Horsing around with ribbons

I made these wee horses for two teething boys on my last visit to Ireland at the weekend. I love using ribbon and for some reason babies become obsessed with it at this age.

The fabric came from an old "Dunnes stores' t-shirt so it was lovely and soft, perfect for small hands to get a hold on, the ribbon mane was sewed in twice for extra strength and I guess the tail was the most interesting thing about the whole horsey...mmm straight in the mouth!

'Tis the season for block printing

There is nothing like receiving a personalized one of a kind hand made gift item. So on Saturday we were all busy little Santa's elves creating hand printed t-towels and canvas bags for the giving season. 

By carving out individual designs on a pink speedy cut block with lino cutters we were then ready to ink up and print to our hearts content. The versatility of block printing is amazing, from printed cards to t-towels. It's fantastic! You only have to remember to heat-set the fabric ink with an iron or else you loose your design in the wash. 

There is a cupcake and teacup obsession with our crafty group it seems! And there was even time to do some embossing with the heat gun to create gift tags to go along with the presents!

joyful fabric printing

I should be wary about posting too many pictures of the results of the fabric print workshop that happened on Saturday, because I'm sure that what was made might all turn into presents! It should be inspiration to make more though. 


It was very exciting to be printing on tea-towels and canvas bags, and how professional the designs looked too. There is nothing like a functional piece of fabric on which you can admire your creative splurge. 




We were using speedball speedy carve or the 'pink stuff' as it's known as with lino cutters. It cuts like a dream so it's really easy to work with. We then used a combination of acrylic paint with some fabric medium and stamp ink pads that adhere to fabric once you heat set with an iron. 


I think that I'll be running this workshop again soon, such was the enthusiasm for the whole thing. I for one am addicted to printing whether on paper or fabric.  


Check out the processes involved below, from inspiration to creating the block for printing and then the printing process itself. 

I also foraged my neighbours' garden for leaves and we used them to create prints with. Simple yet effective...

The wonders of Batik

After an alarming (!) start we got down to creating some vibrant batik on Saturday.
We were in the studio space of Action Space the charity I volunteer for, which is also amongst the studios at Cockpit Arts. It was the perfect venue to get very messy with dyes and wax.

I'm showing some of the final pieces of fabric after the wax was removed. We had to leave them overnight to dry up and also for the dye to fix itself to the fabric. 
I have to say that they all turned out rather brilliant. The light is shining through them in this picture so it makes the colours even brighter. But the dye held rather well, ironing helps too. I got everyone's fabric in the pictures! Let me know what you think...job well done I'd say. 

And now for the processes involved...some waiting for things to soak, the magic of science and then applying the wax and the dyeing of course. 

This was the waxing table and below a batik tool close up called a tjanting, it helps make finer lines as you are drawing with the wax.

After the wax was applied, the fabric needed to sit in a 'fixer' (water and soda ash) so that the dye would stay in the fabric once washed out. 

Next up the dyes, probably the best part, mixing different colour dyes together on the fabric and experimenting. A psychedelic colour range to choose from.

After this, it was a waiting game, covered in plastic so the pieces didn't dry out. They had to soak in the dye for at least two hours. Perfect time to head out for a well earned glass of wine!

And I can't resist another couple of pictures of them all together in the afternoon light.

All the leaves are turning...

Were we back at the marbling today but we ventured onto fabric and surprisingly the paint seemed to like sticking to the fabric much better than the paper. 

Four hands needed in the fabric marbling operation to get a nice even coating of paint. We are using acrylic liquitex, which has the right consistency for floating and keeps its vibrancy. 

With some pretty amazing results all round, it's really pot luck to see what will happen to each bit of fabric or piece of paper, as what you see floating in the mixture is often not what ends up on the page. A bit of magic...