A few postcards

It just occurred to me that I haven't written here for, literally, years about the fabric postcards I've been making! I am so used to making them that I just don't think to talk about them here. Of course, they appear on the Fibrecircle blog each time. Mostly, anyway!


This rather weird one included some stamped cloth that I made years ago as a sample for another piece of work, inspired by the standing stones at Filitosa in Corsica. I combined it with frayed  cotton fabric on a painted background.

 

This one was based on a painted background with added colour and stitch.

 

 

This one was made with one of the prints from a playday with Claire early this year. We used compressed sponge to create simple shapes to print from. I added colour to one of my prints with Inktense pencils and embellished it with stitch. It's still a pretty weird looking tree..

 

 

I like to use the postcards to try out stuff and make something different from whatever I'm working on at the time.  So they generally end up different each time.

And when I wasn't dyeing...

... I was making postcards.

I've made two postcards for swapping at Fibrecircle. I really enjoy making this postcard each month, because I usually begin with one of my paint rags. The paint rags are really one-of-a-kind pieces of cloth, mostly cotton, usually given multiple processes. That can mean dyeing, block printing, monotyping, screen printing, painting, resists, deconstructed screen printing, being used as a drop cloth or as a clean up rag. The result is usually very complex.

My first postcard this year was called Faerie: The Bonny Road, a reference to the ballad Thomas the Rhymer, about Thomas of Learmonth. Thomas met the Queen of Faerie and went with her to Faerie. She shows him the "broad road that lies across the lily land", the Path of Wickedness which leads to Hell; "the narrow road, thick beset with thorns and briars" called The Path  of Righteousness leading to heaven, "though after it but few enquire". The third road is "the bonny road that winds about the ferny brae", which they will take to Faerie.


I thought it might be interesting to share the process. I began with a not-quite-square piece of quilters' muslin. It was used as a paint rag back in 2010.





It looked a bit pale and the white was too stark, so I threw it into the wash water after a dyeing session in 2011, to add some colour.






That made it look a bit forest-like, so I filed it away with that in mind.  Then it got used as a paint rag again.






In April 2012, I grabbed it to add as a top layer on a stack of sun-painted fabrics, to hold the top layer of resists in place. I hadn't tried that sandwich method before, so it didn't occur to me that all the colour from the stack beneath would migrate into the top layer of cloth.

 

It was very dark and full of pigment.

I thought about screen printing over it with white Supercover, which has given me good results before. But somehow that didn't happen.

When I was looking for the basis of a postcard, it appealed to me because it had the suggestion of a forest, but the heavy pigment made it misty and vague. I imagined the road to Faerie would be not very clear to human eyes.

I cut a 7in x 5in section from the cloth, tacked it to a Timtex base and began to paint it.  


I added the Timtex at this point, because I intended to add stitch, once I had shaped out the general form, but as I went along, I felt this would be too hard-edged. The painting was mostly adding dark shadows and highlights, to draw out what was already there.



This photo was partway along, when I was still shaping out what was there into a coherent landscape.





Once I had the image the way I liked it, I cut a backing fabric from another piece of cloth. I folded the edges of the front around the Timtex and folded the edges of the backing fabric in. I like to mitre the corners by folding the corners in first, ensuring the edges are at right angles, and then folding the edges into a neat mitre. I hand stitched the edges together with embroidery thread, making a delicate picot edge.

Faerie: the Bonny Road

It doesn't photograph terribly well, but it's just as I imagined it.

My second postcard was inspired by some journal work we did at Fibrecircle last year. We took turns to choose themes and one was Under the Sea. I wanted to look at unusual things under the sea, so I researched the strange creatures in the Marianas Trench and did some sketches in my journal.

On the basis of those, I wanted to create my own sea monster. I was interested in the Kraken. As a child, I was told that the sea monsters mentioned in the bible, that rise from the deep, included the Kraken. I was interested in the way ideas of the Kraken have changed. Nowadays, influenced by Hollywood, we think of the Kraken as a kind of giant squid, but originally it was a Norwegian monster that surfaced from the deep occasionally, fooling sailors into thinking it was an island. I see it as a mammoth creature with a confusing structure, so that when it comes to the surface, it's not immediately clear what it is.

