I’m in the middle of making a ‘rusty’ journal using the pieces I have made with my mystery fabric and wanted to use some text at the front of the book. So I took the definition of rust from the dictionary, made a Thermofax screen and used an oxide red acrylic paint to transfer the text to the page.
I also used the screen to print onto a rusty background. This one is acrylic paint.And this one is Metallic Iron Paint with a Rust Activator over the top – but it didn’t work. I think maybe the fabric used is too porous.
Last year at Ally Pally I was very taken with this piece of work by Sally Paton in the students exhibition and had been meaning to try using text on fabric with Xpandaprint.So I then decided to use Xpandaprint through the screen. I have a few ideas in mind and thought I would play around first to see what effects I could get.
This first one shows white Xpandaprint on a rusty background after it has been heated. The close up shows more clearly the Xpandaprint standing proud of the surface.I wanted coloured Xpandaprint but am not quite sure how to do this without it affecting the qualities. This sample has been mixed with acrylic paints – from a tube. The mixture was slightly runny – I wonder if the heavy body acrylics would work better. The colour does of course come up much lighter as I only used a very small amount.The next idea was to use fabric paints. I didn’t have the colours I would have liked so mixed some yellow with black and added a small amount of gold metallic. This time I mixed the paints first before using some of the mixture to slowly add to the Xpandaprint. I was only using a small amount of Xpandaprint at a time as not only is it far too expensive to waste but it needs to be worked with quite quickly.Then I got to wondering if perhaps I would get a darker colour with a powdered dye without it affecting the consistency of the Xpandaprint. I used Brusho powder but strangely enough the mixture went very runny – maybe it is the actual mixing process that makes this happen.This wasn’t very successful at all. The screen slipped and when heated the Xpandaprint text just merged together in places. For this next sample I mixed some disperse dye thickener (Manutex?) in with the Xpandaprint and Brusho – and at last I seemed to be getting somewhere. This print is on duck cotton. Seems to work well as the surface isn’t so porous.The next one is also a duck cotton background but it has been coated with white acrylic. The screen slipped all over the place on this one. I haven’t been mounting my experimental Thermofax screens in a frame, just using duck tape around the edges as per the Clare Fenton DVD.
I decided to paint over this one – spur of the moment, so not so good. I know I could get texture by using a stencil and even using a different product i.e. molding paste but with the screens the edges appear a lot sharper, especially with text. Obviously, I wouldn’t bother to colour the Xpandaprint if I were going to paint over it.And this is the crow stencil I used on the painted hanging I showed recently.Definitely a process that is worth investigating further.
But this here is more like what I have in mind.
Screened on to a layer of rusted scrim placed on a rusted cotton fabric.And what also appealed to me was when heating the Xpandaprint I had a mini-bonfire in the workroom – results here:I shall try again with this but making the text at least twice the size it is at the moment which I think will help to get more definition. I think too, that although the scrim was lying relatively flat it may have benefited from being hooped before printing.

**STOP PRESS**

Sorry, not a proper blog entry as such, just wanted to point you in the direction of the d4Daisy site where you can read all about the fantastic giveaways that are happening with the book launch on Tuesday June 30th.
The book looks amazing. Maggie, Micheal, Liz and Drew have worked really hard and the results are fantastic.
To all of the 300 or so textile enthusiasts that have taken the Fibre in-Form workshop to date, I just wanted to say if you enjoyed the course then you will love the book. Lots of fresh ideas and plenty of ‘eye candy’.
Carol had a promotional table at her local Embroiderers Guild on Monday evening which went really well. She was showing some samples she had created based on the ideas from the book which everyone loved. Take a look at Mags blog to see Carol in action.
And just remember, as with the workshop, once the book is released if you have anything you want to ask either of us then you know where we are.
Enjoy!

Hooray! Back online at last.
PC was playing up all week, constantly crashing and sometimes wouldn’t even turn on so have spent most of the weekend moving all my folders on to a spare hard drive then formatting the computer. But the bit that takes the time is then reloading all the software and hardware, configuring it all and sorting out the conflicts.
And you know why? Because this one is now just over a year old and of course, I didn’t take out extra cover. This always seems to happen to me, washing machine, tumble dryer and even the toaster. A Kitchen Aid one, two year warranty, one week after the warranty runs out and it just won’t work anymore.
Its vacuum cleaners I get through the most though. Have lost count of the number I have had in the years I have been married. With my mum it’s kettles, with my daughter its irons. Are we just a weird family or do others have certain appliances that they seem to need to replace more often than is necessary?
Anyway, waffling on a bit here as per. Didn’t seem to achieve a lot this weekend. Weather started out quite nice so I thought I would have a go at the Caustic Soda Dyeing with my ‘mystery’ fabric.
Unfortunately the weather changed as the pieces were drying so all had to be moved into the garage. I have found that the best results are obtained when the weather is really hot and sunny, tends to dry the fabric out quicker allowing the immediate colours to remain rather than turn a rusty brown all over.
I did get a few good results though as I put some of the dryer ones into the tumble dryer – not to be recommended though, it needed scrubbing out afterwards. Possibly one of the reasons why appliances don’t seem to last me for long. :)I made a bit of a change to the original ‘recipe’. I kept the teabags separate from the Caustic Soda and I also put table salt in the mix. I left the fabric to soak in this, probably for about twenty minutes before dipping in the other two mixtures.
Started to work with some of the pieces and this is a close up and several closer still photos of the piece in its early stages i.e. unfinished!And I just had to show you this photo. Thought I would do some embossing but run out of clear so added some Pirates Gold to the melting pot. This is how it looked when I was mixing it once it had melted - photo taken looking down into the pot.Would have looked good if it came out like that on the pieces I embossed, but of course, it didn’t.

