Festival of Quilts 2012

  I have been in Birmingham at Festival of Quilts since Thursday. I have just one more Quick and Easy session to teach then a little shopping.

Hopefully  a photo of my quilt is attached which has hung relatively ok. The best news though.is that DS won third prize for his quilt. More to post once I am home.

Concours d'elegance

Well I didn't want to keep you guessing for long! I was making a concours d'elegance costume for a friends daughter. I would be the first to say that I do not really work in 3D nor dress make but I was really happy with how it turned out.

This is Archie who was going to be ridden for the first time in this competition. Archie is a bit of a pro though as he has won lots of rosettes when ridden by Jake (Bryony's brother)

The pink fabric became a skirt, the table became a "pretend horse" when I checked for measurements.

Nothing like the real thing though. Archie was very patient as we tried on the skirt as it had to fit under Bryony's feet and over his tail. On this picture I hadn't sewn on the grey trim. The grey and pink were chosen to match a riding hat.

This is the completed costume. There is grey trim along the edge of the skirt and some lead curtain weights just to make sure that it didn't blow up and spook a pony.

She is wearing a grey military style jacket which was "doctored" I added grey trim along the collar and at the cuffs and neck a blouse was cut up for extra ruffs. To top it off she had a pink cravat made from the skirt fabric and wore my cream leather driving gloves . She  looked very elegant.

I even managed to teach her mum, and my friend Fliss how to make a corsage. I made one for Bryony's hair and Fliss is making one to be attached to Archie's bridle.

This is Bryony at the show today. She came 5th in her first ridden show.

An idea

You know how an idea starts? That first thought, the what if? Could it be achieved? Well I started something new which involved -

 Six metres of pink fabric, pink and grey trims, seven metres of  lead curtain weights and a pony!

Can you guess? Just off to complete this project and then I will share.

And Finally...

After a full week of putting colour into fabric on the last day we looked at discharging colour. these three products were used, Finish dishwasher detergent (5% bleaching agent), Jacquard discharge paste and deColourant paste. All three looked identical in the pots (thick white paste) so on the initial samples some very clever ladies wrote F, J, D (why had I never thought of that?)

Discharging colour from fabrics is never an exact science and as predicted some fabrics discharged at quite a fast pace whilst others remained dark.

You can discharge colour from any fabric, it doesn't have to be black or navy. This dark burgundy below was printed on with a shell stamp to remove the colour.

After playing with the pastes and a magnificent faith lunch organised by the students we moved upstairs to make a quick sketchbook cover.

They were all fantastic and this one made by Wendy shows off some of her shibori painted fabrics. Blogger has just turned this sideways so just tilt your head!

If you want to join me next year for a week of dyEing, painting and creating your own unique and individual fabrics then just contact me for more information.

Summer School - Day Three & Four

Day three and the sun continued to shine. We explored a relatively new product called cold water batik wax.  This looks a little bit like PVA glue and was able to be brushed and stamped onto cotton

Once dry, which was very quick today we painted over the top with procion dyes.

These pieces were steam fixed to both set the colour and melt the wax.

Wednesday afternoon saw everyone painting their own threads to be used in future projects with fabric paints.

Thursday was painted shibori. We used a pole wrapped technique and then applied fabric paints for some stunning results.

Everyone created so many fabulous pieces of work that a longer washing line was needed. This just doesn't show the colours achieved.

In the afternoon we explored the effects of adding fabric paint to a stitched and quilted surface.