I started out with a paint rag again. This piece of cloth was originally block printed with a stamp lent to me by Erica Spinks, about a decade ago. It was used as a paint rag in the intervening time. It looked a bit unfocused so, in early 2012, I started drawing black lines on it, to add pattern. It finished up looking like this:

I cut off the bottom left hand corner section, which seemed to offer possibilities for my sea monster. I painted a dark blue background because this is a creature of the depths, but you can still see traces of the original textured stamp.

I wanted my Kraken to look enough like an island to fool sailors but also to have some of the scary features of the Marianas Trench creatures; the spikes and teeth that make them look so fearsome. I'm not sure I achieved that, but I like what I did.

I cut a backing and some Timtex and trimmed the front to 6in x 4in. I layered the front, Timtex and backing and held the lot together with paperclips, which works much better than pins for these thick items.

I didn't want the edges to be too neat on this one, because the creature itself is not neat or limited too much by boundaries.  I took two textured yarns and attached them to the edges with a row of satin stitch in machine embroidery thread, and then added another round of satin stitch inside the first.

So that's it. Just a bit of fun, really!

Another great week!

Don’t you just love it when you get up in the morning with a sense of anticipation? I seem to have felt like that a lot lately, because there are so many interesting things I want to get on with. Perhaps it’s the arrival of spring this week?

I finished another postcard to swap at Fibrecircle last time. It’s another in the Forest series, and uses the same techniques as the last one – building up layers of colour using transparent Setacolor paints. I find these postcards totally absorbing to do, but they are rather time-consuming. I don’t think I could imagine making large works this way.

This began life as a section of a piece of cloth, looking like this:

 

I love seeing how these little pieces change over time!

I also had a quick play with discharge dyeing some of the less exciting results of my breakdown printing. There are always a few duds in everything I do and this looks like being an exciting way to improve some of them. It helps that the weather is warmer and I can take smelly things like discharge paste outside. I cut printer paper into random freehand strips and taped them to one of my silk screens, in a pattern vaguely like water ripples or tree bark. I mixed the Thiourea dioxide into some of the goop made with DR33 for breakdown printing and printed the screen onto my dyed fabric with the paste, just as I would with screen printing inks. Then I rolled the fabric into a small parcel and put it in my steamer for 30 minutes. Then I left them to cool down in the steamer for a few hours, while I went about my life, and then rinsed them out with gentle detergent and warm water.

This is the first one before it was discharged…

… and here’s how it looks now…

It’s gone from being a muddy mess, printed before I got the hang of how colour theory worked with breakdown printing, to something really quite interesting.

Here’s the second one before discharging…

… and now…

This one has been improved out of sight too.
Paper stencils seem to work fine for this process. I know from screen printing that you can often get 60 or so prints before the paper starts to disintegrate, which is more than enough to do this process on quite a large amount of fabric.

 I also started another pot of natural dyeing. A branch came down from the ironbark tree outside my house and, because I read somewhere that ironbark leaves will yield orange, I thought I'd give them a try. I’ve dyed a couple of times with the bark, which gives a lovely brown-black colour, especially with ferrous sulphate as a mordant, and once with the leaves and twigs and copper sulphate, which yielded a coppery tan. This time, I used just leaves, which I set to steep in hot water and left outside. After the first day, the colour was pale yellow, but by the third day, the colour was indeed a rich orange. I added a wool scarf to the pot and left it to steep for three more days, but I remembered after the fact that the wool hadn’t been pre-washed.

The colour in the pot wasn’t going any darker, so I put the pot on the burner and very slowly raised the temperature to almost boiling. The colour was a little more intense, but seemed to be going a little more towards brown. So I added some alum as a mordant and left the pot heating until it simmered gently for about half an hour. Then I left the scarf in the pot to cool down overnight. The leaves were left in the pot throughout, because some of them were becoming trapped in the folds of the wool, as I moved the cloth around, and I thought this might lead to interesting colour variations.

The result was a nice colour but alas, not orange.

Disappointing, but it is a nice rich yellow. I may try these leaves with other mordants or even leaving the pot for longer, with other mordants added. Meanwhile, this scarf has lengthwise folds ready to be clamped and redyed, so you'll probably see it again soon.

And still more

And a few other bits and pieces...

Here’s a postcard I made to swap recently.

It’s one of a series I’ve been making on a Forest theme. I mentioned one of this series back here. This one is from the same piece of cloth, but in the centre of the lower half. Here’s how it looked when I cut the cloth apart…

…and here it is, with layers of transparent paint built up on what was there. I didn’t border this one at all, just mounted it on mat board with a fabric backing, slip stitched in place.

