A quick leaf collage

Today I felt the need for some instant gratification.  I have been doing so much preliminary work that I wanted to make something that I could finish quite quickly.  Not instant gratification, but nearly so for fibre art.
Here is the finished piece.

Obviously, I have not finished the edges, nor decided what I want to do in that respect, that would take a whole other afternoon (after a bit of looking and thinking of course).

Last night I was watching Quilting arts TV episode 613, and was inspired to make this collage by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, who put together a srcap collage background for one of her lovely painted ladies.
I didn't quite use her method, but it inspired me.  Here's what I did.

I started with a foundation of thick interfacing, which you can see under the white cotton.  I mostly use this for my fibre work, because it saves using a hoop when I do free motion later. (I do not use a foot when doing free motion, and this requires very stiff foundations or a hoop.  (I don't suggest this as a safe way to stitch, it's just the way I do it, because I can see quite clearly what I am doing)
At the top of my fabric, you can see some texture stamping.  To save time, I decided to test out a set of stamps I made yesterday from sticky foam shapes stuck to perspex.  I needed to test them out before I use them on an upcoming project.

Here's a close up of the texture.  I want to use these stamps to create the texture of leaf  litter under trees.

As you can see, there are three different sizes, as I want the print to recede into the distance.

Here I have added another layer in another colour over the top.  This is how I want to use the stamps, layering the colours to create depth, but these two will do for this project.

OK, on to the collage part.  I basically cut bits (Irregularly) of scraps into squareish pieces and arranged them randomly, allowing some of the background to show through.  This was my first layer.

 OOps, I missed a photo.  Under the layer shown above, I scattered leaves cut from a variety of fabrics, from sheers, to velvet, ultra suede, knitted fabric, fleece, tyvek, etc.
Over this, I layered larger scraps of sheers, which had fusible on the back.  (I got an awful mark right in the middle - from not using a baking parchment sheet, but you will see how I fix that later)

Here is a better shot of the sheer layer.  You can see some of the leaves through the sheers.

Next, I outlined the leaves with free motion.

Then added some more over the top and stitched them down, ("randomly" covering the nasty mark) and voila' all done

A collage is born.  I am quite pleased with my quick project and especially all the lovely shiny fabrics.  I intend to do some "quilting as well around the leaves and it will reflect the leaf litter stamps underneath, just not sure which colour, grey, or brown, or.....



Decision, Decisions, Decisions....

Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.  

Author Unknown

Just some journals

A very short blog today.
Although I am busy with several projects at the moment, I only have one that is at a stage where I can show you today.
I also felt it was time to show some finished work - well, almost finished.

Here are five of the entrapped fibre journals - OK, one is fabric paper, I know.
I haven't made up my mind about the edges of a few of them and also some closures.
I have couched around the edges of two and beaded around one.  One has a tie closure and one has a bead/button closure.  One has a tassel and one has decorative loops.
Sometimes choosing how to finish something is the hardest part.  What do you think?
The instructions for making the journal covers can be found here.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.  

Mark Twain

Rust dyeing

Well, now I can say I have tried rust dyeing.
Rust dyeing is one of those things, like gelatin monoprints that you have to prepare for days in advance, which is why I never seem to get around to it.
However, I decided that some rusted fabric might go well with the Tangled Textiles theme "Tools"
So, I had a go and I liked the results.

I used steel wool (which I stole from my other half's polishing cupboard, but you can get it at the hardware, or steel wool scourers at the supermarket, only make sure you wash all the soap out as it will slow the rusting)

• First, I soaked my steel wool in a salt solution for about an hour, then poured the salty water off.
• I left my moist steel wool for a few days in a plastic tray, dampening it with more salty water, when it got dry.
• Don't leave the steel wool laying  in salty water as you will get greenish Iron Chloride instead of orange Iron oxide or rust 
• When the steel wool is falling apart, it is ready to use.  
• To damp cloth, add the rusy material and allow to leach into the fabric overnight, then allow your fabric to dry. 

  

I did not pre soak my fabric in anything, although it is suggested that you soak in soda ash before adding the rust.  (I would have used Alum soaked  fabric which had been dried)  I found that the rust was pretty permanent.

This piece of fabric was totally untreated (just rust dyed) and has been boiled a few times.

This piece of fabric was soaked in a saturated solution of Alum when dry and has also been boiled a few times.  As you can see there is not much difference, really.

This was a treated piece of fabric, like the one above, and now we come to the reason for boiling.  I did an experiment with some wax as well on the last two pieces.  However, I used what I had, just molding wax.  The problem was that the wax did not penetrate the fabric properly and when the fabric was immersed in rust, the wax could not resist properly - there was only wax on one side.  You can see above that the wax did penetrate in a few places where the fabric is white.

As well as this problem, I had trouble getting rid of the wax,  and had to scrape and boil a few times.  I think I will leave my wax experiments until I get hold of some soy wax.

