Stitch Tutorial

Bullion stitches are similar to french knots, but more elongated.  

Bullion Stitch

Begin with a threaded needle.  Bring the needle up through the work from the back. 

Wrap the thread around the needle several times.  I've done so four times in this example. 

Hold the thread slightly taut, and thread the needle back through the work a small distance away from where it was brought up previously. 

Back to school?

Happy back to school if you're among the students out there!  It feels pretty strange, not going back.  Good, having graduated a few months ago, but strange.  What better way to acknowledge students' first day back than with a little tutorial!

French Knots

Thread a needle with your chosen thread.  I used cotton embroidery floss.  You can tie a knot near the end of the thread if you need to, otherwise just leave a tail on the wrong side of your work.

Begin by pulling needle and thread through the cloth from underside to topside.  Wrap the thread around the needle twice.  

Gently hold the thread slightly taut and pull the needle and thread back through the fabric near the point it was brought up before. 

Once the thread is pulled back through, you have a finished knot. 

ATCs and ACEOs

Artist Trading Cards and Art Card Editions and Originals can be a quick and easy project.  You can use them to try out a technique before doing a larger work, as something small and compact you can share with friends, etc.  There are very few restrictions to keep in mind.

Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) should be given or traded, not sold.  ACEOs can be sold.

Both should be reasonably flat, and are always 2.5 inches wide and 3.5 inches tall, so that they fit into standard trading card sleeves. They are often traded by mail, and the flatness also helps keep this easy.

They can be made in any media that fit these rules: paper, paint, metal, fabric, etc.  The back of the card usually includes the artist's name, email, year the card was made, the number (if the card is part of a series), and possibly a title or theme. 

How to Start a Project

We all get creatively stuck sometimes.  When you're looking for your next project idea, here's a little help on getting started.  You can use a sort of prompt to give you somewhere to work from.

1 - MEDIA: You can decide first on what media you want to use, which can give you a reason to pick up something you haven't used for a while, or haven't tried before. 

2 -THEME:  You can come up with a theme, or subject matter, that you want to work from.  Try looking through books.  Not just art books, but any books - poems, nature, technology, etc. 

3 - COLOUR:  Either before you have a theme, or after, you can play with colours to help you choose your palette.  Sometimes just knowing the colours you want to use will help you get an idea for subject matter.  Other times you'll have a theme in mind, and then you can play with colours that that theme makes you think of.

Colour pages work well for me.  You can create one speaking to a colour palette you already have in mind, or choose adjective words and make colour pages based on what that word makes you think of.  Your colour pages can be snips from magazines, paint, scrapbook papers, ribbon, drawings, etc. as pleases you.

Here's examples of my colour pages based on adjectives.  The left one is "spicy", and the right is "sweet". 

Green Tea

Green tea does work!  It's lighter.  These were soaked about an hour.  The left was a white silk dupioni, the right was an off-white silk dupioni.

Tea Staining Tutorial

I used tea staining in my butterflies which have been mentioned before.  It's great for giving an aged look to fabrics and fibres. 

First, it works best on natural fibres - wool, silk, cotton, etc.  It works because the tannins naturally present in tea act to hold colour onto fibres.  Pre-washing your fabric is a good idea to get rid of chemicals from the manufacturing process.

Beside that, it's pretty simple - boil water, make strong tea.  What I did was to make the tea a bit stronger than I would if I were drinking it.  I used black tea (ie. ceylon, chai, earl grey, orange pekoe).  Each tea is a little different and so your shade may be different also.  **  You should test small swatches before staining a larger piece. **  The strength of the tea and how long you soak your fabric will affect how dark it stains as will the weight of the fabric.  A lighter/thinner fabric will take less time. 

You will get a more even colour if you make your tea in a container that will have enough room to move the fabric around, and stir it every few minutes or so.  If the fabric is more tightly packed into the container you will get uneven colour, more like a tie-dye effect where the colour bleeds and fades.  This can look really neat, but may not be what you want.

So, if you're staining a yard or so of fabric, fill a large pot or sink with freshly boiled water.  A hot soak will work better than cold.

NOTE 1:  It's best if you use an old pot that is not used for food.

NOTE 2:  Be more careful about temperature with wool.  Heat and friction can both cause wool to felt, which is not always what you want.  

Drop in your tea bags, and let sit a few minutes.  Remove the tea bags, and drop in fabric.  Stir it around to make sure it's really wet.  Soak for 10 minutes to an hour.  Stir often.  I find that after an hour or so it doesn't get alot darker.  Remove from the tea bath, empty that out, rinse the fabric with clean water, and then dry.  I wring it out and then hang it outside. 

A whole week!

I can barely wrap my head around the fact that it's Friday again and that as such, it's been a week since the show started.  I spend weeks fretting about shows and then they're all done so quickly.
This weekend is going to be interesting, the closet in here is going to be emptied and have new and more useful shelving built.

I have been looking at my Etsy and social networks' stats, and they're looking pretty good!  :)

18 blog followers
63 fans
34 twitter followers
34 etsy shop hearts

Watch my upcoming posts, I'm working on a little tutorial treat.