Block printing on painted fabric.

I've just come into the house after a glorious evening spent block printing out in the garden. This is my printing board. It is sitting on my husband's easels. It was made some time ago and hasn't been used as much as I intended. However, I think that is about to change. 

This afternoon I had painted some fabric and left it on the washing line to dry. By evening, the fabric was dry  so I got all the equipment ready and started printing. I completed three pieces before the light started to fail and I started to get rather cold.

I just love the patterns on the fabric top of my table. It is such a useful surface to try out the blocks before printing them onto the main fabric.

You may recognise the patterns - they are the blocks I bought from Colouricious. I used some of the fabric paints too. 

This is the view I had as I worked.

I shall be doing this again the next time we have a dry, fine evening. Such fun!

Exhibitions, photos and the rain.

On Saturday I went to Pinfold's Tenth Anniversary Exhibition. Sorry, I couldn't take any photos in the exhibition itself. It was really good with a wide variety of techniques - both embroidery and quilt-based. They are a very talented group, based in the South Cheshire area.

One of the members had put together wonderful inspiration bags - pieces of indigo dyed fabrics with thread , beads and ribbon. I just couldn't resist.

 Then today I went out to take some photos in the village. My friend Hilary and I have challenged each other to take photos on a specific day every month. I'm not sure what we will do with the photos, mine are of a certain field and I take my pictures on the 23rd of each month. We started in January. The following photos are ones I took today. They sky was amazing - really black clouds and full of rain.

This first photo was taken from my back door and shows the top of my garden gate and a neighbour's house. I just loved the colour of the new leaves on the tree against the deep grey of the sky.

The trees around the cenotaph are just coming in to full leaf.

The blossom is so pretty.

 I don't know what type of tree this is. The leaves were such a delicate shade of green. The sky was growing darker all the time.

Turning back to the house, the heavens opened. It was well worth getting wet.

Sewing, weaving and having fun.

This was my latest piece for the Sky's the Limit group under way. This view of the back shows the vilene I used as the basis. The fabric scraps are sewn on from the back.

This is the same piece, but shown from the front.

Now, the finished piece. You can see my post about this piece on the Sky's the Limit site.

A piece of weaving using ribbon and various threads. This is destined to become part of one of my journal quilts. The next four are all yellow.

A pocket made for a friend's gift. Sorry about the poor quality lighting. As usual, I finished this at the last moment by which time the light wasn't good in my workroom.

It is double-sided. It didn't seem right to have one "good" side and a boring one. This was a thank you gift and was presented to her yesterday at a meeting. The real present is tucked inside.

Painting and printing some more fabric.

I finished the last two of my yellow fabrics - a deeper yellow/orange and a yellow/green. This is the first one. I added a lot more water this time.

The resulting fabric is lovely. ever so slightly stiff, but I just love the colours.

I kept on with using paper underneath. 

The colours used for the yellow/green.

The result is just what I wanted. I have another project to complete before I can start putting the yellow set of the Journal Quilts together./ I have collected all the bits together, so I am almost ready to go.

This is the paper version. I can hardly wait to put some books together to use this patterned paper.

I overprinted the fabric I used in the last post. I used a second print block for the first one.

The second one was just using the same block. I shall use this fabric in my journal quilts.

Painting and printing fabric.

I've been having fun with my new printing blocks and fabric paints. This shows the first colour added to the vine leaf block on to a piece of calico. I shall be overprinting this with another, darker colour.

These are the new fabric paints from Colouricious. I used these neat, mixing three colours together, sponging them onto the fabric. Great fun. Next time I shall try them with a little water added, just to see what happens. The containers make it really easy to get just the right amount of paint. There is a little hole in the top and its easy to get just the right amount. Such a good idea.

The completed fabric is still really malleable, a little stiffer than I am used to. I will still be able to sew through the fabric and overprint on it. I was wondering about discharge printing using the new blocks but this will have to wait for a change in the weather. It has been far too cold and wet outside today.

I decided to cover my work top with paper this time. This way I get to the use the paper as end papers for my home-made books or in my sketchbook. Yes, I do have one on the go at the moment. I shall show it to you another time.

This time, my trusty Setacolor Opaque fabric paints. I water these down a lot, so the paint goes a really long way.

This is the completed fabric. It is softer than the Colouricious fabric paints, but then I did water the paint down a lot. (Probably about four or even five parts water to one part paint). The Setacolor is really thick and gloopy when it comes out of those small bottles, which can be a bit of a nuisance if the bottle is newly opened, or the paint has hardened a little.

I shall definitely use paper again. Such fun.

Conference and playing with fabric

Last weekend saw me in Dundee, attending The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles Conference. This dramatic lighting shows the front of the hall used for the Conference. A marvellous place to meet.

This photo shows a little drilling stand. I think it has something to do with the V & A's new building on the waterfront standing in the River Tay. Behind you can see the famous Tay Rail bridge peeking out from the haar, a river mist.

I couldn't resist taking this photo of the underneath of the Tay road bridge. The colours were amazing.

The Tay road bridge as seen through the haar from my hotel window.

A gorgeous building from the centre of Dundee itself.

Some things bought from the traders at the conference. The book was bought from the delightful Katie Pasquini Masopust. She gave the after dinner talk at the Gala Dinner. Such an amazing speaker. She kindly signed her book for me.

I also bought this set of blocks. Colouricious is a company owned by a lovely lady called Jamie Malden. I was lucky enough to sit next to her at the Gala Dinner. I was really impressed by the way the company package their products. The sturdy plastic box housing the fabric paints above, and the delicious fabric bag for the printing blocks. Look carefully at the white picnic basket holding the goodies in the last photograph. Such a good idea.

Would you believe I won the contents of the three photos above? I did. I couldn't believe it either. I won two of the prizes in the Chinese Auction at Conference. It was overwhelming. I can see a wonderful playtime in my future............. I just need to abandon everything for a day or three to indulge.......... Oh yes!

Oh, I'm also playing with fabric making a picture for the Sky's the Limit group. Sadly, I can't post a photo just yet. Not until it is finished.

Sewing, painting fabric and knitting.

This is the fourth of my Journal Quilts for this year. This one adds the shades of red to orange, and is the April piece. I am slightly ahead of myself on this project having a number of others I really need to get started on. But I shall tell you all about those another time.

Yesterday, I had a lot of fun creating fabric for the labels to go on the back of each Journal Quilt.

Since I needed a really fine woven cotton for my labels, I used three sheets of my printable cotton. These were painted with Setasilk. I stripped off the paper since I do not intend to use these on my printer, and found the backs rather more interesting than the fronts. I suspect this was because the Setasilk tends to pool between the cotton and paper.

The papers were really interesting too. I shall keep these to use at some stage.

One brief warning. I ironed the fabric when it was still slightly damp. As a result I ended up with a sticky deposit on my iron. This was easily cleaned off, but could have caused a problem had I not noticed...................

The sky yesterday was so beautifully coloured. The deep colours of the rain clouds bring out the lovely moss covered bark of this tree. Such a delicious colour combination.

I love the textures of old rooftops and their chimneys.

Spring is definitely on the way with these lovely leaves just beginning to come out.

My brown shawl got finished too. I've got it round my neck as I write. Although the weather looks nice, it is still chilly.