Printing Play

I decided to have a bit of a play today - not the best of weather but not too cold for me to work outside. I had some Manutex to use up (and still have lots too). I used white fabric as my background to check how my prints were going. I did a couple of my linear woodcuts but found out the hard way that they absorb a lot of the dye and not much gets onto the fabric. This could still be good if I want to do a bit more of a softened effect rather than hard edge. The foam roller after it becomes quite saturated is difficult to work with and the hard rubber rollers don't take up the thickened dye. I have some small fluffy paint follers that are quite firm so they might work better next time. I just had a play with some stamps and the top of a stencil rather than waste the dye after doing some leaves.


I enjoy doing the stencils but by this time I was down to using a foam brush and I didn't find that as good. The flowers were on a foam roller that I inked up and ran the length of the fabric which gave me dark to light as it moved. The animal print stencils tend to start to smudge if I want to do an all over pattern and they are better as a tone on tone with the fabric. I like the leaf stencil and have used it before long long ago.


And then I went over to using some (very old) discharge paste. Sadly it didn't work well but look at what happened with a woodblock that I used. There must have been something dark on the wood that came out when I put the discharge paste on it and printed. The pattern is a little darker in reality and I was pleased when I was able to join it up ( it is a 1/4 block print). I like this as a background piece. Worth doing some more on my plainer dyed fabrics and see if they sell. If you peer closely at the bottom of the cloth you may make out some other patterning which was more discharge paste that didn't work - darn it. I will have to open a fresh bottle and try again.

It was frustrating when things weren't quite going right straight from the beginning. I might have another play in a day or so and improve upon my mistakes. I haven't been wanting to use fabric paints at this stage but rather just work with discharging and using thickened dyes.

Onwards and upwards - there is always more to learn. 

Experimental Works

I have been having a bit of a tidy in the quilt room and discovered these. There was a fun day at a not so local Embroidery Guild. It is amazing what can be done in an hour or so. There was lots of layering, sewing and burning going on. I did tend to be a bit enthusiastic with the heat gun and some of the pieces were a bit too firm to sew through afterwards (should I have wanted to do some embellishing or something). I am not sure where I would take any of this but it was certainly a lot of fun and something new.

 

Off Quilting

No photos today. I have had a quiet week with nothing to show.

I am off on Good Friday down to Dunedin and Southern Quilts, Southern Women. It should be a lot of fun with four days of classes, shopping, lectures, exhibitions and smoozing. I am taking lots and lots of fabric half of which is my dyed fabrics - yum it was lots of fun to select the ones that I was going to take.

My purple hair has caused a lot of reaction at work and I hope to have as much fun with it in Dunedin too. I have had some people absolutely speechless and others who can barely keep their hands off it. It is fun, lots of fun.

I will be taking lots of photos so there will be something for everyone to look forward to when I get back and start to put them up next Wednesday (Tuesday for those of you in North America).

Have fun while I am away, I certainly will be having lots of fun and a little bit of mischief added in for good measure.

Yesterday's dyeing, today's ironing

I had lots of fun yesterday and it was good to have it dry so quickly last night - how come the regular washing doesn't dry as quickly. I started to iron the fabric this morning - I like the old fashioned way that I grew up with and that is doing it on the table with a woollen blanket and an old sheet. Unfortunately I kept getting help as you can see - great warm spot to sit and still observe the birds outside. I haven't got all my fabric showing, just what has been ironed so far - it is a slow process for some reason.


These pieces below are one of my favourite techniques that I haven't done for a long time. The top two pictures are of small pieces about 12 x 8 that I sit on top of the trays of dyed fabric. They absorb some of the colours in a sort of marbled pattern. I did scrunch down on them at one stage so they are darker than usual but I do like the patterns created. The bottom two fabrics were scrunched in trays and colours slowly spread on with a spoon and left to run for a while before placing other colours on and again left to run. I did this about three times with a final pale colour poured over top to take the whiteness out of the light areas.



Just another picture of the fabric on the table by the iron showing a little of the textures. I love the serendipity of the colours and although I know what colours I used it is amazing how they change in relation to each other.


I'm inspired now to start printing onto my fabrics and doing some discharging. I have a large pile of plainer dyed fabrics that are crying out for some attention - onwards and upwards ! 

I have the tools

I went out this morning and bought some woodcarving tools for doing my own blocks - now there should be no stopping me. Any little piece of MDF is now in danger of being carved into a stamp. I have some doodles that were inspired by a glass panel that I saw in a book on Gaudi. I am keen to make some of these up as I think they will look good on fabric.

And speaking of fabric I did some more dyeing today - I was inspired by someone elses blog to go back to a technique that I hadn't used for a while of carefully spooning colours on some scrunched up fabric and leaving them to bleed and blend before putting on the next layers of colours. It gives some wonderful textures. Pictures tomorrow as it is all on the line tonight and hopefully will be dry enough in the last sun of the day and a gentle breeze to carry it along. I love the textures and multi colours in fabrics but really must steel myself to do some plainer (but textured) pieces of fabric that are necessary to offset the splendour of the multi coloured pieces.

More Woodblocks

Argh, this posted too quickly without any words so here goes at editing it - I had the same problem with my earlier post too.

These are my latest woodcuts - they are done using what is called the reduction technique. I started with the yellow block, printed it and then cut out some of the tree and printed it in orange, cut more again and printed in green. I think I like the yellow and orange tree best. This series also has a key block which shows in the red and green print, the key block being the green outline but I am not so fussed on using it over the other blocks, it looks rather good by itself as can be seen in the last photo of my wood blocks. The plain coloured blocks below were test prints each time I reduced the block for printing.

The tutor is slowly getting used to me not wanting to make pictures and really I want to make woodcuts specifically so that I can print onto fabric. I can't wait to do some of my own but need to buy some tools (shouldn't be too hard), get some small offcuts of wood (should be easy but as the husband is involved it will be near impossible) and find time !

The big weekend

I am getting ready for the big weekend at Easter - Southern Quilts, Southern Women.

I thought I would dye my hair a nice blue - Brazen Blue in fact - it sounded nice on the packet anyhow, but I don't think it should have been quite this colour. For once the camera was very accurate with the colour - it looks perhaps Vicars Violet or perhaps Cardinals Crimson but definitely not Brazen Blue! Well this will knock a few socks off my friends.

Quiet Week

It has been a quiet week, I have been feeling very tired and lacking in energy. I haven't been getting much time for myself to relax and unwind and I think it has all caught up with me. Anyhow nothing that a couple of small dyeing sessions can't fix. I dyed mainly in half and one metre pieces and tried a new technique of dyeing - some worked and some didn't quite work.


I always enjoy dyeing and the serendipity that it brings. There are some odd colour combinations, some unexpected surprises (well it is all unexpected really) and there were a couple of "why on earth did I do that!" pieces as well. There was nothing that cutting up into smaller pieces won't fix. And for once I ironed it straight away - usually it gets folded and put away with the ironing only being done when I want to use it which is what I always do anyhow, iron just before I use it that is.

I am feeling a bit more relaxed now and ready for the stresses of the coming week and coping with all that I have to fit into it.