I’ve been enjoying this weeks card making before the last Fakenham Makers Market before the summer break. All made with original art, as you know, I do like hands on messy stuff!
Fabric
Textile Panel
We have just decorated our bedroom so I thought I would show the textile panel I created to hang over the bed 🙂
Printed Textile
I’ve just been inspired to work into and improve one of my old print blocks. I’ve cut into the basic shape to make it look more exciting.
This image shows me testing the block on paper. I’ve made some extra test blocks in the shape of leaves to use with it.
I’ve had this vintage anti-macassar for a while, already dyed with onion skins for me to print on. I’ve been waiting for just the right block to print on it with and decided this was it.
Don’t you think it looks great on my Sofa! 🙂
Collectors Dolls
A new product for my stall and outlet for my creativity is my new collectors dolls. You may have seen examples already. They are made from vintage and my own printed fabrics.These three came with me to Fakenham Makers Market on Saturday. Victoria, Katerina and Morwena.
Katerina has now gone to a new home, yay! 🙂
Dolls
I’ve been exploring new Ideas for products to sell on my craft stall and in my Etsy shop. I’ve come up with a way of using the textiles that I love, hand printed and recycled, in a very creative way, collectors dolls 🙂
Meet Clarissa
and Morwena.
Morwena is now available to buy for £18.00 and soon will be listed in my Etsy shop!
Enjoying the process of print
Sometimes I find it hard to just relax into the process of art. I’m always thinking about what I should be doing! I had a lovely time going through the natural process of producing the things below. I actually relaxed a little and enjoyed the process of printing and developing the colours as I went along.
I had some vintage hankies that someone bought for me ages ago so I started with those and a partly used ink pad that I’d kept in some plastic. I added little of a different colour as I printed.
Voila, finished hankies 🙂
As I work, I have paper round the edge of the fabric to minimalise the chances of getting wet ink in my print table. I move it around so that my paper is covered with surface pattern.
I then selected the areas of pattern I liked to produce some greetings cards. (I put the card through the printed for the wording)
I have just bought myself a tag punch, so now I can use even smaller pieces of my patterned paper to make tags.
I do love this way of working, it’s so satisfying! 🙂
A Lesson in Getting the Most out of Your Process
Remember this?
I did this.
Printing on old cotton bed sheets is a good use of resources and saves waste and money. It doesn’t even matter what colour they are!
Wanting to get the print to look like my drawings, I dyed my fabric with watered down fabric printing ink in a variety of colours and printed over in black. A good result but I want to get my print more opaque.
When dyeing my fabric I had paper underneath that got coloured with the ink too, so I printed on that. Wow, I love it!
Some of that paper I used instead of discarding it, I made cards with.
Always look for possibilities in your art waste or things you think are no good and maybe transform them into something worth keeping and using or giving as a gift 🙂
Having Fun With Surface Pattern
I’ve been having fun today with surface pattern on fabric and paper. I experimented with watering down my fabric printing inks on vintage bed sheets so just see how they reacted, then used the residue on paper. Looking good I think!
I’ll heat fix and see how the fabrics do. I have a sneaky feeling it’s going to be OK 🙂
Eco Dyeing
My second attempt at eco dyeing.
I took some vintage cotton, mordented with soya milk and wrapped frozen crocus petals in one, green honesty pods in one and turmeric shavings in the last one. I put them in my dye pot which still has some onion skin residue in it (I left this on purpose) and then I heated it and let it simmer away for a while.
Then left it for a few days before unveiling. Maybe two many days as it was a bit stinky! 🙂
As I expected the fabric picked up the colour from the pan which I wanted. On unwrapping and after hand washing, the honesty hadn’t made and mark (right), the crocus have printed a lovely blue and yellow pattern (centre) and the Turmeric, as I expected has made a lovely speckled print.
I don’t know what will happen when they are dry, but I promise I’ll show you! 🙂
Debbie Osborn 