Thursday 6 September 2012

Slow Cloth and Image Transfer

                                  My Juicer has arrived! But more of that in another post.

I hope you're all settling back down into 'Autumn Mode' - children back at school, new terms begun, holidays out of the way, yet blissfully we are not yet into counting 'shopping days til...'!

There was quite a bit of interest expressed about my fabric books in the previous post. Mostly, people wanted to know how I got the text and photographs onto the fabric. Well, I'm not a tutorial blog, and there are HEAPS of people out there better equipped to tell you how it's done, loads of books, and numerous youtube clips, so do avail yourselves of those for the real 'gen', as they say.

However I'll tell you how I did mine. First of all the Paper Bag Transfer. You've all seen those paper bags with patterns on, sometimes quite pale. Well they are printed using the final 'run-offs' of print runs, so as not to waste anything. And there is still some juice for us to make use of. Simply place the paper, print side down, on your fabric..use something fairly smooth, mine was old sheeting. Press with a hot iron, keep checking carefull to test 'done-ness'. You'll get quite a faded result, but I like it.

                                                          Just the effect I wanted.

For the other transfers I treated my fabric first with a solution called Bubble Jet Set. Use only cotton or silk, it won't work on synthetic fabrics. It comes in a 946 ml container, not cheap, but it does last, and you can re-use it, so it says. Made by an American firm, it is available to buy in the UK, probably from Art VAn Go, Cotton Patch or Rainbow Silks. Full instructions on the bottle. However, soak fabric in solution for 5 minutes, DON'T WRING, keep it flat and drip dry or blow dry.

Cut freezer papr to A4 size. Iron to fabric and cut fabric EXACTLY to size, removing any stray threads. Feed into your printer in the normal way. For this photo:


I simply laid the original onto the photocopying plate of my printer and pressed go. You can do this with any image, or a textile you want to photocopy and print onto fabric. You can also scan your images and save to your computer, to access later on. You can of course use any computer generated image or text.


For this little book I created paper versions of the pages by using rubber stamps and images /text from magazines onto A4 paper, and using this as my image to transfer. For blocks of text you either photocopy blocks of text, or type it out on your computer and simply print.If you know you are going to want to cut the text apart, then make sure you leave enough space between your lines of text. Here I've just used a block of text:


Here, however, I typed lines of text and spaced them out so I could cut them seperately.


Wash your printed fabric , each sheet seperately so nothing transfers between sheets. I have treated several pieces of fabric and stored them for ages, and it still works. If you are making something purely decorative you probably don't even need to use the solution. Have a try, experiment!

I was over at Jude Hill's lovely blog, Spirit Cloth, and remembered an ongoing project of mine. Jude is a great advocate of the Slow Cloth movement - google it, there's quite a lot of info about it. It grew out of the Slow Food Movement. Anyway, I began a few years ago collecting fabrics (any excuse) and stitching away by hand at a variety of little motifs and appliques. Who knows when it will be completed? It's a slow cloth! So here are some of the pieces waiting to be joined to their neighbours.








Its Working Title, is The Gypsy Quilt. Mostly very bright colours, cottons, silks, velvets...just a collection of lovely things and a wide variety of images and patterns. No plan in mind, it's just meandering its way along. Possibly it never will get finished, who knows!

On Saturday we are off to Ireland for a week, spot of fishing, spot of music, eating and drinking, sewing, reading, journaling, swimming, possibly a spot of walking too, you never know, but let's not be too hasty, eh? Going with good friends Mike and Lesley so double the enjoyment! Not sure I'll be able to blog from there, as am not quite up to speed with the technology..though I am getting there!

Happy Autumns to you all, and let's hope for a bit of an Indian Summer on the side!

18 comments:

  1. I don't know why you think you are not a tutorial blog - I think you've explained it all beautifully and I can't wait to get started. Am also off to check out the slow cloth movement on Spirit Cloth as that sounds right up my street! Lovely textiles you have created and thanks for sharing the "how to" with us. Have a great holiday and forget about blogging for a while - we can hear all about it when you get back!

