Rainforest Hanging

Aussie Jo suggested a border of black around the design which I tried out on the computer and I must admit I was tempted to go for this idea.

But I’ve had a short session of dyeing for my quilt which I will call a hanging from now on after a chat with one of my SerenTex friends on the telephone this morning. I had to find out from one of the experts how I should prepare it it for hanging in the exhibition.

These are the colours I dyed.  I just used the top one, a piece of cotton velvet to soak up the left-overs.  They all used Dylon dyes which I’ve had for a long time. I used a mix of three colours starting with the bottom fabric using ‘Ultra Violet’, I then added some Purple Vine to the solution for the second, third and fourth and finally Tulip Red to what was left over. The 2nd and 3rd fabrics were best the 3rd being slightly warmer. I’m still trying to decide which of the two to use.

I think it will be this one which is the warmer of the two with a very narrow binding the same fabric as the circles. Thanks for all your help

Will it be a quilt?

Quilting is not my forte, but this one seems to be turning into a quilt. It’s looking a lot more padded than I had imagined it would, so I have accentuated this by putting extra padding from the inside on all the circles and I quite like the effect, but what do I do next? Do I paint my canvas and stitch the quilt on it or do I add quilted borders to make it into a hanging?

Dark purply fabric, with mustard border. Cream or black. The actual quilted piece is A4 size.

An idea of what it would look like painted.

Rainforest and so on!

My apologies, this post should have gone to the SerenTex blog. this is what comes of witing too many blogs I'm afraid. There is also a new post on Croesew, the North Wales Embroiderers' Guild blog.

As it happens I have just noticed that this is the 1000th post on Digital Gran.

We had a wonderful afternoon at SerenTex and I will share a few snippets with you from our Rainforest exhibition which will be opening at the Ruthin Library, North Wales on May 15th and will be open until 19th June.
 

The images above show some tiny details of the wonderful work that is being prpeared for the exhibition.

The above work will not be shown at the exhibition, but are also to be used shortly, so only some details are shown today.

Here is a group of us doing Gaynor’s workshop this afternoon.

Rosemary working on one of her lovely quilts.

I don’t know where Rosemary finds the time to do all this fantastic work, but I’m always so impressed with the quality and the quantity of work she makes. Today she surprised us all by bringing in one of her journal pages converted to textile and shown above. Isn’ t it wonderful?

Rainforest Project

This is my latest piece of work and my friends at SerenTex thought it was the best of my 3 pieces. Not one has been completed yet and I have lots of decisions to take. What background would suit them? Do I frame them or mount them on canvas?

This project has been fun and I think I will continue to be inspired for a long time to come.

The Rainforest Project

I’m going to an Embroiderers’ guild meeting tonight, so I might not have time to blog when I return.

The first is just about finished and I can take it with me to SerenTex tomorrow afternoon for some last minute advice before I take it to be framed.

The London Marathon

This is a very special post to congratulate a friend of mine, Jenny Seymour for managing to run the whole 26 miles of the London Marathon yesterday and below is a photo of her sitting down with her Medal.

She deserved to sit down a while after all that running. Well done Jenny. You look as fresh as a daisy, but I’m sure you must have been exhausted? I think the longest run she’d done previously was 16 miles. I may be wrong though.

I’m sure it was a very proud moment for her parents Pat and David too!

Jenny raised £1,751.22 for her charity which encourages young people
to learn and enjoy sport. Well done again Jenny! See you next year?

Rainforest design

My rainforest work is still at the design stage I’m afraid, but it might become a series! I’ve cut out all the circles in various sizes and find it very difficult to put them together in a pleasing design.

This is a quick sketch of an idea I had which I quite liked.

 

It was tested with a cut-out in white paper, which I think might work. Photographed and altered to the one on the right in the computer and it just might work.

 

The black and white image on the left is a small part of the original sundew plant converted to black and white, then changed as shown in the middle image with added orangey circles on the right.

I’ll let you know when I decide, but it’s such fun!

Plas Tan y Bwlch

My Rainforest project has had a bit of a rest today, so I thought I’d show you some photos I took at Plas a few weeks ago.

But first one of the images I created while designing for my project.

The stonework in this area is very unusual in colour and also in the way it’s dressed. It also weathers beautifully.

