Blimey - I'm SEWING - like a GIRL!

Working with textiles is something I have wanted to do for a very long time - but simply didn't have the cojones to give it a try.

But, spurred on by some of the lovely fabric pieces arriving for the raffle, I rather impulsively signed up for a pure fabric CJ on UKS a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed that one of their members had dropped out and they needed to fill her space.

There are 12 of us taking part, and so, rather than making a traditional book, I am simply asking each participant to make a 6" x 6" quilted square, and I will assemble them into a patchwork type wall hanging (4 squares by 3) when they come home.

Boy oh boy, though, did I ever feel out of my depth during the making of this piece!

The design was simple (in fact too simple - I wish I had done something a little more adventurous as it feels almost like a Flo-by-numbers composition) - I decided to do something "typically me" - in the hope that the other players will also do something very true to their own styles. So I used my current top colour palette of red, blue and purple - and my favourite Green Pepper Press tree rubber stamp.

But it proved so difficult.

First of all - HOW do you cut fabric straight???? I kept going off course and ruined loads of pieces of material.

Then why doesn't stamping with black neopaque paint work? And, talking of paint, you have to use so much because it absorbs.

And colour wash comes out so much darker than on paper.

Anyway - it's done now, and I am pleased to have overcome my mental blocks about textile arts and given it a go.

A quick how-to. I dyed all the fabrics for the piece (except the brown velour) using Ranger colourwash sprays in denim, cranberry and eggplant. All I did was spray, and let the colour pool and drip in places.

You can see it closer on the back:



Like I said, everything came out a little too dark so I lightened up the fabric used for the centre panel with pearlescent pink and lavender inks sponged through sequin waste, and a bit of silver ink stippled here and there, and I also gave it a good spray with irridescent gold Glimmer Mists, which has given it a lovely sparkle.

Then I attempted to stamp the tree, but it came out really patchy, so I freehanded most of it in with black acrylic paint.

Rusty tin stars were sewn on to the front panel, and little seed beads also. And then I sewed it onto the full front panel and some quilters' wadding.

The chocolate coloured velour fabric at the bottom was cut with a heat tool (the one I use for cutting stencils - it went through the velour like butter), and applied with fabric glue.

Faric certainly is a challenging medium for me to work in - especially as I don't own a sewing machine :) - but I am really looking forward to the next 12 months and making pages / quilts for all the other players. I hope I will have come a long way past this very basic effort by the end of the year.