As far as the rust goes, however the experiment was pretty successful and as I like the colour and texture in these fabrics, I will be doing more!

If at first, you don't succeed - try try again.

Hot Stuff Workshop

As I said a few days ago, before I went MIA over the weekend, on Saturday, I went to Neroli Henderson's Hot Stuff Workshop at ATASDA Vic.  It was a great day and we played with lots of bling. Neroli was a great tutor, giving everyone their own creative space, but at the same time explaining things very well.

First we played with tyvek.  we used a wide range of colouring materials to colour it and lots of angelina and other shiny stuff, then shrank it all.

These are my two pieces of tyvek after shrinking.  I used everything in my box, to experiment with how it colours and shrinks: water colour pencils, crayons, oil pastels, shiva sticks, rub ons, but you know what? the best thing to get a lot of colour on was textas!  Also, on looking at other people's work, the lumiere paint worked really well (must get some!).  I think I could get the same effect with texta and a metallic rub on.
After lunch, we got onto making a layered piece with sheers and synthetics which could be burnt with the heat gun.

This was my workspace, a bit of a mess compared to the tidy space opposite me.

Here we all are watching as one of the pieces is transformed with the heat gun.

And another piece.  Every person's work was different and all were interesting to watch as the layers appeared.

Here is the stitching on the back of my piece.

And after we heat gunned it.
I did a little work on it at home, adding a bit of paint.

And this is what it currently looks like.  I felt the leaf with the puff paint - yes, I finally got to use some puff paint - needed some definition.  I also think this piece would do well with a bit of hand embroidery and beading, so you might see it again in a week or two when that is done.

Since I often burn and distress my fabrics, someone asked me why I went to the workshop.  My answer was simply, that you can always learn something new.  And I did learn lots of new things and met lots of new people.
One of the things I have been thinking on since this workshop, is a way I can tweak this technique to use in some of my work.  I have come up with an extension of this that also uses some of my soldered applique method. I am playing with these and will show you soon.

If you don't live and learn, then how do you learn to live?

Bonded fibre film -Angelina

I had intended to blog about the workshop I did today with Neroli Henderson at ATASDA, and I will, but unfortunately, I am away from home for a few days and forgot to bring my card reader with me.  Silly me.  So you will have to wait for that one.  Needless to say it was great and a great group of people.
So, with no more ado, I will instead show you the first of the bonded fibres experiments.  In my categorisation of fibre films, these are the heat method.

As you might have noted, there is one further group after this.  The final type of fibre film at present is making films by manipulating fibre and fabric.  I have updated the Tutorials page so that all the fibre film tutorials up to this one are listed.

So, back to bonded fibre films.  The reason I call this the heat method is that, unlike the glue method, these films require heat to bond.  As fibre artists, we are blessed with a range of heat bonding methods.  Fusible webs, bonding powder, plastics and angelina are a few that come to mind.  My soldering iron applique method fits into this category as well.  This is the method I used to make the rocks in my first challenge piece for tangled textiles
The first one I am going to look at is angelina.

The first and most important thing (other than an iron, of course), is silicone coated paper, release paper, or baking paper as we call it in Oz.  All of these bonding agents could make a mess of your iron, so you need to protect it and your ironing surface as you work.
I usually roll off a large piece and pre fold it in half, so that I can fold it over the top of my layers before I iron

Above, I have spread a very thin layer of angelina on the baking paper (I did have a picture, but you could not see the angelina), then I have laid some threads and fancy yarn scraps over the top of the angelina.  I then laid another fine network of angelina over the top of this - to trap the yarns between.

Here, You can see the top layer of baking paper folded over the fibre layers.

After ironing, the angelina fuses together, trapping the yarns into a fine net.  When ironing these angelina films, I give the film only two or three quick sweeps with the iron.  If you keep the iron on the film too long, it will dull the shine of the angelina fibres.

So that is the basic method:

• a layer of angelina
• a layer of bits
• a layer of angelina
• baking paper
• iron briefly

The film can be stitched through quite easily, and it doesn't take much angelina to make a film.  My personal preference is less is better.  you can always add more if required, but besides thick films not looking as good, they are also harder to stitch.

Here are some pictures of a few samples:

This is the first film with a wide variety of threads and yarns.

This lovely sample trapped some skeleton leaves I found in the garden.

This one uses bits of foil from lolly (candy) wrappers.

This one uses snippets of light lutradur or rainbow spun.  All very shiny!

These are snippets of gold shot organza and crushed velvet.  Great texture.

This, is strips of coloured plastic bags.  The bags also melt and pucker.

And this last sample, the piece de resistance, is silk tops.  Using this method, it is possible to make extremely thin pieces of silk paper which will not fall apart and can be stitched down easily.  There is the added bonus of the sheen of the angelina setting the silk colours off.


