Amazing Angelina film

Over the last couple of years I have been going through my stash of things I bought at craft fairs and trying to use a lot of it. I have moved my sewing studio twice so I keep seeing these experimental materials. Late last year I found my pile of Angelina film.

It is a coloured film that is sometimes cut up into shreds and sold as Angelina fibre. I prefer the effects of the film so I decided to experiment with ways to use it.

Angelina when heated will stick to itself. You can heat it with an iron or a heat gun for different effects. I like to set my iron to silk as any hotter makes the film melt too much and go a copper colour all over. If ironing use baking paper or a craft sheet to protect your iron or it will stick. If using a heat gun take it outside or make sure you use a mask to protect your lungs. I usually double it over so it is a little thicker and easier to stitch with a machine. This sample was first heated with a heat gun to make holes then ironed flat.

The heat gun makes the film bubble and shrink as in the sample on the right (single layer). It also concentrates the colour. The sample on the left is the same film but only folded in two and ironed.

You can also layer different colours and iron them together. It will all melt into one large piece of film. On the right you can see the bubbles formed when this sheet is then heated with a heat gun.

The colour of the background you place your altered film on changes the way the metallic colours show up. On dark backgrounds you see more of the coppery colour but on light backgrounds you can see the colour of the film.

 You can also trap the fibres between two sheets of film. Simply lay fibres on one piece of film then cover with another and iron or heat gun it.

 You can also trap other items like confetti sequins and glitter.

Here I have trapped a skeleton leaf between two different colours of film. The pink side was an extra layer of film that I crumpled before I ironed it onto the already trapped leaf. I also turned my iron up a little to melt the pink layer a bit more than usual.

 Another way to apply the film is to crumple it before you join it together. If you crumple it a lot you will get the rough texture you see here.

 It is possible to make impressions in the film using rubber stamps or wooden block stamps. In this sample I mage a multi-coloured sheet of film then inked up a rubber stamp. I placed the stamp ink side up on a hard surface and carefully put the film sheet on top. After I covered it all with baking paper I pressed hard with my iron. The ink makes the design stand out more but you don't always have to use ink.

 Here I have used a borrowed wooden block stamp to make the impression. It wasn't clean so some of the paint came off onto the back of the film. It looks very different on the light and dark backgrounds.

 One of my favourite ways to attach the film to fabric is using fusible web. You can get it with a paper backing (usually called Vliesofix, Bondaweb or Fuse-Under) or without. I prefer the paperless fusible as it is usually cheaper and I never use the paper anyway. Simply layer one piece of fabric, one piece of fusible and one piece of film, cover with baking paper then iron. You will end up with a very smooth metallic fabric.

You can stitch your Angelina to fabric before you alter it if you wish. It changes the way it reacts. When heated it shrinks a bit but if stitched down that doesn't always happen.  This sample was layered then stitched together before I ironed it.

In this sample I laid sari silks on my ironing board then placed a piece of fusible web on top. I covered it with one piece of flat film and one piece of crumpled film. When I ironed it all together it became one piece of fabric. The different colours of silk make the film look multi-coloured.

 Some of my more exciting (to me) experiments came later on. This sample was fused to fabric with the iron and fusible web. I then put it through an embossing machine to get quite a well defined embossed metallic fabric. It was bit shiny so I used watered down brown acrylic paint all over it and let it almost dry before wiping it off. This gave a distressed, less shiny look that I really like.

 This piece of fused film was given a coat of crackle medium. When it dried I painted it with white acrylic and again left it to dry. As a final finish I sprayed it with mica spray because it was too bright. Although hard to see in this photo you can see the shiny background through the cracks.

 On another piece of fused film I used a stencil and texture medium to make a pattern. The middle area has the texture medium applied with a palette knife. I also tried a light coat of gesso on the left side that I drew a design in with the end of my paint brush. When dry it was also given a spray to add more colour. All of these medium stuck to the film without any problems so I think you could use any acrylic mediums you fancy.

 After all of these experiments I had a pile of different pieces of film. I stitched them all onto this background and added a lot of detail with hand and machine stitching. It was very difficult to take a photo where you could see the details so I apologise for the bluriness.

