HND Textiles and Fashion – Week 15

The main focus of this week was a presentation to the class about our work so far.

This included stringing up my model of paper pockets and setting up a washing line of handkerchiefs.

St Andrews Museum – Claire Heminsley

Visited sunny but misty St Andrews today. Included a trip to the St Andrews Museum to see Cycling up the hill with my dad – a collaboration between father and daughter, David (ceramicist) and Claire Heminsley (textile and mixed media artist).

I was particularly taken with Claire’s textile pieces made from felted jumpers.

And her interpretation of her late father’s pottery tools:

in wire:

and in paper:

HND Textiles and Fashion – Week 14

Having got comfortable with transferring images onto the fabric for my handkerchiefs I started experimenting with using paper tissues (for my modern day bag contents). This included printing onto the tissue (2 seconds only) and trapping images by sewing them between each layer. I especially like the idea of scrunching them up as if they have been discarded at the bottom of a bag.

I also experimented with creating lace edgings for my existing hankies using soluble fabric:

The full range including paper tissues with ipods, credit cards and make-up

Sunday crafts

I was delighted to be invited to display my wares at the Queen Bea headquarters today as part of the Courtyard Collective’s Christmas Market. It was held in Julie’s house and attracted lots of people who are actually interested in and value crafts, and were warmed up by festive mince pies and mulled wine.

Again it was a fantastic opportunity to meet people including Katie Cooke, Sarah-Jane at Sunflower Arts, Hannah Ayr, Suzanne at Suzanne Smith Design and Carla at Madame Plastique – as well as make a couple of purchases (a coptic bound sketch book) and a swap of a knitted bowl for a gorgeous daisy chain necklace.

I also found out about the Glasgow Craft Mafia which has been set up to promote craft and creativity in Glasgow. It was inspired by a model originally set up in Austin, Texas as part of the Austin Craft Mafia. This includes selling events and workshops, with every member contributing the skills that they are best able to offer – marketing, web site design, time, teaching etc etc.

Definitely time for something similar to be set up on the east coast of Scotland….

HND Textiles and Fashion – Week 13

Had a week of experiments looking at weaving sticks – using plastic bags and string of course…

I have also decided to make a series of handkerchiefs listing and representing the contents of a typical woman in 1945 and 1998. To do this I am looking to transfer images onto fabric. My experiments included:

• Painting a fresh photocopy with acetone (super drug basic nail-varnish remover – £1.15), leaving it for 5 minutes, and then putting the paper on top of the cloth and placing it under the heat press for up to one minute.

• Thickly painting a fresh photocopy with a mixture of equal parts white spirit and water with a slug of washing up liquid. Again the saturated paper was placed under the heat press for up to one minute. NB – this process was pretty smelly, however the results were far more successful than with the acetone

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• Dylons image maker in a tube (£3.99 for enough for 2 A4 sheets). This involves painting a photocopy with the paste and leaving it for at least 4 hours until dry. A sponge is then used to saturate the paper image and to begin to gently rub it off. When the top layer of paper is removed the cloth then needs to dry again, and then a sponge is used to rub off the final layer.

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Conclusion – the white spirit mixture was cheap and effective but still resulted in a good antique looking image. Despite being more expensive and taking longer the image maker resulted in the most true image compared to the original. I just need to decide which effect will work best for my hankies. Perhaps antique for 1945 and image maker for 1998?