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    1. Ah, no intention of doing tutorials! Just concerned that people don't check stuff out for themselves, I'd hate to get something wrong and someone make an awful mistake!

      Thanks, we will have a good time, I'm sure!

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  2. Everything I do is Slow.....not meant to be like that, just the way I am these days! I do like the Slow Cloth idea though, would my never ending WIP count? Very creative Lynne! I would NEVER have thought you could use a paper bag like that! My friend showed me the memory quilt she made her Mum, that had old photos copied onto it too, good idea! Ada :)

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  3. I loe the paper bag transfer, really pretty.
    Have a great holiday.
    Gillx

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  4. Ooh you never told me the paper bag trick I'm trying that one! Love the slow quilt it looks very sumptuous. Have a great trip to Ireland and I look forward to the juicer blog, the still life in your new bowl looks great!
    Xxxx

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    1. The juicer is part of an on-going process of looking after my liver and pancreas (most of all) and incidentally losing some wight....as a side line. I'll may be do a post about it if I can find a way of not getting too medicalese or boring. See you after the hols! Lx.

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  5. I do like the idea that process is important as product, sometimes it's good to just play! And what Gypsy jewels you are playing with :D

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    1. Yes, I think we need to stop and smell the ....(flowers, coffee, Chanel no 5 or whatever floats your boat!) and not be in such a rush all the time. I know there are deadlines and commitments, but sometimes it's just really nice to stitch away and really enjoy every movement, feeling the texture of the cloth, enjoying the smooth glide of the thread behing the needle, and the way the hand of the cloth changes as you stitch into it more and more. You really get to know the cloth, it becomes part of you. Zen.

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  6. I like that slow cloth concept so much - your embroidered bits are pure magic. I think I should try something like that - I tend to rush things because I am so impatient to get a result, so what I make isn't quite as good as I hoped/imagined. A slow boil would let ideas come to the fore. It would be hard though, to have an unfinished work on the go. Almost an act of discipline. I am going to have a read up on it.

    Liking the juicer thing too.

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  7. Hi Wendz, I think it's good to have a slow cloth 'on the go' as it were, just something to pick up when you feel like doing a bit of stitching. Doesn't stop you getting on with other stuff if you want/need to. It can be anything you like.

    The juicer is my new toy and I'm having great fun with it. But it is about more serious stuff too. I'm reluctant to get into too much diet stuff on the blog, it's just so boring for other people (and you look a real twit if you fall off the wagon!!) But I might just do a post on juicing/fasting and why it might be good for you - weight loss or not. Lx

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  8. This is all very fortuitous as I have been researching all this image transfer stuff for 'that thing' I am doing next year which you know about ... am gonna email you cos I want to pick your brains. In the meantime, have a fab time in Ireland - I expect 'slow cloth' would suit the pace of life there! Love the gypsy quilt (haven't started mine yet!). xCathy

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  9. Hi Cathy, well, I aim to please, on the Fortuitous Front! For heaven's sake though, do check out a good book, see my answer futher up the comments!
    Sure, email me but we aren't back til about the 16th or so. I'll be in touch then. All best, Lx

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  10. Hi Lynne, thanks for sharing the image transfer info. I've had good and bad results with jetfx paper, and wasted a lot of money! Sometimes it worked and sometimes not. I don't know why! The videos I've seen were only plugging products. I find the slow quilt cloth very much akin to the way I work.

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    1. Hi Felicity...greetings from Ireland! Managed to get the wi-fi organisied at last.

      Hope you find the bubble jet set works ok for you. I will see if I can find some decent youtube vids and post them. I'm sure there are some decent ones out there. Complex Cloth ....see my fave books on home page...is excellent and there are some newer authors doing this stuff too.

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  11. Oooh, I'm glad I popped in as this is such a lovely post to browse through. I particularly love the image transfer info and it has inspired me to have a try. Haven't done this for years. Thanks so much Lynne...
    You are certainly buzzing creatively!
    Love Jo x

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