Yesterday I went along to the ERTF AGM & ‘Take a Look At’ Event held in Kesgrave, Suffolk.
It was nice to see Chris and Gina who were both there and to spend a day with a group who are obviously as passionate about art and textiles as I am. Gina won a well deserved prize for an amazing piece of work she submitted. You can see it here on her blog.
After the AGM business we had a choice of four workshops to attend, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
I was lucky enough to attend the session with Viv of ArtVanGo (the birthday girl) who demonstrated a range of materials to use in textile art. One of the items she showed us was JetFX. Although I have used various methods to transfer images to fabric I have never used this product before. It is really good. It keeps the fabric feeling really soft unlike the plasticy feel of some other transfer mediums and there is an awful lot you can actually do with it.
I shall have a play with this during the week and show my samples on next weeks blog.
I can see I will be using JetFX a lot in the future.

My afternoon session was with Rebecca Ray and called ‘From Inspiration to Finished Piece’. A really interesting session, we were able to look through her sketchbooks and admire the work she created while training with the RSN. Take a look at Rebeccas website here – especially the stumpwork self portrait.

All week I had managed to keep my hands and nails lovely and clean so there was no need to sit on them at the AGM to keep them out of sight – right up until Friday afternoon that is when I decided to have a play with Spirit Soluble Dyes on metal shim. I had trouble pulling the little plastic stopper out of the bottle of blue dye. You can guess the rest.
Once again, this is the first time I have used these dyes but the results I achieved have inspired me to go further with this.
This sample and close up is on copper shim. I used an old biro to emboss through a stencil on the back. Turquoise and Orange applied with a dropper with Methylated Spirits dripped on. This sample and close up is copper foil. I sprinkled some gold metallic powder on while the dye was still wet. This is the best sample of the three but would not play ball when it came to being photographed. It is brass shim. Before applying the dye I laid it over a rubbing plate and rolled a brayer over the top a few times to get a slight indentation on the surface. I then decided to heat the shim from behind once the dye was dry. Not a good idea really. A lot of the colour disappeared and its a good job I was doing it outside as there was a lot of smoky fumes coming off. But they still look quite good. Once again, this one does look the best but still wouldn't photograph properly however hard I tried.
Now the weather is warming up and the sun is out again I have been playing with my most favourite technique of all times - rust dyeing.
More about the unusual background material I have used later, but for now just a few close ups.And take a look at the close up on this one! I have just been reading a novel which involved voodoo dolls – spooky.:)By the way, Kate has opened another round of swapping – ALQS3. Read all about it here. She has re-written the ‘rules’ of the game for this round to suit everyone.
This is my third time and I have not been disappointed at all in the quality of workmanship, the fabrics used or the design and colours of either of the two I have already received, a really great swap to be in.