Textile Day

We had an interesting day with gelitine plate printing. We started with thick paint on the plate and using paper to take off a layer or two to get to a beautiful mix of paint and using decals we printed 3 or 4 prints to get a series of images. From the photos you can see the stages in the progression of prints. Some beautiful images from all. We had a fun time doing these.

Sunshine Beach High

Year 11 Bag Photo's

Well Done

I can't believe its starting to get cool in the evenings. Its gone so fast. I haven't got my winter gear out yet.

I have dyed some beautiful rainbows and wanted to share what I've been doing. The packs of fat 1/8's are great in the all sorts of projects but I've put them into an embroidery applique and they look fantastic.

I have the photos from the Sunshine Beach year 11's and they are great. I'm am so proud of them having a go at some of the techiniques. We did fabric painting on the first day and the girls then used these technique to design their fabric and on the second day I showed them surface design, free machining, crayons, stamping and stencilling etc. These are some of their finished bags. Beautiful.

summer 2011

Hi everyone, I have started off this year in hibernation at home with my own projects and have had the usual things going on with all my kids and the cat Rusty has been to the vet with a broken knee. How this happened we don't know. I think he fell off the verandah. He is hopping around the house and sleeping on Kyle's bed to recover. Simba (dog)had to get into the action as well and she went to the vet with sore eyes. I taught year 11 Home Ec girls 2 lessons on dying and embellishment. What a great bunch of girls. They have a lot of talent and I loved their finished dyed fabric. I am looking forward to seeing their finished bags. I hope to have some photos soon from Ms Fitz. I'm currently working on a machine embroidery piece with the use of the Go Cutter from work and it is magic to cut out all your applique shapes. So I'm having fun with something different. I'm also working on a mixed media piece Paris. New classes for this year are in process at Kimz Sewing and Patchwork on the Sunshine Coast please send me an email or contact Kimz. Fabric Painting and dying and mixed media are coming up soon. Michelle

Beautiful Poppy Projects

I want to share some of the beautiful work done by some of my students in this workshop. The larger poppy was done by Alwyn Bowyer, orange poppies by Esther Strelan. Esther's will be updated when finished.

The smaller poppies are by Margaret Coombs and this is not finished. Margaret has had some painting experience and this piece will be updated when finished.

Beaftiful Poppies

The Beautiful Poppies workshops are going really well with a lot of enthusiasm from everyone who is joining in. Using a combination of mixed media to achieve this look, we start with building up layers with texture medium, fabric decoupage to apply serviettes and rice papers to a painted background. Once I have achieved the image I use free machining to give texture and interest to the piece. I am amazed at the variation and watching the creativity come from each student. Using different serviettes and backgrounds give these pieces individuality.
This is a great workshop to try different mediums and techniques.

TWISTIE DYING

Our last dyeing day was an experimental day with a new product -Drimarene dye. These dyes are designed to use less water when rinsing and when mixed with not deteriorate or loose colour intensitity. On the same day we also used sun dyes with twisted fabric to create beautiful colours. We tried fabric around large rope with string to hold it then applied paint/dye and left it until the colours had migrated. We then used pvc pipe and roushed the fabric on the pipe. Other techniques were with marbles and rubber bands. I was amazed with the range of different effects and everyone's was unique.

Flower Garden

I recently held a workshop - Flower Garden- photo on right. The students dyed there backgrounds and then free machining the design into the background and then using ink tense pencils and water soluble crayons to colour the flowers. Some students used different colours and some changed their designs which I encourage in my workshops to bring out that creativity that is in all of us.

I then went back into the background with more free machining to embellish the ferns and give more texture to the overall finish. Hot fix crystals add a beautiful finish.

The closer photo here on the right is Linn Dixon's finished version with beautiful magical effects. I love the way the colours have blended in the background. Lyn added mushrooms and a Honey eater at the top.