I’ve also made some earrings to add to my ever-growing collection. These ones were made with some cute curved floral elements I found in my local bead shop, which were designed for the centre of a necklace.

I liked their curved line for earrings, since I don’t much like earrings that are just a straight line.

The second pair are from a kit I made myself a year or so ago.

I often put together a set of findings and beads that I think will work well together, ready to be made when the right time occurs. I bought the chandelier findings in a pack on special several years ago and I think the blue beads with gold patterning came from Spotlight, in a pack of mixed colours. It’s quite a simple project, but for some reason, it hadn’t reached the top of my pile until now.

The most special thing I’ve made lately is a piece that’s part of a collaborative work for ATASDA’s upcoming exhibition at the Palm House in the Sydney Botanic Gardens, Fragment. We divided an image into sections and each interpreted our section in our own way. The resulting pieces were reassembled into a three-dimensional work.

I really enjoyed making this piece, far more than I usually do. It seemed to be largely devoid of any of the usual anxiety issues I feel when I’m making work for public display. I built up layers of paint and appliqué and stitch, mimicking the layers of plant life in the photo I was given. It was a really fun activity and I’m very happy with the result. If you want to see it with the other works, come and visit the exhibition, from next Thursday, August 16 through until 28th August. It’s open 10-4 every day except for 28th, when it closes at 2pm.

Serigraph Monotypes

.. or breakdown printing, if you prefer! My friend Robyn wanted to have a try, so we spent a day playing with dyes and screens at Easter.

This one was a fragment of a cloth we used as a tablecloth under various messy activities at Fibrecircle last year. It began life as off-white quilters' muslin. This part of the tablecloth looked pretty boring, so, before we cut it apart to share, I threw it in the waste dye bucket after an earlier printing session, which turned it pale blue.

Here's how it looks after printing:

It just looks like a tree, in full autumn splendour, with traces of a house behind it. I'd love to pretend that this was an effect I achieved with planning and purpose, but it's basically serendipity! I think it just needs a little painting and maybe some stitch now, don't you?

I have a real problem with acquiring or making samples. I'm trying hard to use them up but I currently have nearly 200 pieces of cloth, of various sizes, all painted, printed or block printed, often more than once. If I use ten a year, that's 20 years' supply! Friends have suggested it's time to weed out my sample folders and toss ones that I can't see myself using. But I hate to do that, not because I'm unable to throw useless things away! Here's why:

This is one of my paint cleanup rags. It was first photographed for my files in mid 2010, which was probably when it first had some colour added to it. I made a patchwork cushion for the Kambra Challenge, with fabric I block printed and I think I used up the leftover colour on this piece of cloth. It was used as a brush-wiper a few times. Then I grabbed it to wipe off a Shiva paintstik and I ended up with blobs of paintstik in the middle. Not very exciting, is it?

Ever the optimist, I drew lines on it with black pen, which made it look a bit more interesting. But it still had that awkward blob of paintstik right in the middle, which was thick and ugly and would not peel off. I thought of tossing it again then, but it just didn't happen.

Then a month or so ago, I was looking for something to use as the basis of a postcard. I realised I could cut six, 6in x 4in postcards from this cloth, and still miss most of the chunky stuff.

The postcards looked pretty boring, when cut apart, so I started painting. I laid down a transparent wash of colour on all of them, using Setacolor paints - some yellow, some green, some blue, just to unify what was there and see what emerged. Then I began to build up layers, mostly with transparent paint but some small areas of opaques. Here's the first one in progress:

I finished it in time to swap with the Fibrecircle girls last meeting.

It's very stylised but I quite like the way it's turned out. I have a couple more in the works from the same piece of fabric, also forest-themed ones.

Now see, if I'd tossed that fabric as useless, I wouldn't have made those postcards. What's a girl to do?

Treasures

I've been too busy and too crook to blog much lately. I have managed to achieve a few things, though.
I finished my Lost Treasures journal cover for the Fibrecircle challenge. It seemed to be one of those projects that generated interruptions. As soon as I would begin work, the phone or doorbell would ring and that would be that! But now it's finished and I'm very happy with it.

