Sample 1

This sample is one of the pieces I worked for the TAST Feather Stitch. It was covered in tinfoil and painted but the stitches had been worked in a fine thread and did not show up very clearly so I carefully peeled the tinfoil off and painted Pumice Gel Medium directly over the stitches.

When the gel was dry, Quink writing ink was painted over the top.

The photo below shows a close up of the bottom right hand corner where there were obviously some grains of salt left from my previous experiment. When the ink dried it left this effect.

I thought it was the reaction of the ink with the salt so I prepared another piece, painted with gesso then Quink ink and sprinkled with coarse sea salt. Nothing happened!! Maybe it was the reaction of the Pumice Gel Medium with the salt and the ink just highlighted the effect. I shall have to try again as I think it looks really good.

When the ink was dry I used a rubber stamp I had carved some time ago. Painted the stamp with bleach and pressed it on the surface. I then used a bleach pen to lightly brush over the rest of the piece.

What I find amazing is that this stamp is just carved in the outline of a lizard, taken from a painting by Escher. It is totally smooth and yet the bleach effect has made it look like this lizard has two eyes!





I am going to work further into this and actually make it into something, possibly a book cover. I will post photos when I have finished it.

February FAF Fabric Page Swap

I have now received my February FAF Fabric Page Swap from Dianne (Faerydi) and it is fantastic. My theme is ‘Black and White and a Dash of Red’.

I have copied the text from Diannes blog which explains how she made this:

“I painted the black fabric with a patterned sponge roller, sprinkled it with black/silver embossing powder and zapped it with the heat gun. Then I free motioned some grids over the fabric. I then added a frame made out of 1" white squares, which were made out of tissue paper bonded to felt and rubbed some red treasure gold over the tissue paper. The flower in the centre was cut out of the tissue paper fabric and I satin stitched around the edges.”

These are some close up photos to try and give you more idea of how good this is.

Dianne also sent a tag:


And a gorgeous book mark made from the same fabric with yarn and beads.

At the same time, sent separately, was a birthday postcard from Dianne. Once again, this is amazing.
Thanks Dianne – they are all great.

T.A.S.T - Feather Stitch

For T.A.S.T. Feather Stitch, I decided to use the tinfoil, acrylic and salt technique which I used in last weeks challenge.
I worked the first sample on calico using a cotton thread and a thicker silk thread.

This was covered with acrylic gel medium, tinfoil laid on the top, more gel medium, then sprinkled with coarse sea salt.

Acrylic paints in Turquoise Phthalo, Quinacridone Gold and Quinacridone Crimson were used to give the surface a look of metal and rust. I took lots of photos as usual, so have made a collage of some of them. Double click on the pictures to get a better look.

The threads on the first sample were too fine to actually show up under the tin foil so for the next one I used a background of jute scrim with thick cotton cord and silk thread doubled to work the stitches.

Once again this was covered in acrylic gel medium, tinfoil laid on top, more gel medium and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt.

The same paints as above were used, this time with a much better effect. Once the paint was dry I managed to peel off the tinfoil intact and still holding its shape. I have painted gesso over the stitching and will use a different technique to finish off. Will post photos of this later.





For my usual sample of using the same fibre as the background I tried stitching with tinfoil strips on to a tinfoil background. Difficult! Unable to take photo of stitching, too much reflection. I used acrylic gel medium and a pumice gel medium on this sample.

It was then painted using the same acrylic paints as the other two samples.

I should have mentioned last week that this technique is taken from the book ‘Celebrate your Creative Self’ by Mary Todd Beam. This is a brilliant book showing lots of different techniques which you can use with your favourite medium. Highly recommended.

Fiber Art Friends – Fabric Page Swap

This month my Fabric Page is for Dianne, FaeryDi, whose theme is ‘Art Nouveau’.

I made two pages as I couldn’t decide which one Dianne would prefer for her book.
I took my inspiration from this moth mirror.

This is the first one I made and there is no way am I going to get a half decent photo with my skills, because of the reflection from the surface of the fabric.

It is on a backing of Kunin Felt covered with two layers of organza and a layer of net.
I traced the design onto water soluble transfer paper and stitched it through from the back. On a trial run, I was actually stitching from the front but found that however much I tried to dissolve the paper there was still a sticky residue left underneath the machine stitching.

After freehand machine stitching the piece I burnt it through with a soldering iron.

I backed the holes with a gold and a red metallic fabric. I originally made two faces from Sculpey and painted them gold but they seemed very heavy and clumsy so I printed the original design onto transfer paper and used those instead.

The second one is made from several layers of hand dyed scrim. Once again the butterfly pattern was machine stitched from the back and then I machined rows of stitching ready to slash.


I slashed right through the layers for the stripes and just took off the top layer of scrim for the butterfly shape.

And now it's up to Dianne as to which one she would prefer!

More Birthday Postcards and an ATC

Yesterday I was the lucky recipient of three more birthday postcards and an ATC. They are wonderful. Thank you all.

The first one is from SuZ. As usual, the photos do not do the colours justice. The background is a black velvet but because of the FME, Zig Zag stitch and other fibres, looks to be a deep burgundy. The fibres on top have been embellished and then FME over the top. It is certainly a very energetic card.

This card is from Angela. I had seen it on her blog the day before and left a comment and then I received this one! She has called it springtime and it really does remind you of spring. I am surprised that she managed to send it ‘naked’ through the post and yet it still arrived intact.

This one is from Micki. She has trapped fibres, including Angelina Fibres, which shimmer when the light catches them, underneath some net with FME over the top and then machine embroidered lettering on the top. Micki also sent her card as it is.

I also like the way Micki prints the back of the card onto fabric. I must ask her how she does this.

And this ATC is from Doreen in Australia. Doreen has trapped threads under a fine piece of gauze like fabric then worked rows of twin needle stitching which has given even more texture to this piece. She has then finished it off nicely with a gold metal ‘L’.

Take a look at some of the amazing textile work on their blogs.

T.A.S.T. – Algerian Eye Stitch

The fibre on fibre sample I worked for this week is Hessian threads on a Hessian background.

I stitched two samples on calico using a thin and a thick cotton thread.

These were then coated with gesso.

I layered and rubbed back the first one with acrylic paints hoping to get some sort of aged/distressed look...

...but it didn’t work so out came the Quinacridone Crimson followed by Treasure Gold!

The second one I painted with Koh-i-noor dyes. Red first followed by navy then rubbed over with bleach. The first picture shows the effect almost as soon as I put the bleach on and the second picture is after it had dried out.

What I really got excited about though was this technique. It didn’t really work as a sample but I still liked the effect.
I laid a piece of household tin foil over the calico and thick thread sample and rubbed hard to get an impression in the foil. I painted this over with Gel Medium to hold the impression in place and sprinkled coarse sea salt on. You can just see the outline of the stitches in this photo below.

Phthalo Turquoise paint was mixed with a small amount of Quinacridone Crimson and painted over the foil. This was followed by a coat of Quinacridone Gold.

These photos were taken while the paint was still slightly wet, but the effect is the same even when dry. If you double click on the first two photos above you will see a lovely twinkly starry effect caused by the reaction of the salt with the paint - I think!

Maybe the reason the stitches didn't show up better is because the foil is too thin to hold its shape. Next time I will either glue the foil on top of the stitches or perhaps use a craft foil.