What lucky people you are! No post for months then two in a short time!

Yesterday was an exciting day for the family as my nephew John graduated from University College London with and MSc in Telecommunications from the Science and Engineering Department. We are all very proud of him and I got to go to the event! As some of you know John and Ann I thought you would like to see a couple of pictures. Unfortunately the stage lighting was red but I have done what I could with the pictures.

Dyeing Masterclass

Here, at last are the pctures of my recent dyeing, which was done in a Ruth Issett Masterclass.

We managed to try out several techniques in the two days, all of which I enjoyed, even if some of MY samples were less than successful. (my fault not Ruth's of course).

We set about doing some baggie dyeing, having been asked to prepare twelve bags in advance, each containing six different fabrics. Mine were polycotton, smooth white cotton, callico, cotton scrim, cotton velvet and a silk/cotton mix I put them on the line in that order.

We then took four sets of three bags and dyed then with Procion MX dye mixtures of our own choice. On the first row I used ultramarine and rose brown in increasing quantities. Note that there are none with pure colour.

On the second row I used scarlet and rose brown.

The third row has scarlet and marine Violet.

The last row has Golden Yellow and Turquoise.

We also did two sets of low immersion dyeing . At the end of the first row is the one I did by adding the dye to the first piece of scrunched fabric, followed by soda ash. Then the next layer was done the same way with a different colour. Then I added a third fabric.

As you can see I didn't really add enough dye, but these can be overdyed I suspect.

At the end of the second row is the result when I added the soda ash to the dye before I dyed. This time it was pointed out that I didn't have enough in the first set so more was added. better result!

Painted Dyeing.

Next we did some painted dyeing. We had prepared some of the fabrics in advance by adding soda ash to them and then drying.

I found that the fabrics I added the soda ash to in advance gave a more blended result.

In the picture the bottom row had the soda ash added to the fabric before dyeing.

Each piece is a different fabric. Top row is cotton velvet, habotai silk, Sylco, white poycotton (which is not supposed to dye!), cotton organdie, silk and cotton delphine.


Bottom row is viscose satin, silk cotton, fine white cotton, silk cotton, coarse white cotton, and finally,callico.

This was fun session, although VERY hard work.

OK... so I tell lies! I said I would keep this up to date and I haven't... sorry.

Anyway I have just had an exiting weekend away learning to use my Embellisher at a class with Maggie Grey.

Embellish and Stitch

I tried so many things and had a wonderful time in the process. Great thing was,not a single needle broken.... and only one other person in the room did break one.(this is just as well as I haven't, so far, been able to undo the Allen screw on mine yet!)

1. Marbling.Build up a surface on a piece of felt with fibres of choice silk or wool or both and make sure that there are some accents. I made mine too subtle for the following process so bear this in mind.Lay a piece of chiffon over the top. It needs to be considerably larger all round than the embellished piece. Start embellishing from the centre and bunch the chiffon to make areas of darker colour.It will scruch up deliciouslyInstead of this random way try embellishing chevrons. Embellish in straight line down the centre first. Then turn and embellish another line in the opposite direction about an inch away. The chiffon will naturally make tucks which need to be encouraged. Repeat to cover the piece.

2. Embellish and puff. Make an embellished background. Take another piece of embellished fabric, made form acrylic felt and cut out shapes. heat them with a heat gun from the back to make them curl.Apply these to the background.These cut puts can also be embellished together to make vessels.

3. Use ready made needlefelt for the background and apply monotone natural fibres.

4. Appliqué pieces of FME onto a prepared backgrounds .

5. Make backgrounds with voids on them. Cut out the void and apply either FME patches and blend in the edges with the embellisher. Can also use pieces from other Embellished backgrounds in this way.

6. Try embellishing habotai silk, organza and even the metallic organzas onto a background.try transfoiling velvet and then embellishing on top.

7. All of these techniques look good combined with stitch, either hand or machine.

Here are a couple of collages of some of my samples for you to see.

I have tried several times today (yesterday now!) to show you this pic and I couldn't so let's see what happens this time. I had several stitchy presents from friends this year as well as this book. It contains Haiku verse and is illustrated by Elizabeth Blackadder. The verse needs some thinking about as you need to understand what it all means and it is not always easy. I love it and I am sure there is some inspiration for art work in there too.

I also had a good video by Katherine Harris called Architextural images. She uses Buildings and such as her source and executes them in cloth or handmade paper with machine embroidery.

She demonstrates paper making and also runs a masterclass on the video. My only criticism is that there is little about her and nothing about the masterclass, such as where it was held and who the students are. Whoever they were, they were doing some lovely work.

I thought you might like to see the cushion I made for the Nora Jones Competition at our recent EG Christmas party. I didn't win but it was fun to take part.

There were some excellent entries. I put mine in the less experienced category as it was only the second piece of patchwork that I have done.

I think I did it. Changed to the new version of Blogger I mean. Please could an experienced someone comment and tell me if it looks OK?
It seems to have changed my Loose Ends list as well.... I remember some people saying that it didn't do it for them.
Thanks

Phew! I determined that I would reactivate my Blog today as it is the 1st day of the new year! However, the system defeated me and I see it is now 12.03am on the second day! Oh well, near enough I suppose!
I was trying to change over to the new version of the software and failed miserably, I think because I am tired, so I had better wait until morning now I think. I shall then regail you with all that is new!
Happy New Year everyone!