the day
didn`t start too well, when the train pulled into the station it had 2 broken windows and was packed,I did manage to find a seat with a carriage full of welsh football supporters on their way to
Doncaster! All knocking back can after can of lager and effing and blinding at the top of there voices all this at eight in the morning.When
Madi got on at
Cheltenham there was hardly any standing room left,I had
prebooked my ticket and so had the football fans so why
hadn`t British rail put on another carriage.I asked one of the fans what time they would be coming back and he had a little smile as he knew what I was getting at but no way did we want to be on the return journey with them .What is still puzzling me now is they put all their empty cans into a black bin bag,had they brought it with them or had the guard given it to them?the tidy behaviour
didn`t go with the rest of them, mind you we all had to step over the bag to get
off the train .But the great sights waiting for us made it well worth while.
This is the work of Dorothy Caldwell, impressive if a little sombre.
These are details from quilts made by Jacqueline Heinz the colours are much brighter in real life and her colour combinations were superb the one on the left should be a limey green.She had sold a lot of her work and it was very reasonable about 500.00 for a quilt with hours of work in it, hers were definitely my favourite
Details taken from some of the quilts on display
the pink and the black were so tactile.
I have wanted a play with a
thermofax image for a while,so to find a stand at
FOQ was a treat,I bought this image of a feather it comes in its own screen so you can use it at once, very easy to use with clear instructions, their site is
http://www.thermofaxscreens.co.uk/ you can order the screens they have already or get them to make one from your own designs, well worth having a look,there is a lovely one of cow parsley and having tried to make a stamp of this and failed I think I may be getting another one
This is what I achieved with my stencil on the left using discharge paste on
procion dyed calico,it bled a little so not as well defined as the paint which I did on calico dyed with cochineal, all those poor little beetle bodies I felt like a mass murderer.It is pink the camera has just bleached the colour out.
These are my first attempts at screen printing, i made the first stencil from newspaper this was the wavy lined one , the frog stencil I made from freezer paper as I wanted to be able to wash the screen and do another colour.The colours faded after washing although I had wrapped the fabric in plastic to keep it wet for 24 hrs, before rinsing.
On the left is the silk screen with 3 different colours of thickened dye with bubble wrap and other items pushed into it to make marks as it drys.
At the FOQ I bought a book on breakdown printing by the committed to cloth duo, well worth a look at their website of the same name. You put the thickened paint on the screen leave it to dry about 2 days and then print off with manutex & urea, not a very controlled process, but they get some great organic effects.
This is the result my first attempt at breakdown printing, I love the way the colours merge in some places and a halo effect in others
Well the onion and shallot crop was a success and I have strung them up just like my Father used ,to he would be proud of me, it was always me who peeled the shallots for pickled onions, so I do not have any problems peeling onions I think I am immune.
The fabric below has been dyed with onion skins in reality it is a lovely orangey yellow.
