fabric friday

  I thought you wouldn't mind me sharing this with you for this fabric friday.

Iban Longhouse

Carrying on from last week's post about pizza base stamps.

This, called "Iban Longhouse" at the moment, has now had an image of said longhouse added to it.

I used a freezer paper stencil and some Stewart Gill paint. These are not the paints that I use for my everyday painting of fabric but they are very good for adding details with stamps and stencils and have a very comprehensive range of textures and colours.

Stamping and Stencilling on fabric friday

hand painted fabric, a photo by Quilt Routes on Flickr.

This is an old one, but I don't think I have shown it here before.

Making Stamps for Fabric Printing.

Last week I showed you this.

It is a piece that I show in my talk and because in the next few months I will be talking to some groups who have members that I know have heard me before in other venues, I thought it would be a good idea to get it finished.

Before I do anything else to it I wanted to share with you how I made the stamps from the styrofoam pizza bases. There always seems to be a lot of them around here.

I got the designs from a book I brought back from Brunei called 'Hornbills and Dragons' by Bernard Sellato. It looks at the designs found in Kalimantan, Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah which are the countries that make up the island of Borneo. 

The designs have very convieniently been displayed in clear black and white graphics.

I scanned the images into the printer, resized them, and printed them out. Using the printout as a guide I used a sharp pointed pencil to engrave an outline of the image onto a piece of pizza base.

I then carved out the stencil using a soldering iron. You have to be quick or you end up with a big hole and you HAVE to work in a well ventilated area because of the fumes given off by the styrofoam.

I glued the designs onto another piece for stability and strength.

This method allowed me to get some very intricate designs made into a stamp, quickly and easily. If a mistake was made it was no bother to just start again on an inexpensive pizza base.

As with any culture the designs have a lot of history and meaning for the indigenous tribes of Borneo, many of who still live in the traditional long house.

The designs can be seen in all sorts of crafts such as carvings, paintings, textiles and basket weaving,

even tattoos.

Stay tuned to see what I do next with this piece.

fabric friday

Not ready to give up on those blue Summer skies just yet.

 Available here.

Busy,busy

I have begun to put some new kits together and here is a sneak peek.

Things have been a bit slow, as those of you who read my blue hare blog will know, because a kitchen fire this summer has slowed the creativity a bit.

However, in an effort to get things moving again I have joined the Blogtoberfest, commiting myself to blog every day of October. You can join in at any time if you fancy the challlenge.

On the Quilt Routes front I have decided it is about time I got around to stitching this piece.

I use it to demonstrate stamping when I give my talk, which involves looking at different ways of painting and printing on fabric. I made the stamps for this using pizza bases (details to come later) and when I say bases I don't mean the dough base but the packaging base. I have to clarify this because I was once asked how I stopped the paint from breaking up the dough!

Stay tuned.