" ones.

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Module 3 Chapter 2 - some reworking

I wasn't very happy with some of the work in my last post but one. It was OK as far as it went, but I was being far too literal, a problem which I tend to suffer from.

Sian gave me lots of ideas for pushing things further and freeing things up a bit, and this first batch of drawings were made before Summer School. They are all on A2 cartridge paper, and 2 colours of ink. The first few were made with a 1" brush. I had in mind the scrappy little drawing of steam billowing out of a chimney which was in my last but one post. The added lines are oil pastel and felt tip pen.

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It struck me that if I used a bigger brush then I would have spiral staircases. I found a tatty old 5" brush in the garage, and it made lovely marks. I added the linear marks using the edge of a piece of card.

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Sian saw these at Summer School and encouraged me to continue, so I have.

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One of the things that Sian suggested was to draw some lines on the back of one of my black and white drawings from the last but one post. The idea is to cut on the lines and mount the cut shapes on to black paper to introduce thin black lines into the design. She put some work with bicycle wheels she had been doing using this technique on to her blog for me to see.

For this first one, I simple drew some  simple radiating lines on the back of the drawing, cut it up and laid it onto black paper. This is the actual A2 drawing.

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For the next sheet, I printed out the original drawing onto A4 paper and tried various different cuts. The results are stuck  onto an A1 sheet of black paper.

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I then isolated and cropped them.

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I think these are interesting, but I don't particularly like them. 

Then I had great fun making a series of patterns using spirals torn from some of my painted papers. None of these are stuck down, so it was very quick to make a series of patterns. Looking at these, the spirals are quite "rectangular" rather than "round".

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