I've also been knitting madly. No photos yet, but I have finished knitting my daughter a duffle cost, and I've almost finished blocking it, which seems to have taken as long as the knitting! Once I do that, I can sew it together and take a photo before I give it to her. I've also almost finished my long cardigan in Bendigo Woollen Mills' Highland yarn. Just have to finish the second front and the back. I was knitting them in tandem to be sure I had enough yarn. I seem to have had plenty, even though it's quite a long cardigan.

I've also made some postcards:

Major work, it isn't, but it's enough for now!

Some generous friends...

... sent me these lovely postcards before I went overseas. They knew I was way too busy to make any myself, but they sent me some anyway. How nice is that! The theme was Share a Cuppa, because we are nearly all a long way apart and a virtual cuppa is all we get to share. Thank you all!

This one is from Kaite, who initiated the swap: Isn't it brilliant? Thanks Kaite.

This one is from Prue, whose great love is her garden: It really makes me feel like I am sitting in her garden, sharing a lovely afternoon tea!

This one is from Rory: This one has a very garden-y feel too, doesn't it? Love those colours.

This one is from Pamela: We must all be mad gardeners, mustn't we? Pamela has even added some embroidered flowers.

Finally, this one is from Di: Isn't it elegant? And so very English - I love it!

I've finally found a moment to make some postcards in reply.
These will be wending their way to their new owners early next week.

Beautiful postcards

These postcards arrived today from Carol today. Aren't they absolutely gorgeous? She is so clever. If you haven't been to see her work, I really urge you to have a look. She makes such beautiful things and she is so generous with her skills.


Looking at these works, made on the other side of the planet by someone I've never met in person, I can't help but think how lucky we are to have this medium to communicate about our work. I've "met" so many wonderful warm talented people, who are so generous with their skills and talents. It just blows me away.

Attending to Details

I've been rather quiet lately, but mostly because I've been attending to details on works I've already done the fun part on. I always find the finishing off really tedious!

I finished off two postcards, with two more to come. Instead of satin stitching them I thought I'd try a really neat binding that I saw on one of Erica's swapped ATCs. I forget who made that ATC so I can't credit her more directly, but I think it may have been Ellie Neil. Like most things, it was a little trickier than it seemed but I really like the effect. It's done like a traditional quilt binding, but the back edge is left raw, so it isn't as bulky as a traditional binding.

I cut 3/4in strips for my bindings, but that mostly because I had text on the back of the cards that I didn't want to obscure. I think 1in might be better. I cut mine along the straight grain of the fabric but I soon realised that bias strips would be way better, because they don't fray!
You stitch the binding onto the front of the postcards, right sides together, mitring the corners. I used an 1/8in seam, as I wanted the edge to be barely there.
Then you turn the binding to the back, and glue the raw edge in place. I used PVA but you could use something more temporary. This is the rock upon which I founder, because glue and I are not good friends. Glue always seems to want to escape my tender ministrations in all directions, even using an applicator and being really, really careful. But if you don't have my love-hate relationship with glue, you won't have any problems here.
Once the back is bonded into place, you free motion stitch over the binding. I used a zigzag motion on one postcard, like the ATC, and a pattern of little circles on the other. You could also use a programmed stitch on your machine.

This is the back of the Heartland postcard:

and a close up of the binding at the front and back:



This is the stitching on the Byzantium postcard:



I had thought I might finish Rites of Passage this way too, but I don't trust myself with the gluepot! It's having a more traditional binding. I may stitch over the binding, just haven't decided yet. But no glue!

Byzantium Postcard finished

I left it too late last night to post this, but I did finish the postcard. I added some gold paint, in the deeper parts of the relief, where gold paint might have survived the centuries. I still need to back and stitch the edges, to make it into a formal postcard, but that's just presentation stuff. As always orange is hard to photograph. It's not quite this dark so the gold doesn't show up in quite as much contrast.

Byzantium postcard

When I washed off the soluble paper, this is what the stitched surface looked like. I chose the deep orange because that colour is the background on a couple of Byzantine icons I really liked.

I used the soldering iron to distress the surface fabric. I had hoped it would melt and allow the brown underneath fabric to show through. But it didn't quite go to plan. The weft fabrics melted but the warp ones didn't. They happen to be vertical on the postcard, so it gave me an interesting worn fabric look. I actually quite like it, as it makes the textile look worn but it wasn't actually the look I was aiming for. I chose the high areas of the surface, as being the ones most likely to show wear.