 This photo shows how shiny it is.

A few thoughts on design

I don't believe in following rules when I make art but there are a few design techniques that I do use so I thought I would share with you a textile art piece I made and how I did the design of it. I also do the same thing when I art journal or paint.

I usually begin with an idea or challenge suggestion to start my piece. Sometimes I will do a quick sketch if I need to work out how to do it but most times I do not. For this piece I went through my stash looking for something to use for a textile art piece.

I found the photo transfer leaves that were left over from another project and the coloured metal pieces, painted with alcohol inks, that were also left from the same project. I decided to use them so that was the beginning of my colour choices. The leaves and metal were rusty red, orange and yellow so I looked for a suitable background.

 I found this blue background that I thought looked good with the oranges and reds. It is a paper towel that was placed under fabric I was dying. It had been dyed and also has splashes of paint here and there. I also found some scraps of green fabric that were also leftovers. I wasn't sure if I would use all of these things but they were my starting point.

I laid the metal pieces in wavy rows and stitched them down using a variegated thread on my machine. I made sure to stitch along the edges and over all the points of the metal so they wouldn't scratch my hands later on. I have done similar designs on paper so wanted to try this with stitching.

 Next I decided to add more stitching lines in a brown to compliment the metal strips. I then felt I needed to add some light tones because the whole thing was a medium tone, so I did the white stitching and couched white cord to the piece. I used the machine to stitch some grids over areas of the background that I didn't want to save. The grids also help to lighten the piece.

I laid the leaves I was going to use on the background so I could see how it looked before stitching them on. I put them off center as I don't usually like to place the focal point right in the middle of my work.  I decided that they were blending into the metal strips too much. I placed a darker leaf on the piece and thought it looked better than the light ones. I usually try to use light, medium and dark tones in my work. It makes a nice contrast and dynamic picture.  I chose the leaf shapes I wanted and then coloured them with alcohol inks to make them dark.

The reason I chose these leaf shapes was because I liked the way the stems looked. The taller middle leaf is fairly straight and the two leaves on either side have stems slightly tilted towards the center leaf. It looks more interesting to me than the three straight leaves in the picture above.  I did not attach the leaves yet because that will be one of the last things I do.

 I used the scraps of green fabrics to fill in some of the areas I wanted to cover. I did this by laying tracing paper over the design and tracing the stitched lines that outline each area. I tried to space the colours around the piece so they weren't all bunched together. I usually try to add three pieces of each colour but on this occasion I did four of each colour and it still worked for me. There is only 3 dark green pieces here but you can see below I added a 4th piece because there was a bit too much blue in the center of the piece. I always make changes as I work. I machine stitched all the extra bits down so later I could add a little hand stitching. I now hand stitched the leaves on. 

I started hand stitching by adding straight stitch in some of the gaps between the stitched lines. Then I got some beads out in the same colours. I placed the large beads on the piece first. I used the square beads that are similar in colour to the leaves in three spots around the background. This makes the leaves integrate into the whole piece better, rather than being the only dark tone. The other beads were added one colour at a time so they could be placed around the background where I thought they looked best. My piece is now finished.

A big twist on a WOWbook lesson

I have mentioned once or twice already that I have been doing the workshops in the WOWbook series. This eco-dyeing onto paper was one of those workshops I wanted to try. For full details you will need to get the book from the d4daisy website. 

I changed the technique a little by using procion dyes spread over the paper before I sandwiched it with leaves and more paper. I expected the dye to disperse in the pot but it didn't do that at all. The colour is a lot stronger than I had anticipated but I still like the way it turned out. The paler pages were not dyed but did pick up dye from the water.

I liked the way the prints turned out so I made then into a book. I kept a couple of pages out to use for collage in the book. I also wanted to stitch on the extra pages so the back of the stitching would be hidden when I glued them into the book.  I used coloured pencils to outline the leaf prints and added shading around some of the images.

 After a couple of weeks I decided to add doodles to make the book more interesting for the viewer. I used a white pen and fineliners for the extra drawing.