Two non-contenders for the ALQS3 swap.
Don’t you just hate it when you waste most of the weekend doing something that hasn’t quite worked?
This is the first one:Very dull and boring and very little stitch either!

And the second one just wasn’t right from the offset. Don’t really know why I persevered as I had no intention of submitting it but I wanted to try something out with this one – and in the end I’m glad I did.
I knew it wouldn’t be going anywhere once I put the layer of gesso on as the fabric lifted and puckered right in the centre and there would have been no way to disguise it.
You can get away with a lot of mishaps with a coat of acrylic paint, but not this time.
Reluctant to show the whole piece as it is just far too ‘busy’ – but would like to share the close ups.
I really like the colours I ended up with and the design reminded me of something industrial, machinery, cogs (rusty, of course) etc.
I Thermofax printed the cogs with heavy body black acrylic into the circles. My laser printer has run out of yellow and because of that it won’t even print in black. So I used a Koh-I-Nor charcoal pencil to fill in the shape before I run it through the machine – and it worked perfectly. (That tip thanks to Guenther
here.) I then painted on Metallic Iron paint and when that was dry spritzed it with Rust Activator.





Just as a by-the-by. I bought the HP Laser printer, new, several months ago for around £130. It has four toner cartridges. A well know PC store wants £85 just to replace the yellow cartridge alone!!!
And there was me thinking I had got a bargain. I might just as well buy another printer.
I shall order online where I know I can get the toners for far less than that.

This week I have been working on some pieces for the ALQS3 swap organised by Kate.
I prefer to work on more than one piece at a time and then decide at the end which one I like best. I shall show the others as I go along.
This then, is contender number one. The wording at the bottom of the hanging says 'Folklore says a crow with red thread foretells fire'.
Take a look at the close ups at the bottom of this post to get a better idea of the detail.

For those of you who I know are interested in where my design ideas/inspiration comes from, read on.
I sandwiched a piece of cotton duck with recycled blanket and medium weight calico. I originally intended to create an abstract piece and for want of a better idea, machine stitched some wavy lines and a circle. Gesso was applied with scrim and molding paste was added in places on top. The raised circles above the wavy lines were made by pushing the lid of an ink bottle into the wet molding paste. This was followed by layers of several different colour acrylics – in all my usual colours of course. :)
When I had finished I felt it looked vaguely like a fiery landscape scene. I decided it needed a focal point and was just going to work some hand stitching on the surface. But anything for an easy life, I thought I would try a Thermofax screen print of a silhouette of something, possibly a flock of birds going along the top. After much thought the print turned into just the one crow as I was reminded of various country sayings that my uncle, a farmer, used to constantly regale us with as children, and the crow plus red thread one seemed perfect.
I used heavy body black acrylic for the print. Because of the raised edges of the circle the print just skimmed the surface so I had to fill the dipped parts in using a brush. The wording was printed on to dressmaking tissue paper using a laser printer and adhered to a scrap piece of gesso and painted cotton duck with Polymer Medium before being attached to the surface of the hanging. The entire surface was then given a further two coats of Polymer Medium.
This piece evolved as it went along, which is how I usually work – it used to drive my C&G tutor nuts!

I was quite taken with the way the Micaceous Iron Oxide paint just sat on the surface of some of these fabrics and decided to see what I could do with them.
The subject matter is irrelevant – I just wanted to use the samples I had made with my practise run on the Thermofax.
This first one is the print I did on the pre-coloured Tyvek paper. I zapped it with the heat gun to within an inch of its life! The outline of the print still sparkles when the light catches it. This piece is probably a bit too solid to integrate it into a larger piece with stitch.On this one a thermofax printed piece of organza has been placed over printed Tyvek paper. It was then freehand machine stitched in a circular motion all the way around the outside of the shape before zapping with a heat gun.I put a close up of this one in to Photo Shop and started playing around with the filters. I could play all day with this – it often gives me other ideas of what to do.I particularly like these two:This is black organza, zapped and then placed over a white background for the photo.The base of this one is the rusty stencil on top of rusted polyester fabric. I transfer painted a sheet of Lutradur using a brown transfer paint, placed it on top of the stencil and zapped with a heat gun.These will go in my techniques library ready to explore again when I find a more suitable subject.

Two bits of luckiness (?) this weekend.
Firstly, I won the lottery - well £10, but even that's better than a kick up the bum. :)
And secondly, I have been given this on 'permanent loan'. Isn't she a beast?Its an industrial twin needle machine which has been used for sewing air bags (safety mattresses) used on building sites.
It will sew through virtually any really heavy material. I could even sew my own marquis now. *LOL*
I shall have fun with this - once its been cleaned and oiled and converted to a single needle machine. It's staying in the garage for the time being though as it needs two strong men to lift it and I doubt if the floor in my workroom could take it.

I was fiddling around with this today: It's Lutradur with three different treatments followed by FME. Something different for me again. Spunart have recently bought out a new Lutradur weight - Heavyweight XL. Lots of possibilities with this, well worth playing with.

And I bet you can't guess what this is? Obviously, its been through the pleating machine, but I think you may be hard put to tell what the fabric is.
I'm meeting Pearl tomorrow, all the way from Oz. She's a friend of Doreens, they live close by. Pearl is staying with her Aunt in Colchester and we originally planned to meet up as she wanted a signed copy of the book - or maybe she just wanted to save on postage. *LOL*
And speaking of the book, I have just seen the draft of the final section - it's brilliant. You're going to love some of the techniques you see in there.