Working on samples for a Mark Making with Stitch Workshop.

Working on samples for a Mark Making with Stitch Workshop., a photo by stitchworks-jackie on Flickr.

Waiting for his Whiskers.

Over the weekend I have played with some of Anne Bagby’s techniques for printing paper. She uses bookbinder’s tissue paper and deli paper, neither of which I have, and prints directly onto the paper whereas, mostly, I adapted some of her ideas to use with the gelli plate.

 I liked her way of mixing colours to avoid  poster paint bright colours and she has some other good methods, in summary she is very professional, knows what she is talking about and her DVDs are packed with information. Basically I have just been having fun.

 I used drawing paper, copy paper and some baking parchment. I particularly liked the way of raising an image off the surface by gluing it onto fun foam.

Whiskers found:-

Rust Plus

Working in my sketchbook I have been playing around with the rusted pages adding stitch and wax.

I took photographs and manipulated these using Sketchbook Pro and Pro Create on the ipad.

Its easy fun to then change them further and print out to add to the sketchbook collection.

With a layer of wax,then, below, photographed and manipulated in Pro Create.

This was adapted for my group by using letter stamps, stencils and a wax stylus.
Thank you to Jennifer for the suggestion to try green tea,must put it on the shopping list.

Rust Candy

Inspired by seeing Alice Fox at work I have decided to do some rust dyeing with one of my groups. Our theme is paper so we will be working on paper, perhaps some of the precious handmade paper we made a fortnight ago.

 Alice Fox’s method is to soak with tea and is much simpler than the layering method I have used previously. 

Practising in a small handmade book, I firstly tried just tea, but then I added some vinegar, which to me seemed to give more interesting results although much smellier. The best page was definitely the one left to dry over night, see header, but that takes so much patience.The one below has a good 

deal of interesting detail.

 Also shown  are a couple of small areas of a previously made wall hanging;the colour is much lighter without the addition of tea.

Festival of Quilts 2013

I was lucky enough to be offered a place on a coach to go to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham on Friday. I amazed myself at buying nothing but a few postcards, but I did come back with lots of ideas and inspiration. I hope some of you were lucky enough to have seen the show for yourselves.

The highlights for me were:

Seeing in the ‘flesh’ one of Dorothy Caldwell’s quilts; her piece ‘How Do We Know When It’s Night’ won the new juried exhibition called' Fine Art Quilt Masters’.  It is difficult to take photographs quickly there due to the lighting but I took a few at the start as a record for myself. This is the large quilt, and I took lot of photos of the small details which are so clever and so simple at the same time.

I always enjoy the working studio and this time Alice Fox was there showing some of her rusting techniques and also her fascinating sketchbook; you can follow the link on my sidebar if you have not seen her work. She often combines rust marks with print and stitch.

Overall I think one of the lasting memories will be of the artists’ sketchbooks which they shared, including those of Laura and Linda Kemshall, which I have seen on-line but which were interesting to see in real life.Their work was included in the 'Through our Hands' exhibition, in which there was also a mock up of a working studio bench which was fun.

I also met up with Chris Gray another ardent blogger whom I have met on line but never had the pleasure of a real hug from before!

Dianne Firth ' Red Stones 2'

'Evidence of Bodies' Terri Hitchcock and Sue Chapman

It really was such a big show this year that there was no time to even try and see everything in a few hours; in fact I know some people never even found the second large exhibition hall.

How to make cheat's silk paper.

Lots of people are on holiday at the moment so for a recent group I decided to have a ‘show and tell’ rather than plan out a full session, however, some people had shown an interest in basic silk paper so I thought I would show the cheat’s easy way to make it. I thought some of you might like to see this too.

Start with some Carded Cocoon Strippings. Here they are:

You may find they are a little more expensive now as I have had mine for ages.

Lay them out on a piece of fine net or in this case a j-cloth. You can make the ‘paper’ thicker by adding more layers. I tend to lay mine out as if making felt, that is  a strip one way and then the other, but I don’t think it matters, just cover over any gaps.

Spray with water, another good use for my handy spray bottle.

Cover with j-cloth or net. Spray on both sides lightly.

Iron to set. The strippings still contain natural serecin glue so this is what fixes the fibres together.

Threads and other bits can be added before setting, one time I added pine needles:

 there was a reason, it was a little book about my mother who lived at Pinelands. Down-under Dale currently has the book for 'My Artful Journey'  an exhibition at the WA Craft Show in Perth which opens this weekend. 
You will not see the pine needles though as I slid them out, thinking there could be a problem with them in the post.

The ‘paper’ can be coloured with inks etc. It’s nice to add to projects and is easily stitched. Recently someone told me about adding sharpening s from coloured pencils, I've not tried that yet.

Back home.

Well I'm back, with what seems like an awful long list of jobs to work through over the next weeks, I must tell you that this involves making, sorry practising making, mini cakes for a wedding, so you can feel sorry for me. Now I have made a list I must say things seem more in perspective. For a potential project I needed to seek out some stitch samples and they were in a sad state of neglect, but starting with good intentions of doing things the right way, I decided to stretch them and I must say this has been a good move.

 If you have never done this I used a piece of polystyrene packing material, paper towels and my improvised spray bottle(hair dye bottle with old cleaner spray top) and pins. Wet the paper towels, pin and stretch out the material on top and leave to dry.

 For those of you like me who know all about this but seldom get round to it, you really should, it gives such a satisfying result.

If you would like to give ‘ long and link stitch binding’ a go, I have recently found a pd f from Sarah Bryant. She sells it via her Etsy Shop. Here is the link to her entertaining blog.
The July theme of 'Into the Woods' is in its last week over on the Sketchbook Challenge blog, so don't forget to take a look and join in.

A postcard from .....

                                    This blog is on holiday.
                                     'Wish you were here'.
                                      Jackie 

What on the table?

This is a sort of what’s on my work table post; really my mind is on my holiday which happens shortly. I saw this post about weaving patches, lovely colours and a fun little project. I had one go at weaving on a full size loom on my course, but I knew it would never have been for me, despite the fact that I enjoyed the process I would never have been patient enough to thread up the loom.

 I really like some of the experimental off the loom images which I have seen on Flickr and the weaving experiments of Alice Fox. I wondered how small patches of weaving might work with embellishing; that is an idea to come back to. I also saw some examples of felt with what I took to be screen printed images at the weekend and this reminded me of some small pieces I made using print and paint on felt. 

I no longer have any of these pieces but managed to find some photos of them.

 People in one of my groups were keen to try a flat piece of felt last week and I used the little sample I made in the session to print on with one of my thermo fax screens. Might make brooches?

 What else, as if that isn't enough for someone who is supposed to be making packing lists?

 Well if you live near Basingstoke, Hampshire we are planning a workshop on September 24^th in Cliddesden Village Hall. It will be ‘Mark Making with Stitch’. Send me an email if you would like more details.