It is interesting to see just how a different value scheme can affect the look of the sketch.

This is my original design made following the instructions in the article.

I transferred the design to freezer paper, cut out the right bits (not as easy as you might think – to cut out the correct pieces I mean) and then ironed it all onto the back of my frame:

Freezer paper is good for designs with floating bits like mine, but it’s quite a faff to get them ironed on – mine even went wrinkly on the frame as you can see, but that didn’t have negative effects on the printing, which surprised me.
These are printed using Jacquard Professional printing ink. This was my second attempt using the Jacquard ink. I used it for the first torn newspaper prints and found it a bit hard to use, being quite thick. After a bit of practice with thinner fabric paint I went back to it and found it easier to use.

The yellow background fabric might be familiar to some of you – even more use for the remains of an old bed sheet – I needed something quickly to do some more prints and it was to hand!

My conclusion for freezer paper stencils – good for some designs, but be sure it’s worth the effort.

My final printing results from the weekend were made using a plastic document sleeve. I didn’t have any tacky back (contact paper) or Mask-Ease so I used what I had in the house and fixed the plastic to the frame with masking tape. The design is hacked together from parts of a design from a much bigger stencil meant for stencilling walls Here I was using the Jacquard printing ink in yellow. The first one the frame moved a bit before I did the second pass so that it is a double image. Then I did another one and added some of the blue/purple leftovers of fabric paint using my finger and finally the whole lot got mixed up again in the last image.

This was one of my favourite results from the whole session over the weekend:

I like the idea of adding a bit of colour with your finger – but you only get to do this once unless you wash the screen between each print. Once the colours start mixing as in my final print above then the effect of finger blending is lost.

Another thing I learnt is that it is probably best to buy more colours of paint or ink for printing – I only bought red, blue, yellow and white, because I do all my dyeing with red, blue and yellow and I hadn’t realised that you can return the surplus ink to the pots – not such a good idea when you’ve been playing at mixing. I have a weird collection of tubs with cling film lids right now.

I’m looking forward to seeing what we get up to next week.

The first stencil was made by tearing shapes out of newspaper.

These are my very first ever screenprints using Jacquard Professional screen printing ink. I didn’t get on well with this ink to begin with – it is quite thick and I found it hard to get a good print, as you can see.

My next attempt was with another newspaper stencil. I just draw some shapes on the paper, inspired by the pattern on the T-shirt I was wearing at the time and cut them out with a craft knife.

These were printed using Setacolor opaque fabric paint. This is runnier and was easier to use for my baby steps. I got 6 good prints and could have gone on with more. I was amazed at how robust the newspaper stencils are.

And here is a larger image of my favourite print, in fact the first one I made before the paint started mixing.

Newspaper stencils are great for a quick one off print. They are amazingly robust. I could have got even more prints from the stencil, but I wanted to move on the next method.

The first stencils produce a positive image. In other words you print the image that you design and the background remains as is. We were supposed to do some negative printing with found objects. I didn’t have any found object that was thin enough, so I made another newspaper stencil. I reused a design that I had created for an activity on my C&G course. Here is the stencil:

And here are the prints I made using a mixture of yellow Jacquard screen printing ink and the mixed up remains of the Setacolor paint from the previous prints – a bluey purple diluted down with some white Setacolor paint. Here you can see my problem that I don’t get such good printing out to the edges of the frame. I have a squeegee that fits exactly into the frame across the narrower edge and I don’t get enough pressure on the edges. Still it produces some quite interesting effects. Uses a large amount of ink though.

I have been playing around with it in Photoshop Elements. One of the things I often do is convert the image to black and white. Then I play around with the various filters until I find something I like. I’m by no means an expert user, but you can’t do much damage if you don’t save the changes you’ve made to the original photo. One of the filters I like is posterize. I first learnt about this at a course I took at Quilt University – Realistic Fabric Portraits. You can choose how much you want to simply the image by varying the number of levels. The lower the number the less detail you get and the more simplified the resulting image will be. This is the result of posterizing the original with 4 levels. I’m not sure now if it was black and white and then posterized or the other way round. I suspect that the posterized image was converted to black and white.

Another filter that is sometimes useful is to find the edges – either accented edges or poster edges. This image was created by applying the poster edges filter to the original and then just printing it in black and white. If you don’t want to be bothered converting to black and white, printing is the easy option.

These two images gave me a starting point to get into the studio and start playing with fabric.

Finished once

The offending piece

This morning my eyes were still misbehaving, so I had to bite the bullet and take out the offending piece and add a new one that was less distracting. I can’t understand why I didn’t spot it before, but I suppose the white gaps didn’t help and also, of course, the black was missing. Although the original piece did have some texture to it, it didn’t show up from afar and the colour was too flat as well as too dark.

This shows the new improved quilt top. I know that there are bits around the black, which are a bit jaggedy too, but I didn’t want a completely prefect blend. I felt that would be a bit too bland. I like the slight imperfections. Around the black they are not too distracting and do not draw the eye too far away from the focal point. As they are balanced on each side the eye tends to flit backwards and forwards and so remains in the right area. That’s my theory anyway and I’m sticking to it (for now!).

