Out & About - North East Embroiderers' Guild Weekend

Love the leaves and the contrasting colour added around them

Things have been wonderfully busy for the past month - lots of exciting teaching, some days away with the family over the Easter holidays in the North Yorks Moors, a little bit of experimenting with my new heat press and even more teaching.  All great fun, but it means I haven't had much time to blog (sorry Mum).  So time to rectify that and get blogging again and I'm going to start by telling you about my fabulously intense time with the North East (of England) Embroiderers' Guild at their spring school in one of the colleges of Durham University.  The course was called 'Print, Paint, Play' - try saying it fast - not very easy!

Selection of one student's work

They started work on the Friday afternoon and when I arrived at about 10pm, as I had been teaching at home, there was still some activity going on in the room and a great start had been made using Inktense, along with a scavenger hunt for materials to print with.  Over the next two days, I introduced painting with thickened dyes, gelli plate printing and using Markal paintstiks.  

Love the black print on white fabric using a stencil

I was really impressed with all that they managed to create - very inspiring for me too, particularly in how they used stencils.  Normally I am working with quilters, so I thought that the embroiderers would approach things differently, but actually, I didn't see much difference.  Perhaps only that they were happy to make smaller panels and mount them rather than stitching them together into a larger piece.

Great interpretation of a cave painting theme

All of the photos in this post are of their work.  

Two different colourways of the same printed tatted bookmark

On the Saturday afternoon, there were a few hours off and I headed into the centre of Durham to visit the cathedral, a place I visited often in childhood.  My memory of it was surprisingly clear - even the cafe looked as I thought it would!  I was lucky and timed my visit so that I heard some of Evensong.  It was really calming and a lovely way to spend some down time whilst teaching so intensively.

Great use of a stencil over a print

Lovely surface

Looking at the work at the end of the weekend

Fab gelli plate print of found leaves.  We were looking rather longingly at the lovely big house plants in the college, but they were too healthy to have shed leaves!

Rubbing of honesty leaves over dyed fabric

Sometimes things are just more effective on black fabric than white

How to: Use Markal or Shiva Paintstiks on Fabric

Markal and stitch over a Gelli Plate Print

One of my favourite colouring tools for fabric is Markal paintstiks.  They are oil based and are very opaque, so can be used over any colour, unlike dye or Inktense.  They come in both matte and iridescent which is a bit pearlised or slightly metallic.  Now I don’t do glitz, but for some reason, I love the iridescent Markal – they just bring a bit of a lift to the work.  Note: Markal and Shiva are the exact same things.

Some of my Markals and short stencil brushes

I recently wrote a how to use Markals with stencils, which is in the current edition of Popular Patchwork.  This is an abbreviated version of what is in the magazine.

Markals in Popular Patchwork

You will need fabric, stencil, Markals and a short stencil brush (a toothbrush is perfect).

My Markal Equipment

How to:

1.   Make sure that you have your table covered as Markals are very permanent!

2.   You need your fabric to stay put, so tape in place or use some spray baste, like 505.  You also need to hold your stencil in place over the fabric the same way.

3.   As the paintstik is oil paint, it will form a skin, which you have to remove to get to the paint, either by rubbing with a cloth or cut off with a knife.

4.   Load your brush with paint and apply to the fabric in circular motions.

Adding the Markal through a paper stencil

5.   The colours blend really well and I often add several colours in a piece.  Some people will blend the colours before apply to the fabric, I prefer to mix on the fabric so the blend is not too perfect.

6.   Leave to dry – be patient it takes a long time, like several days.  Once dried, iron the fabric between two layers of baking parchment to make the paint totally permanent.

Hand cut paper stencil

You can use bought stencils or cut your own.  I use both – I like the bought ones when it is something I couldn’t cut myself and The Crafter's Workshop ones have generous use policies, so I don’t need to worry about breaking copyright.  My own, I cut from heavy photocopy paper with a scalpel, normally through two layers so I have a spare version.  I have used freezer paper as it is good for positioning as you can iron it on to the fabric.  However, to my cost, I discovered that it does not peel off wet Markal paint – only use on bare fabric!

Markal on top of hand dyed and pieced silk

There are lots of different ways of using Markals, some more subtle than others, perhaps that will be for another blogpost.  

Stencilling through some sequins waste