Christmas stars!

Hi everyone, 

On Saturday my family and over some food friends for a dinner party :) Each time they come over- especially at Christmas I like to make some little table favours :)

This year I decided to implement some of my new found knowledge from the different skill weeks at college- I used printing!

I cut out my own little design of a star stencil and then printed 8 of them onto calico using some gold Dylan fabric paint though the stencil with a brush- a different method to college as I didn't quite have all the proper equipment :p

I then ironed them once dry to affix the paint fully, before backing with Christmassy fabric, placing ribbon between the two layers then sewing around.

Lastly I pinking sheared around them to stop fraying and give a simple decorative looking edge. And voila,  my little decorations were then complete; 

I think they looked nice on the table and they got some compliments so I was very happy :) they were also fairly quick to make due to some simple stencil printing being there main feature. I will definitely be experimenting further with this technique :-)

The Christmassy crafting really got me into the festive spirit too! It is soo close to Christmas now- I can't wait!  I hope you are all doing well and are happy,

see you soon,

Bye xoxoxo

Printing, breaking down and dyeing

Hi guys,

The title of this post pretty much tells you what I have been doing all this week :p Yes, I have just finished the second week of the skills carousel I am currently completing at uni.

We started the week by learning about dying. This was pretty interesting as it is something I have never really done before properly (just with kool aid on some wool! :p). We learnt how to colour match- to dye fabrics to be the same colour as seen in a picture or painting etc. Then we practised some different dying techniques such as ombre (a gradual colour change from light to dark up/down the fabric) and patch dying (different colours of dyes applied/layered onto the fabric in a blotchy way).

Here is my ombre sample:

And here is my patch dying sample:

patch dying is a good method to use when breaking down as it can make things look old and distressed  depending on the colours you use.

Talking about breaking down, that is what we moved onto next. We all had to pick an image of a character wearing a broken down costume from a film or play. I chose my image from the original piranha movie as I love that film :D

Here was my shirt before it was met by sandpaper, fabric paint,  a Stanley knife etc.:

And here is it after:

I am really proud with how it came out as breaking down was something I found quite challenging at times. You have to try and be realistic and make things like the blood look realistic and build it up in layers- I am not great at art/painting so it was quite hard to get something that didn't just  look like a halloween costume I made in 5 mins! Even the stages you have to curve at the ends and fray slightly so they don't just look like you did then with a knife. I liked putting my shirt on once it had dried- I felt like an extra from the movie :p

And now last but not least printing. Again something I had never done properly before but and it was a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting experience.  Cutting out my stencils were a bit fiddly but in the end I was happy with the effect/pattern I achieved, and it was cool to play around with the metallic paints, foil and puff paints.

Here are my finished samples and printed tshirt:

Next week I have a reading week so I can prepare more work and research but then after that is wigs... so that should be interesting to tell you about :p

I hope you all had a lovely weekend,  talk to you again soon!

Bye xxx