Finished twice

Problem solved

To attach the black circle I first drew a circle the correct size on some freezer paper and then ironed the cut out template onto the black fabric and cut around with a generous seam allowance. After clipping out little triangles all around the circle in the seam allowance, I pressed the allowance back over the paper template. With the template still attached I centred the circle from the wrong side of the quilt top, with the circle underneath, and pinned it in place. From the right side I hand sewed it in place using stab stitch like in needle-turn appliqué, adjusting where necessary to get the best placement. (Another good reason not to start faffing about getting fussy about the colours near the focal point ) When all was sewn and pressed I removed the freezer paper and voilà an almost perfect circle that I could not have achieved with machine piecing. Sometimes hand sewing is unavoidable.

I used my half scale painting to trace pattern pieces for sampling. I took an area from the top left corner and traced it onto dressmaker’s tissue paper

and used the following 3 different techniques.
1) Using iron-on interfacing as the template, which remains on the fabric and becomes part of the finished product.

2) Using freezer paper as the template, which is removed after sewing.

3) Using a dressmaker’s wheel and tracing paper to trace the sewing lines.

I used blue carbon paper here to show up in the photo. Usually I would use yellow on light fabrics and white or yellow on dark fabrics.

On the finished sample the top three rows were made with method 1, the next 3 rows with method 2 and the bottom 3 rows with method 3.

I didn’t like using freezer paper. I think it works well with straight edges, but was no good on the curves. The fabric was too stiff to be able to manipulate it properly to sew the curves and it kept coming away from the fabric with too much bending and twisting. Iron-on interfacing works well and gives accurate results. I use the lightest weight you can buy, so it doesn’t add any bulk and the fabric still handles well.

However for speed of working you can’t beat using dressmaker’s wheel and carbon paper. Just pin the pattern pieces to the fabric, trace round and away you go. The results are as accurate as using the iron-on interfacing, if you take care with the tracing. With the other two methods you have an extra step, transferring the tissue paper pattern onto the interfacing or the freezer paper. And you have to remember to reverse the pattern too, or else you end up making the mirror image of your design.

The most important step is to make the original templates with dressmakers tissue accurately and numbering them. And then marking the top of each piece before you cut them apart! That’s what all those little arrows are about.

So I think I shall go with method 3 for construction. (Suprise, surprise )

The second productive thing I did was dyeing 16 pieces of fabric for the wallhanging. I’ve just given them a spin the the washing machine after all the rinsing and the fabric is hanging up to dry. As the colours will get even lighter when dry, I don’t think I’ve hit the right shade of browns. I may have to go with commercially dyed fabric for that. I find it hard to get a good dark brown. Despite having mostly black dye powder in the mix, it all seems to have washed out. But then black is a tricky colour to get good results with. The browns will be a useful addition to the stash – the paler end of the gradation has produced some nice pinks and lavenders!

The other colours are looking good. I shall decide when they are dried whether I shall over-dye any of them with shibori techniques as I originally planned, or whether I think they are fine as they are. I had to squash some into large yoghurt pots so there is quite a bit of mottling that may well be enough on its own.

I’ll post some photos, when they are dry and ironed.

I decided on my source of inspiration and drew a number of small sketches. This weekend I have made a full size cartoon of the one I’ve chosen to make up as a quilt. It took much longer than I thought. First of all I used a grid to enlarge the small sketch into a full size rough. When it was up to full size it became apparent that some tweaking was going to be necessary. Having done all this I then went over the finished design with a black gel pen so that it was easy to see. I still need to do a half size cartoon to try out the colour scheme. I wasn’t feeling too motivated this weekend. It was quite nice weather and it seemed too good to spend all the time indoors. So I haven’t made as much progress as I should have, but hey this is my life and this C&G course is supposed to be a hobby not a prison sentence

Here is my full sized cartoon. Any ideas as to what it represents?

The cosy will be the classic shape for a tea cosy that completely covers the tea pot (I don’t like the ones that have the handle and spout sticking out). So it will be shaped like a slightly flattened half circle and have two distinct sides to it rather than being more of a cylinder shape. This being the result of intending to cover the handle and spout. I’ve sketched the design for both sides of the tea cosy:

I also did some experimenting with brown paper to be sure that the tea pot was going to fit in the cosy with enough ease to get it on and off without a fight, but to be a reasonably snug fit. I found this useful link on Rusty Bobbin’s web site, which helped with making the pattern.

And I’ve pulled out all the fabric and thread that I think I may use in the making. This photo showing about half of it

I’ve watched it all the way through once and then dipped into parts again. It is well worth the money I paid for it. Each chapter starts with a sequence where Akira talks about her own doll-making and then you move into the tutorial part, which is really well filmed so that you can see exactly what it going on. There are lots of good tips in there, like using hemostats (artery clamps) for getting stuffing into awkward places. And you get to see lots of the wonderful dolls that she makes.