A new obsession

Earlier this year I attended a short course on book making at New Suffolk College. On the course we learned to make books using paper covers but I wanted to use some of the fabrics created whilst teaching surface design techniques.

The books are all completely handmade including stitching papers into signatures. This means that the inside papers can be varied too.

This one uses some breakdown printed fabric. 

The cover boards are made from free mount board off cuts from my local framer.

The bookbinding cloth for the spine does need to be purchased and shepherds London have a great range of lovely colours

The end papers are from my paper box and each one is different. Again as a result of teaching design work to create complex decorated papers.

In this case the end paper was printed in the same breakdown printing session as the cover when I ran out of fabric!

 

You will recognise my 'Life's a Bleach!' fabric. I have quite a lot of this!

The discharging technique can be done onto black paper too and is particularly effective on black tissue paper so I will use that for future versions. 

But for this one I have used a paper found in my paper box.

I have a lot of paper - another obsession

The vilene from eco printing used as an iron blanket for that process and now converted into a book cover

Fabric printed using a melted crisp packet!

Eco printed fabric

Ice dyed fabric 

So I have become a bit obsessed making these books. 

They will be offered for sale for £15 each at the Textile Connections exhibition at burystedmundsguildhall from 2nd - 7th July 2024

Monoprinting fun

 

I spent a fun afternoon first foraging for foliage and then monoprinting onto cotton organdie. 

Using paint and acrylic inks to build up several layers of shape, colour and inplied texture.

I chose some horse chestnut leaves for this series. The combination of an interesting shape and the precise ribbing on the underside of the leaf makes for good prints

The result from an afternoon's work was a range of printed fabrics all related in theme and sharing a similar colour palette. These will now be pieced using the Pojagi technique into a double-sided panel.

This work is in preparation for the 'Monoprint Magic' workshop at eaubrinkstudio on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th June 2024.

There are still a couple of spaces left if you would like to come along. Please book direct with Anita at Eau Brink. Telephone 01533611009

A bonus are the papers used to test the prints and with multiple layers of print. These will go into my paper box for  use in multi media work or as end papers for my handmade books

These are the poor old horse chestnut leaves after all the printing. I did try to think how I might be able to resuse these, but told my self not to be so silly and put them in the bin!