Had to make some adjustments as paper is a lot easier to cut than some of the fabrics when folded more than once.I will now start to play with adding stitch to these then can compare "before"and "after"

Preparing for complex sampling.

These images show my paper cutouts with bonded samples ready for stitch.

Bonding.

Following feedback I tried some more bonding samples ,some entirely of tissue and some mixed with fabrics.The bottom right and centre are simply more of my fabrics.

Top row from left-
1.chiffon,furnishing fabric,printed heavy weave with metallic and stranded cotton.
2.Heavy weave printed,satin,hand dyed muslin with metallic and sewing thread.
3.Satin,printed cotton,cotton with perle an stranded cotton.
Bottom row from left-
4.Felt,organza,dyed and printed cotton with perle and stranded cotton.
5.Glazed cotton,cotton,printed cotton with stranded cotton.
6.Synthetic,silk paper, gold net witn variegated stranded cotton.
These are the six samples produced from my various star shapes .I am not especially pleased with them as hand- stitching is not a strong point of mine.The other frustrating aspect is that much of the work lies hidden underneath the various layers.I do not like the way some layers are not centred.

Completed simple samples.

I like this one as even though it is one colour it has definition.

This one uses net,silk paper and cotton

Background fabric is missing one corner.

These are another of the "bits"which work a little better as they use more than one colour.

This does not work at all.It was one of the "bits"
scattered onto transfer adhesive ,cut out and applied to layers of blue fabrics.

Further bonded samples.

Have had a few days doing other things.I took these images last week but have not got around to uploading them.I have labelled them on the back but do not have them to hand so will just publish the pics.for now.

Taster

Have spent about two hours this afternoon ironing Bondaweb to my fabrics and have begun to cut out some stars.I'm now aching from standing at the ironing board ,never my most favourite pastime,but this is pleasure?

This sample is luscious-maroon cotton printed with pearlescent yellow overlaid with blue organza and finished off with some shiny synthetic also printed with yellow and a part star block.

I have Paintshop-ped the other photos but I'll leave til another day.

The fabrics include cotton,net,satin,felt,organza and even a piece of knitted cotton, tried for fun.

Printed fabrics.

These last are the fabrics drying .I used a mixture of large whole motifs and parts of motifs for the blocks.Some I printed on their own others I mixed up .I used simple,halfdrop reverse and overprinted patterns.

Fabrics.

These next photos show some of the fabrics I've collected in my chosen colourway of orange and blue,very Vincent!

Printmaking.

What a glorious morning and I've been inside .I have been printing some more fabric in readiness for the next stage.My order from Whaleys has just turned up so I now have plenty of Bondaweb,or transfer adhesive as they call it.This picture shows my printing blocks cut from the dense foam used for packaging.It makes for easy cutting and lasts very well.I used to use it with school students.My paints are alongside, three process colours which are used for screenprinting to allow for accurate mixing and two pearlescent cheapies picked up in a well known German supermarket.

Frustration!

I apologise to those experienced bloggers out there for the mish-mash I've created .I can't really blame not listening in school as we didn't do this.

These are the negative shapes left when cutting out stars .I rearranged them to create new shapes.

Some Ethnic patterns based on stars.

My brainstorm on stars.

More sketchbook pictures.

These are more pictures that I forgot,got too tired to upload last night.There seem to be a lot of them but I shall be able to gradually add now that these are completed.I have photos of my mounted sheets but I will leave them for another time as they need to be amended on Paintshop so that thay can be enlarged for detail.I am going to do more fabric printing later and will post results of that.

These are some printouts of my black cutouts scanned then played with to create patterns.The right hand page is using filters and effects in Paintshop Pro.

After printing my papers I used some tissue to use up the excess paint.These are the results.

These pages contain some photographs and some line drawings.

I have some Indian print blocks that I used for these rubbings

I did a workshop at Bristol Embroideres Guild with Madeleine Millington and saw the work of the other artists at Alexandra Palace.

These are a collection of star shapes in nature and were collected from magazines.I have used tracing paper over the left hand page to outline the star shapes.Spider web and images from 'net.

As promised images from my sketchbook on Module 1.

Beginnings

Well this is it ........
Retirement is meant to be a new beginning , joining the ranks of Distant Stitch was the first step now I'm launching into cyber space and the world of blogging.As I learn I will post my progress ,or otherwise on this site.