Working with Fabrics - Wall Hangings

Fabric Wall Hangings

In the video I share with you a series of wall hangings I created called Forgotten Stories.  Here is how they progressed.

At this point I had painted the fabric pieces and started to add the jewelry and the beading.

I taught myself some simple quilting techniques and ran with it.  I knew I didn't want to make a large quilt, just used some of tips that I needed as I learnt.

Very often we stop ourselves from doing things because we don't have the resources, or skills, but you can learn the techniques as you go along, don't wait until you are an expert as you might find that you get some great results from the process as you go along.  In my research I learnt about the quilts of the Underground Railroad, the messages and symbols contained in them and will share more in another post.

There were several things that I loved doing with these wall hangings, 

•  the process of painting the pieces of fabric, 
• using the range of colors and also 
• creating the marks and designs that seem to come together when they were taken to the next stage and stitched

I called the series of wall hangings the Forgotten Stories.

Forgotten Stories Series

I started creating the series quite a while back and spent a lot of time selecting fabric and hand painting the fabric using a variety of acrylics, fabric paints and later on embellishments.  I never used to have so much patience to create the amount of detail that you see in these pieces, but learnt that the messages come out over time, and in different ways. 

The idea behind the series for me is the forgotten stories that  are told in communities and would traditionally be handed down as you sit around a fire, or people would gather round the village stories tellers.  I also wanted them to capture the essence of a short story that I had written where a young girl accompanies her mother to a fabric store and the owner begins to share how far the fabric has traveled and what all the signs and symbols mean.

With each pattern having a meaning. These stories tells of the kings and queens, the daily lives of a village who did what their accomplishments, the travelers of the land, the trade between the villages and the things they produced.  The carrying of spices, and precious jewels across sand dunes, forests and seas.

The symbols that tells of the strength the technology and skills that were the cornerstone of populations

Charting the journey of the different tribes, showing the gifts the abilities that resides unto this day.

Once each panel was complete I began to add the beading and embellishments to decorate.  You can see a bit of the process in the video above.

Forgotten Stories - Blue

I love the way the pieces turned out and the color mixes.

As my fabric pieces tell their story I hope they will inspire you to share yours.  Art for me is about how we use it to express our ideas, thoughts - our truth and is a tool that can bring a voice to every situation.

Let me know how you use fabric in your work and to express ideas.  If you are looking for additional ideas for using fabric then check out some of the links below for ideas, supplies and more!

Adorn it 

Dollar Tree 

Blick 

Stampington 

C& T Publishing

Craftsy Kits

Material Mondays - Painted fabric

Material Mondays - Painted Fabric

Welcome back to Monday Makes, it has been a while since I have posted what I have made either from fabric or crochet.  I have been busy in the background and will be sharing with you over the next few weeks, getting back on track

You can do many things with fabric, it is so versatile.  I decided to experiment, and took sari fabric which was quite sheer and sandwiched a piece of paper between two pieces of the material.

This meant that I was able to stiffen it up prior to working on it.  After letting it dry I painted with gesso and was then able to add an image.

I also added some journaling and beading on the body of the image and also as earrings

 It was great to experiment by adding the beads, and being fabric made it easy to sew.  I found that because the material was so sheer you needed to take extra care to add enough glue to the surfaces, which resulted in areas where it didn't stick properly.

A remedy would be to use these areas as a part of the decoration and sew additional beads to these parts, try to flatten by ironing them out or cut and reseal, which will probably be the most effective remedy.  I haven't quite decided what I will be using the decorated fabric painting for, and this will inform to a certain extent how prominent the areas look.

Painted and decorated fabric

Why not see what you can do with the fabric that you have and do something different with it.  Do let me know how you get on.

If you are considering learning how to crochet, or any other creative activity check out Craftsy online courses, at the moment they are doing a special offer on some of their classes, and they are offering some free mini courses. Click here. 

Have a blessed day, see you tomorrow for Tutorial Tuesday.

Material Mondays - Painted Recycled Fabric

Painted Recycled Fabric

I have been having fun painting fabric for use in a variety of creative projects.  I found out by error that acrylic paints don't come out when I was painting while wearing an item of clothes that should have been covered up, but wasn't.  After washing the paint didn't come out, and so acrylics alongside fabric paints became part of the tools used to create designs.

I have also been using a lot of recycled materials that would normally be unusable for making another item of clothing prior to painting because they are too tatty, but once painted the materials take on a different texture and then can be incorporated into your design as you wish.

The first three fabrics were taken from a school uniform trousers made from a polyester and cotton mix and to prepare the fabric I used gesso as a base and then applied the paint, pens and stamps.

On some of the fabric like the one below which is a school shirt which I used as a mop up while painting other projects came out with quite nice patterns and will make a great lining for another project.

old school shirt

Here is a shirt decorated with paints and stamps and used to line the inside of my bag journal.  You can check how I made the bag journal HERE

using school shirt to line the inside of Recycled bag journal

Here is the inside of the journal once completed with more painted fabric used as pockets

recycled bag journal and inside pages

When you use fabric that has already got an unusal pattern within it it can create some great effects

Baby wipes - I used them quite a bit in the studio, as a means for clearing up, but when they get soaked with paint, they begin to take on new life and I can hear the sewing machine calling for some experimentation.

baby wipes can be used in creative projects

I also found some scraps of leather that I have begin to experiment and play it has a great texture and I am looking forward to using it in a project.

Old leather can be given a new lease of life by painting

Back to the school uniform trousers, because the material was quite thick I didn't need to coat it in gesso first. I wanted to experiment with different mediums and so used derwent artbars and applied glitter on certain places on the piece below, 

fabric portraits using artbars

This piece used gesso as a base then I used artbars again along with pearlised glue, and fabric paint. The colours do come up slightly brighter.  I used a sewing machine to highlight some of the features and the flower.

I have not yet decided what I will be using this piece for, will have to give it some thought.  Have you tried experimenting with fabric?  It would be great to hear about some of your work, so do leave a comment and link to your post.

Using stitching to add to the effect of the fabric portraits

If you are considering learning how to take part in creative activity check out Craftsy online courses, at the moment they are doing a special offer on some of their classes, and they are offering some free mini courses. Click here.