A Little More Craftiness

I wasn't going to blog this today but I thought I might ask your opinion. Today I have added leaf prints using a combination of warmer colours and you can see two sections below. I have used Lumiere paints which are sparkly but the photo doesn't show this up too well.

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My thought now, at the risk of overdoing the printing thing, is to add some highlights by (partially) overprinting with the feather again using the copper colour mixed with a little yellow. It may not be necessary to do this to every blue feather. Also the new feather prints will be a bit more ragged than the original as the feather is getting a bit dishevelled. I'm going to make a viewfinder to isolate each quarter as that should help me decide how much more each piece needs. I only have till the weekend to finish this and I fancy doing a little handsewing on it too. So, do you think I will overdo it with more feather printing? This printing and stamping is addicitive!

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These two shots below are of my practice pieces which I've been trying things out on. The circular design is from an old fashioned plastic cake doily. Remember those? I used it as a stencil to sponge paint through.

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My DH and I have been coughing our heads off all night. No, I don't think we've got colds. We've had a new settee and chair delivered today and they stink!!! I think it's just the newness of the upholstery or maybe the Scotchguard protection we've had put on. Whatever it is, I hope it soon wears off. If it wasn't so cold I'd have the doors and windows open to air it off! Poo! Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough! You can tell we're getting old too. It's a sit up and beg suite instead of a squashy one. I'm hoping it will stop my joints aching so much. First I have to stop coughing!!! Grrrr!

A Little Craftiness

Do you remember this?

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I can't remember whether I've mentioned it before but, a few weeks ago, the four of us who have been doing the dyeing workshops agreed to take a section of our printed cloth, add to it and then cut it into 4 and swap. So that it's not too huge a task we have decided on a piece of fabric the size of a fat quarter (18 x 22 ins). I've been putting off starting a bit but I have been giving it quite a lot of thought. I do like the layered paint effects that Committed to Cloth and Ruth Issett use so I thought I would work along these lines as we have agreed not to overdye the cloth.

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The photograph above shows the cloth after two treatments. First, I did some shibori stitching and gathering and then applied bleach with a toothbrush. I left the bleach on for only a few minutes and then rinsed it well in cold water. Then, I used a text stamp I had bought at the K & S Show with Lumiere paint to print onto the surface. (The text stamp came from Dimension Fourth Ltd)

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I love feathers and have used a gull feather to print across the fabric, using the same Lumiere paint.

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These lovely marks are the negative images left where I had used the paper to smooth over the feather to obtain the print. They are almost more lovely than the positive images. (Excuse my shadow, I had to photograph this indoors).

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That's as far as I've gone today but I do intend to continue tomorrow. I am planning to continue printing but will introduce some complimentary colour, probably with some leaf shapes. I am so enjoying the printing that it is very tempting to keep going so I hope I don't wreck it by adding too much.

TAST

Please excuse me if I'm a bit terse today but I am not feeling too well and I'm not sure whether it's my usual problem or whether I've picked up a virus. Either way I had a couple of fainty turns yesterday and I feel washed out today so I shall be brief.

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I haven't a lot to show in the way of craftyness but I have been trying to catch up on my Take a Stitch stitches over on Stitching Fingers. The latest three are shown below and are pretty much self-explanatory. I bought the base cloth in a charity (op) shop a couple of weeks ago and thought its open weave would be ideal for doing these stitches on. Unfortunately it's a bit of a bright colour and doesn't photograph too well, it doesn't go with many colour either........

I really like featherstitch and I'm sure there are lots of other variations I could use.

I didn't know fly stitch at all before this exercise but I can see it has lots of possibilities. There is a lot more yellow in the original colours of these threads, blame my laptop.

I know I could exploit this stitch much more but I was tired when I did it so more work required.

I have been given 2 blog awards but I will post them later as I am off for a little snooze zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Ooh! I just have to say, thank goodness Gustav was bad enough but not the terrible disaster everyone was dreading. My thoughts are with all those who now have to deal with its aftermath.