My art is on my sleeve

I am travelling to London soon so I wanted a jacket to take with me. I was unable to find one that suited my needs so I decided to make one. I thought I should put some of my textile art on the jacket so this is what I did.

I chose a regular jacket pattern and altered it for my own purposes. I used my machine to draw the flowers on the sleeves and also the large front pockets (big enough for a phone to not fall out). I used a dress making marker to draw the flower centers where I wanted them to be so they weren't all in one straight line. Then I used my machine to stitch the stems and petals free hand. It was a lot of fun and I am happy with the way it turned out.

I can truly say that I am wearing my Art on my sleeve, now.

 
Another quick project I made was a new camera bag. Yes I still use a camera and not just my phone for quality photos. I wanted a cover that fit exactly so it didn't take up too much room in my bag.

I went through my stash and found a piece of suede leather that would be suitable for a camera case and soft enough to stitch by hand. I looked through a pile of leftover textile pieces I have made to use as decorations for my case. I used some heat transfer foil on the bag and also glued on a few leftover textured bits. I hand embroidered these pieces to the leather to make them secure.


 I used a piece of velour for the lining as it would be soft and not scratch the camera. When all the stitching was finished I went over everything with a couple of coats of matte medium to stop them wearing out too quickly. This made the suede look like leather now and it is very tough. I am happy  with my travel projects and am looking forward to finding lots of textile art to admire in London.

A woolly textile picture

I recently gave a talk at a lovely knitting group about textile art. Inspired by this I had a go at making a textile piece using my vary limited knitting and crochet skills. I started at the top of the piece because I knew I wanted the sky to appear smooth and it would allow me to set the size of the finished article. I used the tension guide on the blue wool to work out how many stitches I would need to cast on for the size I wanted to make. I knitted a few rows and luckily my tension was the same so I could keep going.

I knitted the sky and the first layer of hills. I changed wool and needles and continued down the background using rib to make the appearance of rows of crops. Some sections were crocheted instead. For each new section of knitting I cast on stitches through the previous layer so the whole thing was all one piece. I used casting on or off here and there to make uneven edges to each block. Some of the wool was textured, like the pale green which is knitted. Later on I used little pieces of wool to stitch the details like trees, sheep, grass and hedges. When it was all finished I blocked it and then put it in this frame I made.

The  way I framed this is easy and something I have used before for textiles. After you have made the frame it is easy to use a few stitches through the canvas layer to hold your textile in place.  You can put your name and signature on the back too. My knitted piece was heavy so it is stitched all around the edge to hold it inside the frame.

 I start with an artist canvas. I turn the canvas over and use the back so I make sure my artwork will fit into the space on the back.  You can use any depth of frame but deep frames will suit bulky work better.

To cover the staples and edges of the canvas on the back and make it look neater I usually glue some thick card over the sides, back and down onto the canvas as there can be a gap between the canvas and the wooden frame. This hides the staples best but if you press hard they will be visible.

Next I like to cover the card with a decorative finish. I used texture paste on this sample. When I use a paste or gel I use it thickly to hide the edge of the cardboard on the canvas and the staples. Sometimes I use the paste all over the canvas layer too if it will be visible. When it is dry the whole frame can then be painted with acrylics in any colors you wish.

Another choice of finish is to cover the thick card with torn pieces of tissue paper. Like the texture paste this can be painted when dry or if you use colored tissue you wouldn't need to paint it. I don't usually put the tissue over texture paste (it's a waste!) like this sample where I changed my mind on the finish I wanted. 

Both the texture paste and tissue paper finish can be highlighted using metallic waxes like rub'n'buff or Viva Inka Gold.

On the frame above, I didn't use the card and just covered the edge of the frame with glued fabric. I glued the fabric to the sides and then covered the back and tucked it into the gap between the canvas and wood. 

This frame was covered with coarse texture gel or sand gel and painted black. It has been sprayed with green mica spray when dry. I painted the inside of the frame white to make a border between the black frame and the black textile. From a distance it gives the appearance of a matted picture.

 This is an old artwork where I used a deep frame for my mixed media work. I glued on chipboard scrolls from the scrapbooking industry and then painted the whole frame with a thick coat of gesso. Before the gesso dried I used a heat gun to make bubbles in it. It was later painted with metallic paints and wax.

The whole piece.

This is the first time I used the back of a frame for my artwork. It was simply covered with book paper and then tissue paper. You can still see the staples and folds of the canvas so that is why I started covering them up with card. Sometimes you may want to leave them exposed. The choice is yours.

Landscapes

I really love making landscapes either in textiles or with paint. Last year I did quite a few lessons from the WOWbook series put out by D4Daisy publishers, written by Maggie Grey, that I haven't shared yet.

I had a lot of fun with this WOWbook 2 lesson as it is entirely hand stitched. I never used to like hand stitching at all but after I had children I found it very relaxing in the evenings. I still do.

This second WOWbook 2 lesson is based on  a photo transfer of a paper painted background. More details of the technique can be found in the book.  After doing the transfer I added a little more colour in select areas and then hand stitched the details. Loads of fun and not something I would have thought of on my own.

This next picture is a journal page I painted last year. Although it is abstract I thought it looked like an Australian landscape and wondered if I could do something with it.

After I did the photo transfer lesson from WOWbook I thought I finally had a way I could transfer my picture to fabric so I could stitch it. I first used a photo program to alter the original picture and change some of the colours. I was able to remove the stitching line from the center with the same program (I use Paintshop Pro).  I used my machine to stitch all the objects I could see in the original picture. I saw balloons in the circles in the sky and a fishing shack in the rectangle on the shoreline. It was an interesting experiment that then got me wondering what would happen if I turned the original upside down.

This is the upside down version of the original painting. I significantly lightened the colour to make a very different landscape. I used Pan Pastels to make some areas darker but it is still the same picture underneath.  Again I used simple machine stitching for the drawing of the image.

Next I went back to the computer and altered the original picture to make a sky. I cut some artist canvas to fit in my printer and printed the picture straight onto the canvas using a photo setting on the printer. It fed through my Epson printer without any problems as the canvas is quite stiff.

 The colours came out a little differently, especially the sky which was a lot lighter than I thought it would be. I decided to add colour to the right hand side of the print so I used an alcohol marker to add the green on the right. I used my machine for the drawing using only dark brown coloured thread. It was quite easy to stitch through the canvas as it is really only stiffened fabric, no stabiliser needed. I added some fence posts using mulberry bark cut to shape and after stitching everything I added wire between the fence posts.

I have enjoyed this little exploration of one technique. Sometimes one thing sparks an idea for another and you just have to keep going. I hope you get inspired to do your own versions of a landscape.