 
 I also used steel wool fibers on the leaves for rusting. These became the dark dots you can see everywhere. One day, when I was pulling apart steel wool for rusting I didn't realise that little fibers were falling off the metal onto the fabric below. After I left my bundle of fabric to rust I unwrapped it all and was surprised to see little marks and dots everywhere. I liked the effect so it is something I do quite often now, when I am rusting cloth.

 Here you can see the difference in the before and after the extra drawing. I kept the colour palette consistent throughout the journal but did whatever drawing I fancied on each page.

 I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the left page here so it was one of the last ones I finished. I also used gold pen throughout the book for highlights.

 I added a few quotes about leaves to the book and also wrote the names of some of the plants I used for the prints. You can see one name in the bottom left area.

 Sometimes I used the doodles to hide areas of eco-printing that weren't as nice as I would have liked.

 I mainly used stranded embroidery thread for stitching but on a couple of pages I used a metallic gold thread, as in the crosses above.

 It was interesting to see how some plants reacted so differently to the dyeing process.

 All of the leaves on the right hand page came from the same eucalyptus plant. Some were green and some had turned red. I was surprised that the red ones dyed the paper browner than the green ones.

 There were a lot of steel wool fibres on the page on the right. I used the image to hide some of the darker areas.

 The page on the left here is one of the paler ones that didn't have dye applied to it but did still have the print of the leaves on it. I did use coloured pencils to make the blue areas darker. I always do what I think a piece needs and am never afraid to try something different. If it doesn't work the way I want,  I change it or use it in another project.

This little journal was a great piece that I could work on whenever I finished something and was looking for a small project to keep my hands busy while I planned the next thing. One of the reasons I love WOWbook so much is that it covers all sorts of mixed media and textiles. It pushes me to think of how I can adapt a technique when I don't have all the required materials to hand. The only reason I used dye here was because I didn't want to wait 3 weeks to make iron water as instructed and it was the first thing I saw when I looked in my cupboard for something else to use. I do like this technique and have since repeated it with a more diluted dye.

How to get started with a textile art project.

I was recently asked by a beginner textile artist how to get started on a piece so I thought I would share what I do.

Getting started is the hardest part. It is the same for many artists and is usually called the fear of the blank white page, aritist's block or similar. Sometimes you can sit and look at your materials without any idea of what to do. Normally I have an idea before I start but if not I will look through magazines or one of my inspiration journals. These are simple sketchbooks (from before the internet took off) where I paste anything I have seen in a magazine that I really like. Sometimes I write quotes in there too. I may also have a few techniques or samples in there of things I have seen and tried out. Most of these books were compiled when I was into paper crafts but I would still use them to inspire textiles, especially colours and colour palettes from paint swatches or the techniques that I may try out on fabric.

 It is the same thing as looking at Pinterest. The trouble with Pinterest is that you can waste hours on there looking at things and not actually doing anything because you are overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices. If you do look at Pinterest then stop at the first thing you really like and think about what attracted you to that image. Was it the colour, technique or something else? Use that to start your textile.

Some other suggestions for themes or ideas are:
1. Colour themes. Pick a colour you wish to start with and go from there. Colour may make you think of  something like blue for the ocean or red for apple etc and that would be a starting point.
2. A storytelling theme may be something like: a day in the garden, an overseas holiday, first day of school, family reunion etc.
3. Image ideas: you may see an image or photo you want to recreate in fabric or will inspire from magazines, books or your own.
4. Technique based ideas. You may want to try out a technique you have seen. This is the inspiration I use the most because I love experimenting with new to me ideas.
5. Specific word themes like: nature, space, animals, abstract, traditional, circles or squares.
6. Materials. Sometimes you may have a specific type of material you wish to use and that will inspire a piece of art.
7. If you belong to a group you may have samples that you made and have not used for anything that can be used for a starting point.
8. Style of design is also a good inspiration. By this I mean a grid or circular etc design.

When I have some sort of idea I start collecting my materials on the table in a pile. This is when I decide what colours I will be using. I nearly always use a restricted colour palette. What I mean by this is that I will only use a maximum of about 5-8 colours in one piece. Of course there are always exceptions to this rule but in general it ties things together better if there are not too many colours competing for attention.  I put anything that is a similar colour in the pile. I even get paints etc out too if I am going to use them. I may not use everything but it stops me going to the cupboard later and choosing a wrong coloured object or paint.

