Feathers, lino cut, fabric printing

So this today's work, feathers this time, I cut 5 different sizes of feather, again all individually so I could play around with the arrangements, I don't love these as much as the mushrooms, but I am pretty happy with them.

 this is on a fairly coarse piece of fabric, so there is a lot of texture with the prints

 This is on yet another piece of fabric that I tie-dyed about 9 years ago...

 Dense print on a fabric that someone gave me, the colour doesn't 'read' very well on screen, it is a kind of lilac

 Close up of the same print

 A totally different arrangement, fading out to grey for the smaller prints (ink was running out!!)

Bookbinding, leather bound gratitude journals

These were a set of journals that I made for christmas presents. I had some crappy leather, bought at a discount from deprova leather..cheap because it was crappy, one surface had a nasty texture, but the back surface was a lovely suede, it also had a nice edge, I cut the covers to take advantage of the raggedy edges of the leather, as  much as I could.

 I stained them pinkish with printer ink as it was thin enough to soak in, without clogging the texture of the suede or making it stiff.

 I glued some sari fabric on the back and then did a stitched binding, adding in a few scrapbooking pages for interest. I decorated the fronts of each one, slightly differently. They were time consuming, so only very close friends got one!

two quilts and a moral

The first of these two quilts, the log cabin, was a top that I had started to piece over twenty years ago, Some of the scraps came from a friend who was then working at a couture house in London, (the queens dressmaker!) and some were just bits and pieces that have been added over the years. In the end I started to really dislike the top, the fabrics were just too scrappy, there was no over all theme, it wasn't well made. But as a result of a craftster challenge I decided to get it finished...Now that it is finished, I don't hate it, but would never part with it as it represents a huge chunk of my life, marriage, divorce, daughter, living in 3 countries, countless house moves etc etc...

the next quilt was much more recent and has a moral. it started life as a coin stack quilt and was intended for a colleauge that had a baby boy, but I realised that they wouldn't really appreciate it and so bought them something instead. So I added to the top intending to make it into a full size one, Not huge, just enough to sit on the top of a double bed...Which I did, but at that stage I was seeing a guy...who loved it, so I gave it to him as part of his christmas present....we broke up about a month later...

the moral is, never give quilts to new boyfriends!...it can be such a waste... lol

Mushrooms, linocut, ...I may be a little obsessed!

Last night was cocktail friday, lychinis (very nice!) which inspired another stab (not literally) at lino cutting, There were no mushrooms in the cocktail, this was just an image that I saw on pinterest and thought I would have a go at trying to reproduce (it is not original!) I cut each mushroom seperately which allowed me to vary the placement.

 I do rather like the red on pinkish tie-dye, the busy pattern comes up as an overall softer feel like this.

 This was a piece of floral fabric that I had knocking around, that I really didn't like much, it was very old fashioned, but the addition of the very dark mushrooms makes it pop, softens the original print and gives almost a 3D feel...love!

 One mushroom missing, giving a more spacy look

This is destined to be a pillowcase cover.

Anatomical hearts lino cut on fabric

My second lino cut, anatomical hearts, Love how this one turned out!

 I tried overprinting red on black, freehanding the registration, I rather like the 3D effect that it gives.

Close up of the hearts on a preprinted piece of fabric

 And on a tyedyed piece. I dyed this one years ago and now the whole thing has a very trippy feel.

Linocut fabric printing flamingos

This is the start of another new obsession, I scored a load of lino from a kind soul on Jumbletown and it lay around for a while until I signed up for a fabric printing swap, so I had a go. My first try was pink flamingos. And I really like it, the flamingo body and beak is hand coloured, printed using speedball screen printing inks for fabric and printed onto some vintage fabric.

 this is the lino block that I used, I don't bother mounting them onto wood as it allows me to position more carefully if I can see where the image is, although subsequent blocks have even more of the excess lino cut away.

I made a bag out of the two types of fabric...!

Art journal,

This was hand bound with coptic stitch, I used some stencils from Ed Roths new book, but most of the writing inside is freehanded, a combination of backgrounds, some linocut prints and scrapbooking papers. And some random images from the web.

I added some envelopes and skinny pages (so new pages can be stuck in) into the binding.

Time to post more on here.

This has been a tough year and not too much crafting has been done, but I have done plenty to start posting more...

so my summertimes resolution is to post the things that I craft!