Wednesday 29 August 2012

Stash raiding part 2

Whilst I was cutting my fabric collection up the other day I came across a book of silk samples that I had been given a year or so ago. I had forgotten all about them so it was a lovely surprise to find them at the bottom of my fabric drawer. Since I had been cutting everything up and making it into a quilt top I thought I would use the silk samples and patch them into a large multi coloured random quilt top - here it is! The fabrics are really beautiful and there are some really bright pinks and turquoises amongst them - I think they look ok together and once I have found something for the backing fabric I can begin quilting it. My aim is to hand quilt both these fabric stash quilts and my fingers are itching to get stuck in so I suppose that means I will have to go fabric shopping for backing and bindings! The start of my new fabric stash perhaps....

Sunday 26 August 2012

Stash Raider Quilt

I have raided my stash! I have a large drawer where I keep all the ends of fabric left over from other projects. I never seem to use the bits in this drawer and the collection has been growing and growing. So I had a mad hour or two this morning where I emptied the drawer out, pressed all the fabric then set to work with my rotary cutter. I chopped everything up, there is nothing left - eek! It is all now laid out on my studio floor waiting to be stitched together to make a stash raider quilt. Not all the fabrics quite go with each other but it's interesting to see all the different fabrics I have used over the last few years and to see that there are a lot of blues and browns! I am now determined to buy more patterned, brighter fabrics so the next time I get the urge to chop all my stash up the resulting quilt will be more striking! I will keep posting photos as I work through putting the quilt together so you can see how it tuns out.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Tissue paper collage

 

I thought I would show some work I have been doing with my two daughters with tissue paper. Earlier this year we saw Victoria Bellas Carters gorgeous tissue paper flower collages at The Station in Richmond. She had an exhibition there and we were really impressed with the delicacy and beauty of her work. My daughters have been wanting to have a go at their own tissue paper collages ever since. These are their finished results which I have photographed alongside some cards from Victoria Bellas Carter showing her work. I think the girls have done really well and their pieces of work are beautiful - well done!

www.victoriabellascarter.com

Thursday 16 August 2012

From sketch to stitch


Have been working on my sketch of a local barn today. I have shown the sketch I made a couple of weeks ago and then the stitched version underneath. Over the last few months I have been working on making my stitching look more like my sketching and have been using just black threads on linen base to imitate paper. I was working on two stitched versions at the same time and unfortunatley had a bit of a disaster with one of the pieces of work. After stitching I decided that one needed enhancing with some brown acrylic which I promptly spilt all over my work table. I mopped it up and picked up the pot and spilt it all again! After cleaning up again I then popped some on the embroidered sketch but I think I got a bit carried away and it was too brown!!! Should have left the paint alone today I think!
I have rinsed this piece through to see if I can salvage it - am just waiting for it to dry now to see what it looks like. Needless to say the paints have been put safely away!!

 

Sunday 12 August 2012

Sea shells

Here's a first trial for some smocked and embroidered sea shell forms using the fabrics that I Ice Dyed earlier this week. We recently got back from our summer holiday to Northumberland and brought back buckets of sea treasures - shells and pebbles we found on the gorgeous beaches. I am wanting to use these to do some sketched studies and then work them up in these smocked dyed fabrics - this trial is quite small so I am going to try out a large more sculptural form next.

 

Thursday 9 August 2012

Ice dyeing

I love dyeing fabric and saw an article on Ice Dyeing in June/July 2012 issue of Quilting Arts and thought I'd have a go. My stocks of dyes have run right down so I only had a couple of reds and blues to play with so the resulting fabrics are all a bit "samey" but it was so easy to do that I will have another go with some brighter colours soon.

First I soaked my cotton fabric in soda ash for half an hour

Then I wrung the pieces of fabric out and lightly scrunched one up in the bottom of my dye pot. I then added a handful if ice cubes and sprinkled a small amount of dye powder on top of the ice cubes. I kept layering up the fabric, ice cubes and dye putting just red dyes on some layers and blue or a mix on the others.

I then covered the pot and left it overnight for the ice cubes to melt and carry the dye through the layers. Is a bit like magic and is exciting when you start rinsing through the layers the next day to see what patterns you are getting.

This is the dye pot when I have taken a few layers of fabric out. The fabric was well rinsed and then given a hand wash in warm soapy water before being pegged out to dry. I now have a lovely pile of coordinating pieces of fabric - I just need to think what I can make with them now!!