Screen Printing

 I have been wanting to play around with some screen printing for the last couple of years. I love the effects that some people get and really admire their quilts. I have the books and DVD's and have been reading and watching them for the last couple of weeks.

Most people seem to use thickened dye on fabric but my for trial, I didn't want to be mixing up dyes and soda soaking fabric etc. I didn't even cut any stencils, I just used what I had on hand and they were the ones that I had used a couple of months ago when I did some sun printing.

I used the screen-printing ink in black that I used recently for the mark making.

Oh, my goodness!! The mess! That black inky screen! The horrible clean up. It's just not for me. I have to admit I like things a bit cleaner and in control.

Here are the two pieces of fabric that I printed.

Now, I must admit there are some sections that I don't mind and could imagine them cropped and able to be used. 

There are other techniques that I enjoy so much more. I love sun printing, I even enjoyed that flour resist and the mark making. Love using a thermofax screen and mono printing. The screen printing is just one step too far for me.

I'll just enjoy other people's work from now on.

I think it's just as important to know you don't like as what you do like. I no longer have to fill up my head with ideas with this and imagining me screen printing.

Bye for now,

Linda

Another Class with Nancy Crow!

Two and a half years ago, I did two weeks of advanced design classes with Nancy Crow in New Zealand. I was way out of my depth, I had never used plain fabrics before, I hadn't done any piecing for over 10 years, my fabrics were all the wrong values and it was an advanced, serious design class in work that I didn't do. I am much more comfortable with applique than piecing.

You can read my post about the classes with Nancy Crow in 2017.

I have been invited to attend two weeks of classes at Nancy Crow's barn in Ohio in 2022 and I said yes! Nancy only accepts advanced students, no new ones anymore. Of course, these classes will only go ahead if this virus is under control and international travel is allowed.

Why am I doing this! I am doing it because I know what I am getting myself into now, I enjoy working with plain fabrics and feel more comfortable with contemporary design. I don't know any person who teaches advanced design and will tell you honestly why your work is good or bad and why.

The other reason is that the two weeks with Nancy Crow were the most challenging but one of the best times of my life.

Even though it's two years away, I have started collecting fabrics, whenever I see them on special.

When the fabrics arrive in the post (no patchwork shops are open) I wash them and label them with their Kona cotton name and what value they are.

Look how gorgeous these fabrics look when they are in value order.

Value order

I have the Kona cotton chart with all the fabrics, so I know all the names.

My friend in Adelaide, Julie Haddrick who is also doing the classes, sent me a copy of the Circular Abstractions book, which is hard to get, so I can be further inspired.

Well, it's two years away and anything could happen in that time but it's something to look forward to.

Bye for now,

 Linda

Circle Series 7

I am still trying to continue with my circle series. They don't take long to do and they are really just design and experiment exercises. They are all fused and I don't do any stitching on them. The small A3 size means that they don't interfere with my more 'serious' work.

I drew up an idea on some paper first and then tried to put it together. 

It looks simple but it was actually trickier to do because some of the background stripes went under and over the fused circles. So, I was piecing some of the background and fusing some bit of circle and then piecing some more.

I left it overnight and the next day I thought the bottom circle looked to bare, so I added another inner circle.

Circle Series 7

The stripes look a bit wonky too and would need some serious blocking if I decided to finish it.

I am starting to see why I felt compelled to continue with this series, although I don't really like my latest one, it has given me an idea for the next one. In my imagination, it has some possibilities! Time will tell.

This is a photo of my previous circle designs.

Bye for now,

Linda

Masterclass with Claire Benn

The UK Festival of Quilts was on over the weekend, but it was a virtual quilt show this year. They also had classes over the internet for the first time. I signed up for a Mark Making class with Claire Benn, I have always admired Claire's work and want to try and do more mark making and screen printing kind of work.

The class was for one hour and was on at 8pm on Friday night for my time zone. Here is my Ipad set up waiting for the class to start via Zoom.

I had my work space and tools all set up, waiting to go, it was exciting.

Claire Benn recommended that we only use white fabric and black paint to keep things simple. I used black screen printing ink.

Our first instruction was to put masking tape on our fabric to act as a resist.

Then we followed along with Claire starting with a gelli plate and foam brush.

I didn't take any progress photos after that because I was busy keeping up with everything.

Here is what it looked like finished.

I really enjoyed the class. I left it to dry overnight and I went and cleaned the paint off all my brushes and tools.

The next morning, I took off the tape.

I love it. Claire said that the idea was to try lots of things and eventually you will get to know the marks that you enjoy making and continue on with those that suit your own work.

Of course, this is just a practice piece and not a completed work, but I definitely think I could do more of this kind of thing. I have to start and try it soon though. I have learnt from the past that I can do a workshop and then go home, pack things away and get on with my life and lose the momentum and excitement of the class.

The zoom class worked so well and it was amazing that people from all over the world were doing it at the same time. Claire is a very experienced teacher.

I can imagine doing this sort of class again, so much cheaper than an airfare to the UK and hotel fees etc. That is one of the only benefits of this horrible Corona virus.

Speaking of which, my state, Victoria has now gone into Stage 4 lockdown. All retail and business closed except for supermarkets, banks, petrol stations, doctors and a few more things.