Rainforest circles

 

Here are two pieces of work in progress and they will both be cut up into circles to create the final piece along with another two in very slightly different shades.

I think it’s going to work!

I’ve chosen colours and technique for the background but it’s not been sampled yet.

Sundew circles

I think this is the way my rainforest is going just now.

But I will definitely not be using this colour scheme, nor this arrangement, it's just my inspiration!

Experiments with the Gocco Printer

Today has been a day of experimenting and has been a steep learning curve for me, with a few emails between myself and Liz this morning to help me through. I bought my Gocco Printer some time ago and have been afraid of using it, partly because I thought mistakes could be quite expensive and I’d never used one before. Now I can laugh at myself for being so silly, it is so easy! I bought a good stock of bulbs and screens and who cares if I spoil some of them with my experiments?

As some of you know I am doing a Rainforest project and I have loads of ideas to try out. My experiments with the Gocco Printer are all from this project, on paper and polycotton fabric using 2 screens I prepared. I think I might also make some printing blocks to finish it off. I can use them all to fill a Rainforest Journal perhaps?

For the first experiment I used my machine knitting Mylar pencil, this was used to mark out Mylar design sheets. I was looking for things containing carbon, as this is what is needed to burn a screen with the Gocco. This obviously had no carbon at all in it and there was no trace of the design, but on the same piece of paper I had drawn two of my Sundew shapes using a piece of charcoal and that really worked well. I do have a China pencil somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. The design is not perfect, but can be used.

Experiment 1

The design was printed with black Riso Printing Ink on card and on the right printed on polycotton. There was an extra Sundew shape using the Mylar pencil which of course didn’t work.

Experiment 2

Above left is the original used. These are mostly pieces of paper using different processes. If you look carefully you will notice that 2 shapes are missing and 2 shapes are not very clear. The missing shape bottom left  used Black Computer Refill Ink bought a few years ago, so that doesn’t work. The small shape missing from the top used a Black Sharpie pen, so that doesn’t work.

The large shape is a Staples Photocopy. The one inside it used a cheap Indian Ink bought fairly recently. Bottom right is printed on my HP Photosmart C4400 series and the small ones each side used Carbon paper and were not very clear. The sample above right was the first one printed out on card using a cheap acrylic which was not thick enough and dried too quickly clogging up the screen. I then added a good quality  yellow acrylic from a tube, but didn’t wash the screen, so it was still clogging. I think the effect is still rather pleasing as shown below left and I intend to do something with these.

These on the right are a mix of both on fabric.

I’ve also done some printing from the computer on my own cotton fabric, some ready to print cotton fabric and some T-shirt Transfer paper I had. So today has been very productive if not highly successful, but I don’t think there will be a lot of waste.

Apologies all round!

This morning I will start on my piece for the Rainforest project I'm doing for SerenTex exhibition, so I thought I'd have one more look at my 'rainforest' a Photographic Journey by Thomas Marent
which I highly recommend.

I found to my embarrassment that I have been calling my inspiration a fern all along which it isn't, so I thought I'd let you know what it was. It's a Sundew Carnivorous plant.
When I opened Digital Gran this morning I found that Mags Ramsay had also noticed this and commented on it. Thanks Mags :) We 'Mags', must stick together!

So before I begin working this morning I will backtrack and change my previous posts.
Did  you know I have a Gocco printer which I bought form my friend Liz of Dreaming Spirals? i've had this quite a while and it's as yet unused, but this morning I'm ready to go. I will let you see the results if I have any to share.

Black, white and orange

I need to make something in black, white and orange and this fern 'Sundew' design is going to be rather useful!

'Sundew carniverous plants of the Rainforest

I hadn’t noticed until my friend Sue of  The Magic Armchair Stitcher commented on it, but my ferns are very similar to the design from Plas Tan y Bwlch and Chester that I mentioned here.

I’ve played a lot with the ferns 'Sundew Carniverous Plant' images from the rainforest and am still undecided what form the stitched work will take. I can see many possibilities using a variety of techniques and the only way of solving the problem is to try a few out. I have decided to take a few days to get down to this seriously and I’ve warned everyone that I will not be available!

A few more digital designs to think about.