Another Book Project

No, it's not a 'folding book' project.  This is a book Hilary showed us in our online class (I've had some ask about the online class..this link is for the year 2020).   This is a great way to use all the papers we've been making since January.  And those who follow my blog know I have lots of papers to use!  HA

Each section is 5"x5" with a separate spine which encases the signature(s).  I'll be gluing the 5"x5" sections together so the hand stitching isn't showing.

These are some of the pages I've hand embroidered and machine stitched.  It's time consuming but good hand work to have when I want to relax!

I cut several strips of stamped and over dyed construction paper.    Just like quilting...have to cut strips!

Some additional papers that I cut into 5" squares

Each set of two squares had add'l strips machine stitched to the inside edges - now they are signatures.  I could leave as is and just draw on the inside or write messages but I decided I wanted to do some hand stitching on each signature.

Starting to hand embroider

This shows both sides are embroidered

This is what the inside looks like.... I'll be gluing each side together....then most likely I'll machine stitch the three sides or not!

Above closed

I have to machine stitch this spine down

Once they are all embroidered, I'll then weave each spine edge together to make a book.  Hilary has a great way of weaving the spine.  I have learned so much from her....and plan on signing up for 2020 too!!!  I'll need more work to do this winter since we won't be heading to Florida!!!

I should have known better!

And yes, I do know better....I posted last week my results on screen printing.  You'd think I never mixed dyes or screen printed before!  Duh!  I also mentioned that I thought I didn't mix enough dye powder in with my print paste.  And that proved to be the case.

 Here are my 're-do's'!  I used 3 of the pieces that were quite pale and just screen printed over them!   And one was just white fabric.

I really like this piece.  Earth tones...yummy..

There sure is  a big difference from this one, right!  HA
 I don't measure when mixing dyes....whether I'm doing low immersion dyeing, Bob's socks (that's a whole other post!) or mixing dyes with print paste.  And usually I add too much dye but I've always been happy with the deep colors I get.

For some reason, I was quite stingy when adding the dye powder to my print paste.  Mainly because I was using this tiny containers I picked up at Hobby Lobby and I wasn't good at guessing! 

 Lesson learned...well, I hope so!  HA...now onto our next lesson this week!  And yes, I'm still having fun!

Mono Printing String Art!

While waiting for my screen prints to 'batch', I decided to try some mono printing string art !  Is that such a thing!  HA Who knew...I wasn't sure it would work but I guess the original concept is mono printing.  It is messy but fun! 

This is a post I originally posted on creating  string art on fabric....and this is the post using the string art fabric in a quilt! 

I started out using a glass plate (8 1/2 x 11") which I covered the background in acrylic blue paint.  I used some old Setacolor metallic gold paint to soak the string in and then placed on top of the background.   And the process began!

This was the first string art I created and printed on layout paper.  Not bad...the paint was really thick so I was blotting with deli paper(s).

blotting above print!

 I continued to use the deli paper(s) to blot up excess paints.

Next I got out my 5 x 7 gelli plate....and here are the results!

These aren't that bad......

This was the last print I did and the best one!!  Who knew!  Hope I can use these papers in my collage work with Hilary's class!

If not, they might make nice fiber card once stitched. 

Screen Printing

Our lesson this past week, from our MIP online group is working with screen prints using masking tape!  Well, I love this module because I'm a big fan of screen printing.  First up, I cut up some masking tape using my deckle rotary cutter.

Next I wanted to create more of a geometric pattern so I just cut wide masking tape as well as some triangles.

We're using thickened dyes, although, Hilary also showed us how to use acrylic paints with addition of an extender.  Personally, I don't want to work with the acrylic paints because I can see me not working fast enough and my screen getting destroyed.  I do have over 6 or 8 screens (due to the kindness of my pal, Mary!) but I still like using thickened dyes.










My first pull...looks tan here but I think this was a peach dye I had.  Actually, it was quite old dye power, hence, the color may not be quite peach.  But I still like it!

And this is the result after several pulls using blue violet/yellow/and whatever other thickened dyes I had!
This is before I washed the dye(s) out.

