Sunday 27 February 2011

Stirling revisited!

A while back...28th September 2010 post...I showed a picture of the work I'd done at the Embroiderers' Guild Scottish Branches Summer School in August. I was in a class taken by Louise Baldwin (brilliant by the way!) we were working on lines. We produced some artwork from our source, mine was The May Island in the River Forth. We then transferred our artwork into a series of machined lines. Cords, braids wired, fabric, yarns basically anything went if it was appropriate to your source and it made a line!.
I think that back in September! I'd promised to show some close up photos of my work. Well, her they are...at last!

I liked how you could combine little bits of fabric and beads within these lines. 
Some of the lines turned out quite delicate and fine 
While some of them looked more agressive and bold.



This one is much broader but still looks quite delicate.
The one below has delicate areas but doesn't look very fine.  


These are just a few of the photos that I took em... just the other day! Talk about being prepared...I'll put the rest on my Flickr page.
Bye for now.
:o) 

Sunday 20 February 2011

printing & stitch

 I took some photos of my printed fabric. The fabric was very busy so I used "L" shaped card to home in on a few sections. The only thing is that it takes ages to select which ones that you think are interesting. I took loads of photos and end up only using a couple of them here. I may post more of them on Flickr.

I was at a great workshop yesterday where I was able to use some of my printed fabric. I added it to a piece that I'd started at a previous session.

 The piece above was using my newly printed fabric. I hadn't realised that I'd ended up with little flowers until the tutor pointed it out!. Sometimes it's better to look at what you're doing from a distance. I think that a was so intent to get to the end of the row and wondering which bit I would tackle next  to really notice what was going on.                                  

                                   
These are some of the bits that I'd worked on a previous occassion. We were allowing the piece to grow as we went along which proved to be more difficult than you 'think. Designing as you go!
                                    
Our aim was to produce an exotic piece of work

 I loved stitching the little dots and the squares. It's great how the use of very simple straight stitches enhance the printed image.
This is where I was working, just for good measure.

 Aren't Ikea scissors great!
Another printed image. The orange line was monoprinted  by laying the fabric down on a sectioned of rollered orange paint. I then dragged the end of my paintbrush across the fabric. You get the missing sections when the fabric shifts a little and the brush jumps over the little ridge that was created by it moving. Hope that makes sense!
Bye for now,
:o)

Wednesday 16 February 2011

back again!

Hi folks! Thought it was about time for me to come back to blogland.
I've have been keeping myself busy but never managed to blog about it. Tisk, tisk. I aim to add to this more often from now on. It may be a bit random as to the subject matter but I will try to continue to post about my stitching bits and pieces as I go along. Of course to start me off again you'll see that it's not stitched pieces at all but a little bit of printing. Just because I like it!

 
A bit of rollering and stamping here and there.
 I treated myself to some alphabet blocks recently which need a bit more experimenting with. I do like a bit of text in textiles!

We can't forget good old monoprinting. I love it!
Here I've tried a little fish print in positive and negative.


You can just see the negative image in the photo above. The top one is done by carefully laying the fabric down onto the inked surface, then drawing the image onto the back of the fabric. I'm sure most people will know how to do it. I don't use ink, I use acrylic paint straight from the tube. If you do that you must work quickly before it dries. It's probably worth while getting a medium that delays the drying process it would make a big difference. 


Having a play with my alphabet stamps and I liked the colours that were on the paintbrush at the time.
I'm not sure if my printed fabric piece worked all that well. It may be better when it's cut up into smaller pieces.
I'm a lot happier about the little fish prints and can see myself working on them. Eventually! I'll keep you posted.
That's all for now.
Byee!
x