Photo Friday : Winter

This beautiful piece was made by Maggi Birchenough: this is what she has to say about it.

"The piece was made in response to a competition run on the Popular Patchwork Forum to create something using the 'new' fabric Zeelon. The image is one of my own photos, taken of me on a the beach in Brighton on a lovely sunny winter day. It has always been one of my favourites and I had thought about using it with a poem overlaid but hadn't managed to find the right overlay fabric, until I discovered the lovely transparent  quality of Zeelon. Because I didn't manage to get any Zeelon until a couple of days before Christmas, (having traveled to pick it up from Spunart after their Christmas party!), I was very short of time as the closing date was Dec 31st and I was working all through the Christmas period from 21st - 28th December. This influenced my decision to print the image onto tea bag paper rather than direct to the Evolon base. I was familiar with that method of printing but hadn't done any onto Evolon before and just didn't have time to experiment. I bonded the tea bag paper to the Evolon using acrylic matte medium. The Zeelon was a dream to work with. I gave it a wash of blue acrylic and Koh-i-Noor water based dyes, spray basted it to a piece of printer paper and printed off the poem and the title. I attached the Zeelon layer with straight stitch and French knot embroidery and then added embroidered 'stars' around the figure with a silver metallic thread. I burned away the Zeelon around the figure with a soldering iron.

I was pleased with the way in which the piece came together but would definitely work straight onto Evolon for the base image in the future, especially having seen the effects that you have achieved. I also felt that the contrast where the image was revealed was not particularly obvious. Something to re-think to get a bit more definition in the future.  It is A4 sized and once the idea had been formulated came together very quickly. The aspect that took the longest was writing a suitable poem. It did win the competition incidentally so looks like I'll be popping down the road to Spunart for another order soon."

 

If you have any questions about this piece, please post them here, and Maggi will, I'm sure, respond.  If you want to contact her directly, you can do so here .  Thank you, Maggi...it is a lovely piece of work, and it's great to hear the story behind the making of it.

 

Photo Friday : 'The Magpie' by Angela Huddart

Our first Friday photo is from Angela Huddart, in the UK.  If you have ever bought a pack of C&T Publishing's Lutradur, you will have seen this particular photograph before, as it is on the packaging, a well deserved honour for a lovely piece.  I asked her to tell us a bit about it;

"This is what I call my 'famous' piece!    It is a journal quilt measuring approx 8" x 11" and is based on Monet's painting 'The Magpie'.  I made it by sketching onto plain fabric then covering with a layer of Lutradur.  I thread-painted the gate, magpie, fences and trees, then painted strips of Lutradur dark brown for the trees in the foreground and stitched them in place before zapping with a heat-gun.  For the snow in the foreground I added a layer of scrunched up Lutradur, stitched it in place and zapped it again with the heat-gun.  After sandwiching, adding borders and quilting, the foreground and the sky were lightly brushed with a sparkly paint.

The Lutradur behaved just how I wanted it to - I could paint it, stitch on it and heat zap it.  I wouldn't do anything any different in hindsight.  I'm all for making life easy for myself and this worked for me with results that I liked - thanks to a great product! I loved making it so much I've made another as C&T Publishing have this original. 

I am a member of C&T Publishing's 'Creative Troupe' who occasionally send a 'call-out' for members who are interested in various new products.  When I joined there was a call-out for pieces made from the the new Ultra-Light Lutradur, which they provided.  I had made a couple of fused pieces based on The Magpie and loved how they turned out, so decided to have a go using Lutradur and thread.  The pieces they receive are used as models to demonstrate to retailers what can be achieved by using a particular product.  When it came to producing the packaging for sale to the retailers, they chose this piece as well as four others to be featured - mine just happened to be on the front !"

 

You can see more of Angela's work here,and you can contact her here .

I'm sure if you want to ask her anything about this particular quilt, you can just leave a comment in the box below, and she'll respond.  Thanks, Angela, for being so generous with your time and expertise.

If you would like to have a photograph featured on Photo Friday, please contact me here

 

Polyester? Me? You're Kidding, RIght?

Blue Tree Dreaming : Quilted Lutradur.

...is what I would have said five or six years ago if you had told me that about eighty to ninety percent of my working time as a textile artist would be spent using polyester.  Now, though, that's exactly how I spend my time.  I work with Lutradur, Evolon and now Zeelon, using them for all kinds of things, including creating stitched photographs and multi layered quilts and embroideries.  With my friend and fellow artist Dijanne Cevaal, I wrote 'Lovely Lutradur'; Dijanne was the person who introduced me to spun bonded fabrics, for which I'm profoundly grateful.  A meeting with Mervyn from Spunart introduced me to Evolon; in fact, I stole his only sample... I'm surprised he still speaks to me!  And more recently, Mervyn has introduced me to Zeelon, another spun bonded fabric that has been introduced to textile artists.  It's an exciting time, with so many different cloths from man made fibres to play with!

 

Lost In Translation.  Dyed Lutradur over commercial fabric, heat distressed to show some elements in their original colours.

So why am I starting this blog?  Well, mainly because I want to create a resource for everyone who is using spun bonded fabrics in the art world, and explore the possibilities with you.  I know that every time I go to a quilt group meeting or a show, people tell me that they have got some lutradur, or evolon, or zeelon...or all three... but they have never used it because they don't know quite how to use it.  And that's despite all the books that have been written.  So... think of this blog as an interactive book.  I'll be showing you some step by step projects to make with your fabrics, as well as answering questions you might have about these wonderful fabrics. I'm also hoping to interview other artists who work with these fabrics, so that you can see how different people approach working with these amazing fabrics.  I'm aiming to post here every day, (barring accidents, illness and acts of God, of course), in a very structured way, starting...well, now, really! 

cushions made from Evolon

So...  the week will look roughly like this.

Monday is Inspiration Day.  I'll post something inspirational...a quote, a picture, a question.  I can't think of a better way to get the creative juices going at the start of the week.

Tuesday is for Trying Things Out.  This is the day when we explore actually using the fabrics.

Wednesday is Wondering Day.  Every Wednesday, I will answer a question that YOU have set.  You can email me here and ask me anything you like about these fabrics; how to dye them, how to use them... or ask for advice on a project you're working on.  

Thursday is another Trying Things Out day.

Friday is Photo Day!  Photos of past or ongoing work, mine, yours, anything that is interesting.  Again, you can email me if you would like to have your work featured here; the only proviso is that it must contain at least some of one or more of the spunbonded fabrics.  I will fully credit your work, will link to your blog or website, and will write an article based on the information you give me in a short and simple pre-publication questionnaire.

Saturday and Sunday are Fun Days!  Depending on what has been going on in the week, we could cover any or all these topics...think surprise!

I hope you'll enjoy visiting this blog...please do ask questions, make comments, give me feedback, so I can write stuff that meets YOUR needs.   And today would be a good day to ask questions for this and successive Wednesdays... what's the one thing you would love to know about spun bonded fabrics  (but were afraid to ask)?

Flying Circus.  An Evolon quilt, with both hand and machine stitching.