Boys banner

It is easy to design and create things for girls, they have such a lot of deocorative items to choose from: flowers, birds, pretty colours, swirls, etc, etc. Boys seem to have a limited range, just look at the birthday card selection, fishing, boats motorbikes and often drab colours. I wanted to create a name banner for boys that didn't include any of these things... and this is what I came up with:

Hopefully this is nice and cheerful and a bit different from the usual boys type things out there.

Fresh from the workshop

Giant Scissors anybody? I love some of the oversized buttons and textile based wall hangings available and in true crafter fashion decided ...I can make that. So in my little garage I created these...

48cms long x 24cms when closed made from pine to wax or paint however you would like to decorate them and ready to hang. If you would like a pair of your very own, go and have a look at my etsy shop where you can get some, either for yourself or that friend/relative who loves sewing and has everything else!

Design a Christmas Stocking Competition

Here is your chance to have your very own Christmas Stocking made that you have designed yourself!

Starting from today I want you all to start thinking Christmas, I know its only October but you know what happens, it creeps up on you without you realising what has happened.

You have from now until the 1st of November to design your very own Christmas Stocking. When you have designed it complete with any little pointers regarding decoration you then send it to me at scissorsncloth@rocketmail.com. On the 2nd of November the lucky winner will be chosen and their design will be translated into a fabric work of art just for them! The first prize will also include a few textile type pressies in your stocking.

So get your thinking caps on and get designing! I cant wait to see your fab designs.

Velvety Goodness

I just thought I would show you some of the cotton velvet I had dyed for the Big Textiles Show. I had a wide range of colours and textures to choose from and they sold really well! Here are some of the ones I had left which, conveniently, will be available in my Etsy shop! They are only smallish pieces which are ideal for appliques where you only need a tiny bit. Larger pieces can be dyed if anybody wishes for cushions etc made from it just contact me.

The Big Textile Show

We are attending a 'Big Textile Show' this weekend and I have been working my backside off for it. There are hand dyed fabrics and threads all over the house! Only three more days to go and I bet I forget to take something, I usually manage to! There are piles of fabrics to sort, price tickets to make, displays to put together. The list seems never ending! I'm sure it will be fun, it usually is, its just the running around before hand thats tiring! I had better get on with it then!

Come down and say helloo

We are going to do a bit of shameless self promotion Saturday so if you are about come and say hello. We shall have a table outside Homespun Crafts in Bletchley were we shall be doing a bit of promotion for our new classes in Wolverton and in the New Year Homespun Crafts. So if you are about come and see us and see what you could be getting up to in our new classes. See you there!

Sewing club launch!!

I am launching a brand new sewing club in Wolverton, the first session begins October 7th.
Classes are every Monday from 7 - 9.30 and Tuesday 12 - 2.30

Come along and learn how to create and decorate fabulous textiles for the home and family, make new friends and learn new skills.

All ages (13+) and abilities welcome.
Learn all the basics; how to use a sewing machine, make new items or customise/alter your own. Or, try your hand at Textile Art and learn how to embellish using creative techniques such as fabric printing, free machine embroidery and appliqué.

If you would like more information please ring me on 07876140154 or take a look at my website www.scissorsncloth@rocketmail.com (will be updated soon).

Booking required due to limited places.

£10 per session all materials provided, discount given on block bookings.

Hopefully we will have lots of fun making colourful creative textiles using lots of different techniques.

Wedding wheelchair bag

An unusual request just recently resulted in a new product. Its something that I have never heard of or seen before. At a recent craft fair where I was selling my shopping totes I was asked for a nice bag for a wedding which could be hung on the back of a wheelchair. I didn't have to make many adustments other than move the handles to the side and turn them from front to back. I think it's rather nice for an impromptu change of design.

Printing Kits

Throughout my textiles course we tried many different types of fabric decoration, some I have shared on here. From my playing I have developed a couple of kits for anyone out there who would like to have a play. As with my patterns I have written colour step by step instructions for those who have never tried anything like this before. The kits contain everything to be able to play immediately on opening the box, which many kits out there don't allow you to do. Take a look and see what you think, some feedback would be nice! As usual, available on Etsy at a very competitive price!!

