Workshop Thursday

Almost keeping to my promise...no more progress to show on my workshops, but had a playday today to show a friend some ways to transfer images.
First we used plain old nail polish remover.

Place a photocopied image face down on the receiving paper (ie where you want your transfer to end up). Dampen the back with the nail polish remover (it's the acetone that's the important ingredient) then burnish.

I just use an old jam jar lid - rub firmly. When you think it's done, lift the original image off

Photocopy at top, transferred image at bottom

This was quite an old photocopy, so a very good method. It is a bit smelly, so make sure you have a door or window open. And you may notice that the writing is reversed - we didn't mind for the test, but sometimes you may want to reverse an image on your computer, print it and then photocopy the reverse image so you get the words right.
A good method that doesn't require you to reverse your image is packing tape or contact paper transfers. Again, a photocopy - press the tape over the top. Burnish to make sure there is a good seal. Then soak it in water for a bit. Rub off the paper with your fingertips and the image will remain.

In the above picture you can see our original acetone transfer at the bottom, and our contact paper transfer at the top - see through and not reversed. Lots of uses. Julie Fei-Fan Balzer has a quick YouTube video on this method but she uses packing tape and a magazine image.
Our 3rd method was heat transfer with my fabulous new versatool. It has a special transfer point and works with photocopies.

Again, place the photocopy face down on the receiving paper or fabric. You just move the heat tool back and forwards over the image. Very good on both calico and paper as you can see below.

The last thing we had fun with was printing images onto sheet music fed through the printer. Very simple, but very effective with colour

and with black and white (do you remember this from the Paris Book?)

And have you ever tried printing on tissue through the printer? Simply glue stick around the edge of your tissue to the carrier page, and print.

Result - a lovely transparent image for your art work.
Will be back with some workshop play of my own soon

First roses of the season : Compassion in the front and Hot Chocolate back right.

Quilts at my house : Part 2

More quilts from the walls of my house - for Part 1 go here
Down the hallway - if you follow this blog, you probably recognise this piece on my sewing room door.

Not really a quilt, but it has layers & stitch ;-)
Next, another Mary Transom class. She taught both Sunflowers and Echinacea in a class together at the Cloth Shop. I decided that I would learn the methods for both flowers, and combined them into one quilt.

The next 2 are originals made by me for my children. They live on their beds but are not great photographed there.

This is Sam's - an eye spy quilt made when he was 3 in 2007. Inspired by a design I saw at a quilt show, but I created my own pattern.
And this for Jacob a couple of months later that same year for his 7th birthday.

This was entirely original - pattern designed with help from my husband.
And the last quilt down the hall was made in a class to learn hand applique in 2004.

I finally machine quilted it in June 2006 - took me a while to finish because I discovered that I much prefer to machine stitch than make quilts by hand, and had to work myself round to realising it was better to machine quilt it and have it finished...it was never going to be hand quilted....
Have a lovely week

Christmas Craft

Went to Caccia Birch this evening for the Zonta annual Christmas Craft Fair.

The fine print above promised "music, finger food and wine while you shop" - who could resist :-)
My purchases were small but lovely : some more pretty ribbon from Carole

and I couldn't resist buying this beautiful brooch for myself. Gorgeous jewel colours and something I would never make.

Handfelted from New Zealand merino wool & silk
 by Marion Valentine

Earlier today I did some cutting and stitching for a Xmas project

Haven't done any piecing for a while.

It's nice to be stitching something quilty.
If you are thinking of making presents for Xmas - check out this quite cool idea from Kim Thittichai on YouTube decorating sketchbook covers with bondaweb and glitter/foil/fibres. Inspiration for different applications.
Hope you have a creative weekend.