Shibori showdown

At last today- the best bit about spending all those hours sewing tiny stitches into fabric and then gathering them up... dying and opening the stitching!

I spent yesterday sewing 8 squares for our international fabric swap which is going along great guns with lots of techniques and fabrics travelling round the world. I have also written it up as a tutorial over on my How to- Textiles page if you'd like to see more.

Here are a few typical techniques, straight lines, wavy lines, wraps and sewn circles, etc. Some are sewn with running stitch, others are sewn with a running stitch over a tiny fold which gives a lovely spotty double line.

 

And here's how they turned out... most of them came out beautifully, a couple needed stronger thread so I could pull the gathers tighter, but they still look pretty.Now they're tucked in envelopes ready to fly off, so I'm going to have to do a few more while I've got the dye mixed.

COTTON AND COLLAGE

I have carried on creating my flower embellishments this week, but changed medium... to cotton. A while back I was crocheting wool flowers and butterflies, but as I had just bought some white pearl cotton thread I thought I'd see if it would work small scale.

The lustred cotton is about the same thickness as embroidery skeined thread, and after a few trials with different sized needles I settled on a 2mm. I ended up spending 3 days playing and making a selection of flowers and butterflies... I've just started on hearts. It seems that a wool crochet pattern will translate nicely into a dinky cotton equivalent- great for journals, hats, jewellery, blankets... so many uses!

I chose white because I want to start colouring as required, rather than have to buy a supply of every colour I like  in a wide variety of material... I've done the same for satin ribbon, bulk white in several widths- it's so easy to colour as you need it.

Here are a few of the flowers and butterflies...

A few variations in stitch and pattern will give you a huge range of petals and designs. I'll put a pattern over in the pattern tutorials section

The basic pattern is several rounds worked from a circle of 4 or 5 chains. Any stitch can be used in any combination...that's the fun of it! 

The next thing is to find a use for all your wonderful mini creations.... as it happens I had a project that could use a handful of flowers... see the following post for the finished project. A hearty project...

This white thread is pearlised, mercerised, which means it has been chemically treated and takes dye really well! You can dye with Procion dyes or similar, but I also use something much quicker and just as effective for crafting- alcohol markers such as Sharpies or Promarkers. The colour will naturally run along the fibres so a small amount is recommended to begin with, and you can always spray with neat alcohol or surgical spirit to dilute and blend the colours... have fun experimenting!

Dolly doodles...

Well, not exactly! I've decided to take part in a doll swap over at stitchin fingers, particularly as the theme is Elements... well, the four, at least. Those of you that know me will understand I just couldn't say no - I've been interested and working with the four elements and symbols for years i one form or another, but I've never made Elemental dolls.

True to form, I start from scratch, so having designed the doll look, I went on to creating a set of symbols to use on the fabrics...

This is the first stage, the pen and ink design....

Air

Earth

Fire

Water

                              

I also decided to make a finished panel for each symbol, never one to pass up an excuse to doodle!

 

The others are done in a similar fashion.....

 

The next stages are countless... drop it into Photoshop and play.... colour them in, add a few filters... and come up with a collection of useful symbols...

I hate that my BA lecturer thinks photoshop is not an honest artist tool- so oldschool- it is so versatile, what she doesn't appreciate is that you still need a reasonable depth of knowledge to get what you want, and still have to master the software to create what you want... so what's the difference to using a paintbrush?

So here's the complete set in full colour, but un-enhanced...

I've painted the fabrics for the bodies using fabric paints, here they are, cut and painted, ready to sew together, but I need to find the right leg,arms and face fabrics first...

I've got till the end of June to finish one, but I reckon I'll have the set done as a whole, just too much fun not to!