Lino Printing Contents

Foam Block Printing Kits

A trip to the theatre

I haven't been around for a while because I have had to finish my City & Guilds course which took up a lot of time. But I have finally finished it and I am glad to see the back of it. We started the course such a long time ago it seems and I was determined not to do my usual thing of leaving it all until the last minute. I did a little bit here and there but I still managed to get way behind.

This is my final piece for the City & Guilds Patchwork and Quilting course, it is approximately 1 metre square and I didn't think I was going to get it in my car when it came to dropping it off. Its in a 6 inch deep MDF shadow box so it stands independantly. The peacock is hand sequined, the scenery is layers of hand painted and quilted trees on organza to give the illusion of depth. The fabrics are hand dyed and printed with my own lino cut. If you look closely at the side panels they are printed with the traditional sad/happy theatre masks.

 It was a lot of work, I can never take the easy route if there is a difficult one to go down!

 I have no idea what I am going to do with it when my tutor has finished with it!!

New stuff

Here is some new stuff I haven't shown you before. I have put the cushions on Etsy and I will list the pattern for the Sunny Dayz cushion tomorrow. They are all 16 inch square feather filled cushions with appliqued designs and an envelope back.
The pattern has step by step diagrams aimed at those people who are just venturing into the world of sewing and applique, its dead easy too!

Sunny Dayz

Sunny Dayz

Red Lolly Pops

Orange Lolly Pops

Fresh from the printing table

The weather has gone from a glorious sunny week to a miserable cold few days. I seems like no sooner you put away your jumpers you are getting them out again! Almost like someone is trying to catch us out so they can point and laugh when we go out togged up for winter and the clouds part and we are left sweating in 30C sunshine! At least with the greyness outside it is a lot less tempting to be playing in the garden!

I have been playing indoors with a bit of fabric printing. They are all fat quarters, the fabric was dyed the other day in various ways. The second two are magenta but for some reason it hasn't shown up as nice as it really is. This fabric is printed with a very simple foam printing block which produces some nice vintage type results.

The fabric is destined for glasses case, which I am sure you would have worked out already!

Some you win some you don't

We did our second craft fair last weekend. We are certainly not getting ready to retire on our takings anytime soon thats for sure! It was a bit of a fiasco unfortunately and we managed to make a loss! We weren't the only ones, nobody else took anything either. There was just no one around, it was in a small community centre with no posters other than the one immediately outside the door, the weather was nice so that wasn't a problem, it was in the local paper and a leaflet drop had been done in a small area around the centre, it just wasn't enough to attract customers unfortunately. :(

We have another one this weekend so fingers crossed this one is a bit more profitable!

Hand parfait dyed scarves

As you know I love the dyeing side of making fabric unique and my other favourite part is making stamps or lino blocks. I have decided to combine them both in a range of personalised printed scarves. I have a range of light weight scarves I have been bought over the years. I like them because they don't itch, you can wear them in summer when there's a little chill or in winter when its freezing. They tend to be rather long and wide and beg to be parfait dyed and printed. 

 Below is the first scarf I printed just for me. The colours are subtle on the grey which I think is a nice effect. 

The blue one has been created for my hairdresser featuring of course the tools of the trade, scissors and comb.

Below is a few of the colours to choose from and I will enjoy making the printing blocks on request. They will make ideal presents, every one needs a scarf or three don't they?!

Pretty patterns

One thing that did sell well at the craft fair the other day was my hand dyed fabric. I find the process really exciting. You can add the same colours, in the same order and come out with drastically different results everytime. I have been experimenting with tying the fabric in different ways, around objects or clamping it into different shapes and adding dye in different ways. Below are a selection of my recent experiments, some jar dyed, some folded and tied. I will be putting them on my website soon.

I also dyed some fabric for scarves and will be printing on some with some homemade blocks. Stay tuned folks!

First Craft Fair of the year

Last weekend was my first craft fair of the year and only my second overall. It seems that every event is another learning curve. I didn't take anything near the level I need to retire so it looks like I will have to keep on persevering for a little while longer!

