Something I have been dyeing to show you!

I currently go to a Creative Textiles class on a Thursday evening each week. Its a great way to play with new things and meet people who get equally excited about the contents of a jam jar (see previous post). Something we created the other week was this amazing array of coloured fabric.

You wouldn't believe these were all created from just four dye colours: lemon yellow, magenta, turquoise and black would you! I was very impressed. I like the mottled effect the dye has left on the fabric as well as the range of colours.

 We used dye recipes from a book called Magic Dyeing Made Easy by Helen Deighan, I believe it is a few years old but still very useful. The fabrics were all dyed in plastic bags and very carefully transported home so nobody ended up with a multi-coloured car. The following week we took them back to the class rinsed and ironed and oohed and ahhed over them for a bit.

I think they will come in very handy over the next few weeks.

Bye for now.

Parfait Dyeing

If you have never Parfait dyed you don't know what your missing out on!

Parfait Jar

Its easy when you know how and the results are amazing!

Basically parfait dyeing is a way of adding different colours to a piece of fabric in a jar. The colours merge and mingle magically and produce an amazing piece of fabric.

In the jam jar we added one third of a long piece of presoaked calico, then we poured in the first concoction of the dye, salt and soda mixture, in this case the first dye was magenta. Now you wait patiently for ten minutes then add the second third of the fabric and second colour (yellow), ten minutes again and the third section of fabric went in and the final colour (blue). Now the hard part, you have to put the lid on and leave it alone and not fiddle with it for a whole 24 hours! 

The photograph of the jar shows the way the dyes have mingled and some of the blue granules of dye have fallen to the bottom. 

The result!!

After 24 hours if you can wait that long you need to rinse out any remaining dye with warm water. The fabric absorbs so much of the dye the liquid is almost clear.

I think the result is pretty amazing, especially if you are like me and find randomness a major trauma! 

I think it would make some lovely scarves!

A little house for little people

A new pattern for a cute little fabric house. This house has been designed for the little people in the photo to live in. I have designed the pattern to be as simple as possible. It contains step by step instructions with colour diagrams which show you what to do and how to do it. 

I have developed my patterns after visiting many shops that sell fabrics and patterns etc and being shocked at the price of a pattern and what they contain. One shop I visited wanted £5 for one black and white A4 sheet of paper!! I couldn't believe it! There were no diagrams and not too much instruction, it was even folded neatly!

I think the price and lack of direction can often put off people who are new to the wonderful world of creativity and make them feel that a pattern is going to be difficult to understand. On the other hand a simple beginners pattern can be plain and uninspiring.

And so Scissors N Cloth was born. I hope to over the coming months create and deliver a range of attractive but achievable projects for anyone to have a go at, either being a creative beginner or more advanced sewer who could add their own slant to the pattern. 

This time next year Rodney!!

Visit me to see what's happening at my shop www.etsy.com/shop/Scissorsncloth.

New year new blog!!

Well a little past the new year I know but I got here eventually. I am hoping this is going to be the year of big things, we shall have to wait and see.

I would like to introduce Sally, she is my latest creation and part of my small range of patterns I have been developing for Scissors N Cloth and will be available on Etsy soon, I hope you like her.

She has a couple of colourful sisters I will introduce you to very soon!

Bye for now.