Sheep hearts and angelina

Two sheep atc. The sheep parts were cut from lutradur using a soldering iron. There is a little texture too, but I covered most of that with the fme. The eyes are French knots (I can do those so gottta use them). Legs are tiny beads. My own hand dyed fabric and yes it is green!

Whilst I had the soldering iron out, I cut these little lime and purple pieces from some sheets of Angelina I made ages ago. The little heart beads are bronze, I have had them a while and occasionally admire and fondle them. Thought it was time to use some of my precious stash :) I have loads of scraps of my hand dyed fabric so used some to make the background, bit of bondaweb and some zig-zag stitch. I call this one 'hearts and angelina', because I love angels and the heart symbol and it amuses me to give grand names to tiny atcs.

Rachel finds the most incredible stuff and she gave me a very nice piece of crochet. Unfortunately I left it in the back of her car and Nicki texturised it. I salvaged some of these crocheted motifs and thought this one looked fine on another hand dyed scraps background, with a few beads (because it isn't done until it has beads on it)

Happy birthday to me

Do you think my daughter is trying to tell me something?
Three cookbooks for my birthday.





Gg drew this picture on the back of the envelope containing my card.

Not very happy about the being a year older malarky but worth it for all the nice thoughts and the lunch with Brian.


A small side note. My brother asked me how old I was?? I replied that I am four years younger than him, same as always :)

Atc's

ATC's. I like to try out stuff and these are a great way to pretend I am producing something worthwhile when I am really just

playing. The first has a base of pelmet vilene

painted with dyn-a-flo with a tiny bit of sparkle added in. I punched out a circle and rubbed Markal oil stick through the hole, then again just under to make the reflection. Then I tore the paper and rubbed Markal over the torn edge to make the waves. I will probebly stitch a tiny boat on the hoizon line.

For the second one, I scanned the image from a rubber stamp into the pc, enlarged it and printed it onto hand dyed fabric pre soaked in bubble jet set. Then I stitched french knots. So what? you say. I learned how to stitch french knots, that's what! One more stitch learned :)

The third atc is on a base of hand dyed fabric, with a stampers paper (angelwire, I think) and a piece of painted lace. The little heart is made from confetti fabric. The confetti fabric is a favorite of mine, it takes ages to make an A4 sized piece, so I only use tiny amounts.

Shibori/Indigo samples

This is cotton poplin, folded in half lenthways and tied onto a pole diagonally. Then squished and pushed to the top of the pole.

This piece of silk habitai was a folded concertina, lay onto the pipe and tied tightly with string, but not squished. The parts which were nearest to the plastic take up less dye than the more exposed bits.

The traditional larch pattern. I used a stencil placed on the fold of the fabric and then stitched five rows, pulled really tightly.

This circle is my favorite piece. I drew around a bowl

onto fabric then stitched lines from one side to the other,

pulled the stitching tight and tied off.

Four squares, easier than it looks, I used a stencil placed on the folds of the fabric, stitched following the lines.

I realised that one of the most important ingredients of shibori is the thread. It must be reasonable fine so as not to leave holes in the fabric, but really strong so that it doesn't break when pulled really tightly. My most successful samples were stitched using the nylon thread that Jane Callender sells.

Shibori part 2

Dipped and dangling. These are the pieces which we stitched, tied and clamped. Bags of little rocks were tied onto one edge, and lengths of string to the opposite edge. This was so that we could dangle the tied pieces in the vat without having to dunk our hands.

The pieces of silk were dipped twice and the cotton dipped three or four times. The most exciting part of the day was unwrapping the fabric from the poles which had been left to dry overnight. Loads of oohs and ahhs.

Shibori dyeing with Jane Callender

I spent today with Jane Callender http://www.callishibori.co.uk/
learning the basics of Shibori/Indigo dyeing. The Shibori bit is the folding/stitching/squishing of the fabric. We are using a traditional Indigo vat. When you put the chemicals in the water and stir, this bloom thingy slowly appears. It is fascinating and not nearly as smelly as I expected.

We learned how to fold, wrap and tie the fabric onto a pole, then dunked it into the vat. When the pole is lifted out of the vat the fabric is a bright green but it immediately starts to darken and turn blue. We dipped for one minute and then left the pole in the air for 1/2 hour to allow the fabric to absorb the dye, then dipped again. Silk was dipped twice but the cotton pieces were dipped four times.

Here's a pic of the fabric resting in between dips. We have left these to dry overnight and will take them off the poles and rinse tomorrow. Then I will know whether I pulled the strings tight enough....

Homework for tonight is to stitch some fabric ready to dye tomorrow.

My Studio

Here is my studio finally finished. Since the builders left I have painted the walls (twice), hung cork on one wall and painted it (twice.) Sealed the floor (twice) and painted that. My shelves are up, my furniture moved in and the last box was moved over today.

This is my 'making a mess' area, with sink, running water and stuff. The tea urn is to heat the water to rinse off all the lovely dyed fabric and threads that I have planned. I scavenged the old microwave so that I can dye wool and silk too. Now that I have my own space outside the house, I hope to learn how to solder properly and maybe give my blowtorch a bit of a workout.

This is the other end of my studio workshop. This is the space for sewing and other textile crafts. The table is just the right height for printing onto my newly dyed fabrics.

All of my stuff has been sorted, boxed and has labels. In addition I have cleared out my old workroom (aka back bedroom) and re-decorated it so that my gorgeous grand-daughter has a pretty room to sleep in when she comes to stay. At this moment in time I know where everything is! Which is just as well, as I have two x two day workshops in the next two weeks, Alysn Midgelow Marsdon is coming to Sleaford Embroiderers to teach us about using metals in our work, and then Jane Callender will be teaching shibori and Indigo dyeing at the Lincoln Bailgate embroiderers guild.