Fun at the West of England Quilt and Textiles Show 2017!

I just had the most brilliant three days at the  West of England Quilt and Textiles Show sharing a stand with my dear friend, the talented quilter, Sallieann Harrison of Christmas Goose Stitches.

Sallie was on the walls, and I was on the table  :) with my embroidered and mixed media books!

We both had a fantastic time, and for me it was sheer joy to able to talk about books and nature and stitching and mixed media to lovely, like minded people!  These are some of the books I took along:

The cover of  'Briarside Lane' a current WIP which is based around The Raspberry Rabbits project of the same name....

  'A  Little Book of Stamps'  

The pages are simply painted, and enhanced with a variety of handmade stamps and simple stitch.

'Tiny Garden'  - meander book, came about from a sample class I created, making simple garden flowers from only three stitches. |A little book seemed the perfect format to  keep them in!

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Whatever the size, or the mediums used, the one thing my books  have in common is hand stitch, and my favourite threads from Valdani  of course!

I'm very excited to be offering Saturday workshops this autumn, sharing some of the techniques I have developed! Details of these are on the Classes and Workshops tab, and I'll be talking about them more here soon.

So finally here we are setting up on Day 1, with a backdrop of Sallie's amazing Tumbler Quilt, which attracted a lot of attention! You can see more of Sallie's lovely work and find out about classes she offers on her website.

We were also proud to be representing The Raspberry Rabbits in the UK, with Michelle's original stunning quilt The Adventures of Harrington and Hannah, all the way from North Carolina, on display!  

Poppy Seedhead Writing folder

This is the second sample for my winter mixed media workshop, and it's very different from my usual approach. I had fun with this one!

 I wanted a particular effect,  which I could see in my head!  I drew a poppy head stamp and used Koh-I -Nor paints to stamp on the fabric. When dry I sponged and splattered the background so it would partly merge and cover the images. Then I took back some of the coloured areas with bleach. I free machined around the poppies and finished  the image using  a little hand embroidery. It was fused onto some hand dyed silk and a piece of vintage lace added for some texture/overlay.

Inside I used some of my naturally dyed cotton to line the case. An unbound strip of silk with more vintage lace holds the hand made notelets in place. They are made from recycling wallpaper lining paper, which has been painted and stamped with another poppy head image.

Finally there's a simple tie with painted wooden beads to finish it off!

Mini Art Quilt - Winter Melody

Last week I finished my samples for my mixed media workshop and they are now waiting to go on display. This is the first one, a simply structured mini art quilt  with a winter theme.  Loving seedheads as I do this was a great chance to use some of my favourite images.

I  made some simple stamps, then used a variety of of fabrics to show the effects  of the paint on different weights/types. I made pearlised paints to give a sparkle of frost and ice.

 

After preparing the fabrics and stamping them I set out the images in a collage, and then fused them to wool felt.

They were then re sectioned, simply embellished, using  a variety of  threads/ stitches and some beading, and  hand stitched together with a variegated pearl cotton.

Some are overprinted on already patterned fabrics -

some onto heavier weight linen, and  fine, hand dyed silk.

As the workshop is about approaching mixed media without the need to use lots of products and expense, everything was found in my supply stash and around the house. I do  feel that limiting yourself also extends your creativity. Having decided on my colour palette there were a few challenging moments -  which stretched me - but these were the things I liked best when I'd finished. What do you think - does anyone have any projects where constraints meant success?

Mixed Media wall hanging 'A bird sings'

 You may remember I teach a weekly hand embroidery class at our local patchwork shop. For the last few terms  this has become pretty wide ranging, and various ladies' projects have covered contemporary embroidery,  gold work, stump work and  - some colouring/painting fabric.  I've also met quite a few local quilters who said they'd like to do something a bit more arty, but just didn't know where to begin.

I'd made something completely different from my usual creations this spring,  which was inspired by the phrase, 'A bird sings because it has a song'.  So I showed it to Jayne (shop owner) and suggested we do an introduction/taster day for mixed media work, (I promised we won't cover the workroom in paint!) and she agreed.

The concept for this was a reflection of new life and change.
 I made a stamp for the nests, and created three different images on calico.  Each nest has some hand embroidery, ranging from heavily couched with textured threads, to a minimal - one egg only. Each  background  was painted with  Koh-i -Noor dyes.
The eggs were stencilled on to painted fabric. I then fused all the pieces onto a layered structure of cotton fabrics;  the old  duck egg blue fabric blended really well with the palette I'd chosen. The next stage was to add random stitching in variegated threads, and the text was printed out, torn, stained and treated with acrylic wax,  as were the bits of 'egg shell'.

It was finished off with lichen covered twigs and natural objects I'd gathered, including a feather our obliging garden woodpecker dropped. The piece is hung on a piece of driftwood from a Portishead beach.

 I'm really excited about this workshop, as it's something I've wanted to do for ages. I'm working up  a winter themed piece because it will be held in December.

So 'this week I have been mostly':
Making stamps with household items, and stamping fabric! Here are a couple of  the prints so far, which I quite like. I printed the snowflakes on the hottest day of the year!

My plan is a create a fun, simple approach anyone can do, and create some different effects on fabric - without buying lots of expensive products, and using techniques which can be applied equally to fabric or paper.

Now I just have to get on with it!x

Printing, Dyeing, Stamp making and Embroidery - phew!

At last! Here are a few of the new techniques I tried out on my Hawkwood Workshop with Frances Pickering. I'm sure they'll be familiar to many of you,  but as I usually try to use only natural products,  I have to admit they were pretty exciting, and felt rather naughty to me! On reflection , I think  the benefits from being able to use recycled synthetic fabrics as well as natural ones gives me a whole new world to play with, if I  use the new things in moderation.

I must be honest - I started to put my book together during the weekend, but it it wasn't going as planned, so I took it apart. Starting again, armed with my new techniques.

I used heat transfer ink to paint this sunflower, and then applied it to synthetic fabric. The design has now also made quite a nice foam stamp. I'd attempted to use foam in the past, but couldn't get the level of detail I wanted. Frances' expert knowledge has now set me on the right path! Stamp making is also highly addictive - I'm rationing myself.:)  We also used abaca tissue, which I'm so in love with for painting and stitching now. The sketch is ink on fabric with a little stitching added.

I've also been experimenting with natural dyeing, which I haven't done for a long time. This is Egyptian cotton dyed with turmeric and blackberries, amongst other things.

 And finally, tah da! Some embroidery. This is a bit of a different style for me, for two reasons, firstly 'cos  I want to incorporate it into my work, but in a new way,  and two, because I've got some beginner students who want to learn all the basic stitches. I felt I really should have some  stitch variety in my sample folder, so  I stitched these! I must give thanks to the wonderful Sharon Boggon of Pintangle and TAST for many of the stitches I've incorporated. Sadly I've never managed to keep up with TAST, but I do follow it, and always recommend my class to visit Pintangle for wonderful inspiration, eye candy and stitch tutorials.

 This one is buttonhole stitches,  just using a random  variety of threads -

And this is chain stitch variations -

This was really fun to do. I surprised myself. Now I'm going to put all my new knowledge together........ What will happen next?...........