We had a nice day in the end. After the morning drizzle the sun came out thankfully and as we were outside we were very grateful for that.

We did think at one stage that we wouldn't even take enough money to cover the cost of the table. Luckily enough there was an after lunch surge, if you could call it that and we made enough money to make it worthwhile. Onwards and upwards!

A Gorilla in the midst

I have a Gorilla mad friend who had a birthday the other day and surprisingly turned 21 again! So I then hit the dilema of what do you get someone who seems to have everything you think of ? There are a few credentials to work with.... purple, gorillas, that can narrow things down quite a lot! Then I hit upon the idea of a handprinted scarf which I'm sure you have guessed it will be both purple and include Gorillas!

Printing materials.

Original printout and first print from the block.

I started with a print out from the computer, some scissors, glue, foam and cardboard. I traced the picture and very patiently cut it out and glued it onto some card . You can see the original print at the top of the second picture with the printing block and the test print on paper at the bottom. I used 50/50 acrylic and textile medium to print the image onto both the paper and fabric.

First fabric print on some scrap fabric.

The scarf itself was backed with some nice warm fleece, unfortunately I only had white to hand, but it could have done with being black really. Anyway it was received as it was intended and I think she was very happy with it despite being white on the back!

The first scarf print.

The finished scarf.

Parfait dyeing ........take 2

Lots of dyeing took place the other day. I have always painted and have mixed colours in many different mediums so it intrigues me as to why I find the mixing and application of dye to fabric so fascinating. I think part of it is the way it takes on a life of its own. The technique of dyeing in plastic bags give fabrics a mottled texture, parfait dyeing creates unique fabrics with different colour combinations every time. If you just played with the same three colours you will always get a new and exciting combination of pattern and colour appear every time you emptied that jar.

Below are some of the parfait jars I set up and the resulting fabrics.

The fabric for the first jar is on the left of this photo, the piece on the right was just left over dye on wet fabric.

Yellow Magenta and Turqouise Parfait

Green, Orange and Purple Parfait

Orange Parfait Fabric

Purple Parfait

Green Parfait

Dyed fabric drying on the line

Fascinating stuff! I have bought wax and other things to play with so a whole new world is about to open up, watch this space!!

Bye for now.

Pretties...

I have a new love. I know I have shown you some bits before but I am now so taken with dyeing its unbelievable. It is so unpredictable but so much fun. I only have four lots of dye powder to play with magenta, yellow, turquoise and black, but the colour range is amazing!
I spent the day playing Saturday. There were bags and trays of dyed fabric every where, all round the kitchen in various stages of manipulation and colour application. Most of my dyeing was colour mixing, quite tame but as I am new to all this, very exciting!

A rainbow of colours!

 I worked through the dyes gradually adding different measurements to create the range of colours. Some of them look very close in colour but they all had different quantities so I could see the change in the colours. I was very methodical, which is highly unusual for me, I wrote down every thing so I could in theory go back and recreate the colour if I ever wanted to.

When I had a vast quantity of bags of dye everywhere I moved onto some parfait and tie dye.

The first cloth I folded into a concertina then folded in quarters, I then secured it with cotton tied tightly around it. Then I painted on dye with a paint brush the colours mixed on the cloth.

I should have taken some photos but I was far too excited! I will just have to do it again for you!

Concertina folded

The next one is my favourite piece, the colours have mixed really nicely and the shapes are quite striking.This  I folded into a concertina then triangles and secured it with spring loaded clamps. I then applied different coloured dye with a paint brush around the edges. 

Triangle folds

Parfait dyeing was next. Magenta, yellow and turquoise, its so unpredictable. You could use exactly the same colours, fabric and jar and have a completely different effect and colour range come out.

Parfait dyeing

My final piece was space dyed, I think that's what it is called. I placed the fabric onto a flat tray and puddled it in places then I started to add the dye splodging it on with a paint brush. I mixed the colours on the cloth with the brush and allowed it to dry in place so the folds would add some texture.

Space dyeing