I next decide what format I will use and what size it is going to be. By this I mean, wall hanging, framed picture, book page etc. If I am framing a piece I usually get the frame first and make the textile in a size that fits. Hard decisions are over and the fun begins.

I start with either the background or the focal image. For this piece I started with the owl silk screen. I painted it with all the colours then found a quote to go with my image. I Googled "wise quotes" and this one popped up. I decided to use a block style for my textile so then stitched the background together. I wanted to quilt this piece so I put my fabric on top of wadding, added a base fabric and machine stitched around each object. If I wasn't going to pad it I would probably make the textile on a base layer of felt or stiffened fabric (usually thick cotton with iron on interfacing on the back). If I want to do machine embroidery I always stiffen the fabric so I don't have to use a hoop for tension.
If I have chosen a technique as inspiration then I would make something with that technique and add it to a background. If it is a background technique then I would make the background and find something to put on it. Circles and squares are good additions for an abstract look. Adding beads or buttons can also enhance your work.

When I have finished I always neaten the edges, either with binding, satin stitch or folding the edges to the back and stitching a backing on. This depends on the format I have chosen and whether the back will be seen. For framed work I only zigzag the edges so it can be laced into the frame. I don't use staples that may rust onto the fabric.

Recently I decided to do the 100 day project. You can choose any creative pursuit you want and agree to do it every day for 100 days. This is how I started. I decided on little stitched squares I could do quickly and would later compile them into one gridded textile. Grids are a great way to tie different items together. I gathered a lot of leftovers from other textiles and cut them to size. I then gathered buttons and charms from my stash, beads and threads I thought I might use. I did not use a limited palette here but I used the same threads on a lot of the squares so it helps to blend it together. I put all these in a box near my chair where I watch tv with hubby. I started doing 1 a night, in any style or technique I fancied but soon decided I wanted to do more. My 100 day project became my 100 project. When I finished my squares, around day 50, I stitched them to a white background to show off the colours. I had too many for 1 page in my next fabric book so now I have two pages of them. I finished off the edges and my project was complete.

Wendy's Note: I do know that there are more than 100 squares! I thought I might lose some along the way so I did extra and didn't lose any. Isn't that always the way it goes?

A variety of textiles

I have been busy designing workshops for my textile group and also completing the challenge we have going. I can't share those until later in the year but I can share the work I have completed for the WOWbook.

A cardboard creation from one of the lessons in the December WOWbook

I have mentioned previously that I was doing the Workshop on the Web program with Maggie Grey in England. It has now been changed to a published book. The book contains a lot of features and 5 or 6 workshops. After you buy the book you will be given access to the members club where there are another lot of workshops and articles to easily keep you inspired for 6 months.  I have done quite a few of them now but still haven't done all the ones I want to. I can't share the techniques here but I am able to share my creations.

 This was part of the same lesson as the first picture. It is done on Decovil which is a stiff flocked textile. It was the first time I used it and incredibly fun.

This piece was made from some of the left overs of the house workshop. I got the idea from some of the members in the facebook group who thought my first little village looked like beach huts. That is another fantastic feature of the book. There is a private FB group that is very active and even more ideas flow through from all the eager members.

Stencilled gesso that I have done before but this was a little different. I love when someone shares a different way of using something.

 This picture was also the stencilled gesso workshop but I cut my sample to pieces and made a finished page for my next fabric journal.

The final piece in the gesso workshop. I cut a stencil for the eucalyptus leaves and gum blossoms. The frame is made from silk cocoons.

 Lynda Monk did a lesson using tyvek. It was a lot of fun and I had to stop myself making too many samples until I have a specific project in mind.

 This page was one of my favourites from this current book. It was a Maggie Grey lesson and I really loved the surface we made to work on using paper and tissue. The design is my own.

Another version of the paper and tissue lesson using the same tree design.

 A new book will be published in June which is great for me as I will have loads of free time by then. I may even become more regular here.