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!!

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?!

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.