Flickr Response Project

Flickr Response Project, a photo by stitchworks-jackie on Flickr.

Hurry up,join this project to help Guerilla Embroidery get together work for an exhibition.

Spring Felt

I haven’t made any felt for nearly a year; I don’t quite know why, just too many other distractions I guess. If you would like to look at some amazing felt garments, wonderful colours, shapes and textures I would recommend ‘ Felting Fashion’ by Lizzie Houghton; once again try your local library as I did.

 I wouldn’t dream of trying any of the exotic garments shown, or even the hats, but it is a book which makes one itch to have a go at some basic felt. In the bits and pieces section the author shows some examples of how to make spiky brooches, I sketched some notes about how to add  spikes at a Knitting and Stitching Show once.

 They are quite easy and provide a quick fix if like me you are not up for trying one of the daunting jackets.

 I combined the author’s method with that of Lisa Klakulak's (see links) free machining ideas.


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By the way I am finding using Picassa Albums first and then downloading to Blogger to be a much faster and painless option,rather than downloading from my computer to my blog. Probably 'dear reader' you knew this already!

'Feathered Friends'

I worked on the various dyed pieces, writing, stamping and then cutting up.

I have used the curved seam method shown by Alicia Merrett in her videos. I’ve decided to put them together and make a small quilt. Its many years since I made anything like a proper quilt, and I had already read that the sort of polyester wadding that I can find in my local shop is very old fashioned, and I noticed how ‘flat’ the wadding used in the DMTV videos looked. I emailed Linda Kemshall and she kindly told me the type of low loft wadding they used and gave me the name of a supplier. It came the next day and I am quite amazed how different it is from the wadding we used to use when I made a number of quilts, from cot to double bed sized many moons ago. In fact, patchwork and quilting was my first venture into textiles and tended to be quite traditional at that time.

It would have looked nicer with a curved seam across the middle but I felt that I was going to lose too much material if I did that.

I have dyed the backing material using the last sample of dye which I was given by Dylon; hassle free, but hardly as much fun when you get such a predictable outcome. I do like the colour combination though.

If you follow Flickr you may be interested in Guerrilla Embroidery’s ‘Flickr Response Project’ which she kindly asked me to join. Why not join in or follow its progress here.

I am having a great deal of trouble uploading photos, it seems to take forever and to get 'stuck'.
I uploaded these first to a Picasa album which seemed to work much better.

'Branching Out'

'Branching Out', a photo by stitchworks-jackie on Flickr.

April Sketchbook Challenge.

Spring colours.

Mostly images today. I had a dyeing session yesterday using thickened Procion MX.

I decided to work out one method which I could try to stick to. I even wrote it all down. Dyeing strikes me as being very much like felt making as far as different peoples’ instructions go; they are all different, each person or book has its own pet suggestions, which are usually given as rules, and in the end, speaking personally, are completely confusing. I tried just to think it through and find my own logic.

I tried soy wax resist and general mark making. I found some syringes I had years ago and used them for some of the lines.

One tip from Ruth Issetts’ book ‘Colour on Cloth’ which is new to me is to place the dyed fabric in a low oven for five minutes, rather than batching it. Obviously not for the waxed material. I like her book and it has some excellent colour advice and exercises. She is also not too prescriptive about her methods, which she simply says have worked for her over the years. Try getting it from the library if you are in the UK; use your local library before it’s taken away.
I like the spring like colours, but I was trying for a more striking purple than the pinky shade.
If you go over to Melanie Testa's blog, see my links, you will find a list of tutorials, including her video one on making foam stamps.

This post has taken a little longer than expected; naively I had always thought of Blogger as absolutely free and marvelled at that, but I know that really there is never such a thing as a free lunch. I tried uploading photos only to be told I had reached my limit. For those of you who haven't got to that stage it doesn't cost much for a year to upload far more storage space than I will need. There is however a delay when you have paid; I was reluctant at first because I had to give my card details,I thought it could be a scam, but I checked through Blogger Help and this is how the system works. Hence a delay.Then even more delay as it took so long to upload each photo- but that was sort of OK as it gave me time to do some more pieces, and take more photos.

I have just signed up for Design Matters TV and the latest episode is about line on fabric. As I particularly like using text it was very timely.

Well a much longer post than expected, in every way. I won't knock blogger though as it has given me hours of fun.