This was another print using the same masked screen.  Different colors.

First pull....using geometric mask

Multiple pulls using yellow and robin egg blue.

Great pastel pieces but what happened to my color!

Dye all washed out....now...in thinking over what I did and didn't do...I didn't use enough dye in mixing with print paste.

Nice pastel color, right!  HA

Pretty colors

So on Saturday, I mixed up more dye/print paste and added more dye powder.  I'm one of those who doesn't measure and just mixes dyes with my water or print paste.  I was using little containers...probably only about a 1/4 to 1/3 cup of print paste.  I was quite stingy and only put in about 1/4th teaspoon of dye powder.

We'll see what my results are in my next post.   Four pieces are batching right now.  I kept them out in the heat (see, this summer heat is good for something!) and just brought them in around 4 in the afternoon.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Collage's keep coming!

I showed a collage (well, minus the quilting) in my last post I had put together.  All paper this time...I  started some free motion quilting on it.  Here's my progress so far...

I have to show that you can 'unsew' even on paper!  HA...I started using too dark of a blue thread (I switched to teal) which meant I had to 'unsew' all the blue I had free motion quilted.  It turned out just fine.  Don't think you can even see in above pic where I ripped it out.  If you don't see it now...don't look any further!  HA


 In between quilting I started another collage.  Again, using this picture for inspiration, I mono printed paper(s) using acrylic paints.

This is the reverse of the collage above.  Again, original, overdyed and now colored using Neocolor 1 crayons.  Interesting how intense the color was from mono printed...then fading with overdyeing!

Last weekend I mono printed and colored in some prints for borders. I used Neocolor 1 crayons to color the entire print vs overdyeing.

This is deli paper that was mono printed.  Then I used an Inktense block to color the entire sheet and applied a wash of water on top.  I'm quite happy with how this turned out.

Hard to tell,  but in the picture below, this piece is the blue you see.








Now I'm playing with different designs.....I don't want a border all around this one....guess I'll get back to quilting before I decide or work on our next lesson, which is screen printing!  Woo hoo!  So many choices.....

Another Collage

My last post  showed some of the mono prints with acrylic paints I did.  Well, I took one of the prints and, based on our lesson a week ago, used Neocolor 1 crayons to color our print.  What fun!!!!   This was the picture I used for inspiration to mono print this series.

Here is my original mono print with acrylics.  I was quite happy with how this turned out.

Then over dyed  (which made it quite dark) and then I colored with Neocolor 1 crayons to enhance some of the colors.  This was our lesson last week, which really freed me up to experiment with crayons..

Here are all three together...original, over dyed and colored with crayons!

Next up was putting a collage together using more papers that I mono printed.  This is a collage/quilt I made....now to quilt it!!!

I also printed some more mono prints so I would have more choices for the borders for my next piece.  These turned out pretty good...on this one  I used Gelato's crayons to color over the print.

This was printed on deli paper....then colored with Intense Blocks, then a wash of water.   Yep..still having fun!!

Mono printing with paints!

Last week we were still playing with mono printing...this this time we are using paints.  Because I'm conscious of spending $$'s - of forget that...I'm just cheap and have all these acrylic 99 cent paints to use up...so that's what my mono printing was done with!  I'm quite happy with the results...but first, this is how we decided on what to print on our medium.

Hilary had us pick out some pictures that we either liked the color or shapes in the photos.  I happened to have in my "Hilary" folder, some old pictures from an old calendar.  These are the two I used as my inspiration for printing.  I loved the colors....

This was the first mono print I did.  We used a palette knife to apply our paints  You can see how thick the paint is...I actually got two prints from this attempt - pics which follow.  I tried not to apply it as thick when doing the rest of the mono prints.

Here are the before and after prints, after meaning I applied dye to color in the white areas..  These will most likely be used as background pieces or some will be perfect for stitching.

These two are on fabric.  All the rest are on paper.

And have to add a great grand baby picture...this is Boscoe with Rilynn!!  How sweet is this!