Dabbling with design - May's meeting

Thanks go to Liz for leading last Sunday's meeting on developing designs. We tried a series of exercises:

1. Combining squares of different sizes

2. Distorting block designs

3. Cutting up magazine photos

Here are a few photos of the results.

Thanks to everyone who came along. I hope you enjoyed the meeting.

Photos from April's meeting

We had a good turnout at our last meeting where we were experimenting with using puff paste with Lutrador. The paste was applied through stencils and Thermofax or printing with bubble wrap etc. Here are a few photos of the results:

Join us on 17 May for a session on design development. More details soon.

Trapunto quilts blog

Here is the link to the blog I mentioned at the meeting on Sunday. It belongs to Geta Grama from Romania. 

Her shadow trapunto quilts are super and can be seen in this post.

http://cadouri-din-inima.blogspot.ro/2000/01/my-shadow-trapunto-quilts.html

Trapunto and Boutis

Ten of us met yesterday to experiment with trapunto and boutis techniques. Here is a picture of what we were doing.

And here are a few close ups of 'work in progress':

It will be interesting to see how they all turn out when finished.

 

Colouring fabric at our February meeting

We met on 15 February to explore various ways of colouring fabric. Here are a few photos I took of what people were doing.

Some were mono printing:

Others were experimenting with glitter flakes:

Or with watercolour crayons:

At our next meeting on Sunday 22 March we will be trying out ways of using boutis and trapunto techniques in non-traditional ways. These are both techniques where the amount of wadding is varied in different parts of the design to emphasise some areas. My next post will show some examples.

Come along if you would like to experiment with these techniques, or to learn the basics working some small samples. You will be able to use either hand or machine stitching.

Folding, pleating and weaving at our January meeting

Lis brought along lots of her samples to our January meeting, so we had plenty of choice when it came to manipulated fabric techniques. Here are some of them:

Folding

Pleating

Weaving

Then we each chose one or more techniques to try. I'll post more images after our next meeting.

First meeting of 2015 this Sunday!

This Sunday, 25 January, we will be having out first meeting of 2015 at the usual venue of Croft Memorial Hall (WA3 7BQ).

 

We will be experimenting with manipulated/folded patchwork and Lis will bring along various examples which you may like to try after seeing the demonstrations.  As usual, you are welcome to bring your own work if you would prefer.

Please bring something for the shared lunch. The cost is £5 for the meeting, plus an annual fee of £10 due this month.

 

Requirements for manipulated / folded patchwork

Fabrics 

If you have never done this technique you will need plain cotton fabric, calico will be fine.  

If you are familiar with this technique bring other fabrics that will hold the crease – you could use patterned, dyed, striped or different coloured fabrics. 

This technique uses quite a lot of fabric and as several techniques will be demonstrated you will need more than 1 metre or several fat quarters.

Equipment

Sewing Machine and hand stitching kit with appropriate threads.

Many of the techniques can be done by hand if you do not have a sewing machine.

Cutting mat, ruler and rotary cutter.  Ironing mat and iron.  If you don’t have these we can share.

Optional

Bondaweb or your equivalent choice.   

Light weight iron on vilene.