We have a curfew and are not allowed out from 8pm until 5am unless we are coming home from work.

Only one person may leave the house for shopping and it must be within a 5k radius and for one hour only. We are allowed to walk or run for an hour a day with only one other person from the family. We must always wear a mask when outside of our house. There are huge fines for disobeying these rules.

The virus had got out of control and we are having between 400 and 700 new cases daily and 10-13 deaths daily. Too many for the size of our population.

This will go on for 6 weeks. It will be spring before we are allowed out again. I hope this works!

Luckily, I have plenty of sewing to do and we can see friends and family over the internet.

Bye for now,

Linda

Making Masks

We are halfway through our second stage 3 lockdown because of the Covid 19 virus. As of last Thursday, you have to wear a mask if you go outside your house. I had already bought a box of disposable masks that we have been using, but all of my friends are busy making masks and so I thought that I might as well have a go as well. I do have plenty of fabric! But no elastic! I haven't used elastic in years and it seems to be sold out everywhere.

I had bought some elastic hair ties for my grandchildren recently so I tried to use them.

The hair elastic is quite thick and not quite long enough. I made the dark blue mask first and it's too tight. I made the lighter blue one next and made it an inch wider to compensate for the tight elastic. It was much better but still not very comfortable.

The masks with the pleats are a bit time consuming to make and I noticed that my friends on Facebook were sewing a different design. I tried that next and it is much quicker to make.

I found some hat elastic in the back of the cupboard too, it's much more comfortable than the hair elastic.

The good news is that a patchwork shop has got in a supply of elastic and I have ordered some, so as soon as it gets delivered, I can make some more masks.

Luckily, the virus is not around where I live, it's mainly over the other side of the city but it won't take much for it to spread here unfortunately. We are not allowed visitors, so it's back to zoom and video calls with family and friends, we are only allowed to go to the supermarket, pharmacy, doctor or exercise outside.

I hope we can get on top of this soon, although I am happy staying at home, sewing away. I feel sorry for all those businesses that have had to close and all those people out of work.

Last week, we had a new ducted gas heating system put through the house. It took three men, 3 days to do it. I took a photo of some of the huge ducts that were going to be put in the roof.

We love the new heating system; it is working very well. Now we have just have to wait for the gas account and see how much it is costing to run.
 Up until last week we had the electric under-floor heating but it was costing too much to run. The bill for last month was $3,000 for one month!! We had enough of those ridiculous charges. It was always an expensive system but it was such a lovely warmth that we put up with the higher bills during winter but the electricity prices have been going up and up. I looked up our past accounts and 3 years ago, the July bill was $1,000, 2 years ago it was $2,000 and now it's up to $3,000. It was beyond a joke and we just weren't prepared to pay that huge price anymore.

Sorry, if this was a bit of a boring read for any readers but I get a book printed of my blog every year and I wanted to document some of what was happening in 2020. Goodness knows, it's nothing like the year we ever expected.

I am actually busy quilting a couple of quilts but the rules of the competition are that the quilts cannot be shown anywhere, so they'll have to be a secret for now, sorry.

I can show you the backing fabrics.

I have just finished with the red one and I am using the purple one at the moment. I'll do the one in the middle after that, but there is no hurry for that one.

Bye for now,
Linda

Australia Wide 7 Success

I have been a member of the Australian  and New Zealand Art Quilt Group, OzQuilt Network for a year or so now.

When we first went into lockdown at the end of March, I decided to try and make a quilt for their next touring exhibition, called Australia Wide 7. The quilts tour to various galleries for two years and are quite compact, only 40cm or 16" square.

The Blues by Linda Steele©2020

I was absolutely thrilled to get the notice that my quilt was accepted to be part of the exhibition. Apparently, they received 83 entries and 37 were accepted.

I didn't take many progress photos but I did find one where I was deciding on the placement of the circles.

Placing the circles

Here is a detail photo.

The Blues, detail

It was an honour to be selected, especially as I am one of the new kids on the block, art quilt wise.

Bye for now,
Linda

Circle Series 6

I've continued to work in a series with my circles theme, although I must admit my interest is waning. I don't think they will translate to some larger work, but you never know I suppose.

I've actually gone back to my number 4 in the series, I was never happy with the result.

Circle series 4

I decided that the reason was that the background triangle shapes were too large and so there was no difference in scale between the background and the circles.

I made another with a background of smaller shapes. It took a lot longer to put together.

No 6 background

 I used the blue colours because I was sick of the pink and green.

Circle series no. 6

It's ok, but I don't love it. Maybe the stripes just set off the circles so much better than triangles.

Here is a photo of all six in the series. How funny - I'm starting to like the first one again!

Circle Series

I also made another little paper collage out of my gelli printed papers.

Paper Collage

 The little collage is small, only 7" wide and 4" high but they take a surprising amount of time to make. I wish I could say that I whipped it up in 10 minutes because that what it looks like, but in reality, it was more like a couple of hours!

The bad news here in Melbourne is that we are experiencing a second wave of the virus and last week we went into 6 weeks of lockdown again.
This time I want to get more sewing done and not so much of the playing around and experimenting.

Bye for now,
Linda