Making these films can be addictive, you can use almost anything small and flat and they make lovely additions to art quilts and fibre art pieces.  I like to use them like a mat between a background and a small art piece.  They frame small work beautifully, but they can also be torn or cut up for inclusion in your work.


A little bit of shiny stuff goes a long way and can help to give interest to the focus of your piece. 

Hand Stitching on Tyvek samples

A few posts a go I wrote about creating textures on fabric using tyvek underneath (here).
With most of the samples, I felt they needed some embellishment to pretty them up.  so I have endeavoured to do this and  here are the results.

Here is the first.  If you remember, this was stitched in a grid with some of the squares filled in.  The filled in squares did not shrink.  I stitched around these squares and added a bead in the centre to define them.

For this sample, stitched in a wave and spiral pattern, I couched some machine wrapped cords over the stitched lines.  The green ones have the best contrast.  They all help to make the puffing look wavy.

For this one, I couched around the leaf shape which was heavily stitched and did not shrink.

With this sample, which was stitched in straight lines and created a shirred look, I tried three things.
At the top I have stitched over the stitching lines with a gold thread.
Next, I have couched some machine wrapped cord along the stitching lines.
At the bottom, I have beaded randomly on the stitching lines.
All three look interesting, especially the fact that the embellishments are sometimes hidden and sometimes peep out, but the beading looks the best.

This last sample was the one I liked the most.  Even though I stitched a shell pattern, the puffs created by the tyvek looked diamond shaped, so I couched down gold thread to emphasise the diamonds and beaded each intersection.  It looks very mediaeval.

Sometimes when we experiment with interesting textures and surfaces, we forget that stitch is an important part of the design process which can highlight, define and improve what we have done.
So, when your experiments don't look the way you thought they would, (and do they ever?) think about how you could use stitch to alter them or embellish them.

Even I, who can put 16 bobbins worth into a sixteen inch square of fabric, sometimes neglect stitch in favour of straight texture, but stitch gives textures character.

Add a bit of stitch to your world.

Distressed nonwoven leaves

I have been working on some distressed leaf samples for a few days.
Basically, I gathered a range of non wovens and a few synthetics.
I painted the non woven fabrics.  The synthetics were all coloured.
I free machined two simple leaves on each fabric - a leaf with veins and a leaf without veins.

Then the fun began
I used the soldering iron to put holes in the leaves with veins
I used the heat gun to distress the leaves without veins

And here's what I got

This first sample was a synthetic, crisp, organza type fabric in an olive green.  The holes in the leaveswereeasy to cut, but when I used the heat gun, instead of bubbling or creating holes like most organzas, I got these wierd lines, like one of the warp or weft melted and the other way didn't.  This leads me to think that this is a type of shot organza with two different fibres going in the two directions.  Interesting.

The next sample was a crepe like chiffon fabric.  The hole burned very quickly, so care was needed and the veinless leaf shrank to half.  however there was some puckering in the unstitched fabric,so I cut a leaf from that, too.

This third synthetic was a chiffon, but crisper than the one above.  You can see it behaved in a very similar way.  I  varied the way I made the holes with the soldering iron to see what different effects I could get.

This is a beautiful,  gold  rainbow spun or light Lutradur.  It was easy to cut through with the soldering iron and reacted quickly to the heat gun, making holes inside the stitched area.  You can see on the right, that in unstitched areas, it bubbles.

The next sample was weed mat from the hardware.  This behaves in a very similar way to light lutradur (I suspect it is a form of lutradur sold as weed mat.  It even looks and feels like lutradur)

This sample is tyvek.  My treatment of this sample is slightly different to the others.  All went well with the soldering iron,  but my heat gun is extrememly hot and I know from experience that it will shrivel my tyvek up into nothing.  The unveined leaf was ironed rather than heat gunned.  There is a leaf cut from heat gunned tyvek at the right.  Very dense.

Although this face wipe looks woven, I suspect it is actually needle punched or bonded.  It looks and feels  like other non wovens, so I did a sample.  It burned with diffculty and you can just see some charring around the holes.  It did not melt but burned as you can see in the open leaf, so I suspect that it has some polyester, but also has cotton or other cellulose fibes in it.  It was worth a try.

Here is another type of face wipe, which behaves in exactly the same manner.

This very distressed sample is frost net.  I believe it is what the english call agricultural netting and also that it is very similar to nappy or diaper liner.  It distresses very very easily.  I would use the soldering iron, but not the heat gun - at least not when there are areas bounded by stitch.  You can see how the heat gun dissolved the fabric inside the stitching in the open leaf.  However in areas not bounded by stitch it shrank and frothed up as you can see at right.  I have used it this way to make froth for seaside pieces and it works well.

The final sample is heavy lutradur.  It distresses extremely well and the holes in the open leaf were really easy to make with the heat gun.

So, now I know how all these fabrics react to the soldering iron and the heat gun and I will most definitely be using some of these in my leaf project.

Don't get stressed - distress some synthetics