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

Printing with Pizza ...... well the trays

I have a passion for making things different and individual. My whole idea behind my little cottage industry is to make things different, not the same as all the mass produced  products you find all over the high street but something that is tailored to one specific person or family.

Ways to do this include using my own designs and to use my own fabric as far as possible which will also be my own design. As you saw before the dyeing classes I attended recently was mind blowing the ways you can inject colour and manipulate it but it also has a lot of randomness to it which I am not very good at.

The other thing I really enjoy is printing on fabric and the way different materials and techniques affect the feel of a design.

My very first attempts at printing was at a one day class with the lovely Jane Charles who always seems to buzz with enthusiasm and ideas.

A Printing tile

The print

The same tile before cutting and reshaping

A print and the block that made it

And guess what we used to print with..... you got it.... used pizza trays! Unfortunately we didn't get to eat the pizzas, I believe Jane's children had the pleasure of that! The prints came out really well, you can press things in cut bits outs and create an design with knitting needles and pens. The tray is fairly firm polystyrene and I think this helps with getting a clear design. The printing ink was 50/50 acrylic paint and textile medium, this makes the acrylic more pliable and wash resistant. You can easily cut the polystyrene tile and over print and interlock different shapes.

I think the tiles can look as lovely as the print when you have finished with them!

A Dragonfly printing tile.

Charlie Cuggles

Say hello to Charlie Cuggles.

A soft and cuddly bear. Charlie has been made from super soft fleece fabric and is lovely and squishy just right for cuggles cuddles. He has very few pieces and is very easy to put together just right for Nan to make whilst waiting for a new grand child to makes his/her appearance. The pattern will be available on my Etsy store next week. All my patterns are super easy and have lots of colour diagrams to help you at every step of the way.
Charlie will have a hoppy little friend joining him in the near future watch this space!

A Lesson Learned ..........Again!!!

Just when you think everything is going along swimmingly a nice large spanner falls in the works and your mundane life seems to have come to a screeching halt all with the press of a button. Well I know that's a tad dramatic but it did seem like the bottom had fallen out of my world when only 20 minutes ago ....................... my laptop wouldn't come on!! I use my laptop all day every day, all my patterns I have created, my photo's, 6 months of work gone!! The drama!
The best bit is this happened before, about 6 months ago so I bought myself an external hard drive. I backed it up religiously every week for about a month, then completely forgot about it. Every now and then I would come across my hard drive sitting on the shelf and think, I need to do that, but funnily enough never got round to it.
Well let's hope this time it has finally sunk in about how important it is to back it up regularly. That way next time something like this happens I won't have to sweat bullets until my laptop comes back to life, I will be sitting back smuggly stroking my hardworking hard drive safe in the knowledge my life's work is safe! Fingers crossed!

My hero!