What to do with an old dish towel

I've been helping my parents sort through all their stuff and I ended up with a dish towel.  I wasn't really going to use it as a dish towel so I decided to make it into a little bag.  I simply cut off two of the blue ends to make a handle and then sewed the sides together and made a box finish at the bottom.  Washable and the right size to put lunch in!

Video at Fibre Fling 5

At the show our wonderful videographer Liana Voia filmed me again talking about my artwork.  She filmed us last year and did so again this year.  Here is my video:

Please feel free to leave a comment.  I wanted to mention that my one-of-a-kind fat quarters are washable in gentle detergent in cold water.  I'm offering them for sale at $8 Canadian each.  If you're interested contact me at connietb@sympatico.ca

Fibre Fling a success!

We had a great couple of days and a very successful show!  Here are a few photos of the things I had at the show.  I sold almost all of my one-of-a-kind fat quarters.  They were hand painted sun printed, printed with plants and printed with my hand made stamps.  My cards had eco prints, sunprints and stamping on them and sold quite well too.

Here are the fabric bowls I had for sale.

Here are my hand printed greeting cards some with eco printing on them, some hand stamped and some sun printed (right bottom).  They were going for $5 each.

Fibre Fling 5 coming soon!

If you live in the Ottawa area please visit Fibre Fling 5 and see all the new artwork Out-of-the Box will have on display this year. We always have new pieces and don't reshow any of last year's.  I'll have my Bird piece that was at Stittsville Library there (see November post below) and hopefully another piece mounted on canvas if I can get it ready in time. There's also a section with gift items for sale.   I'm making some fabric bowls and hand stamped fat quarters to sell.  See the flyer below for details.  Looking forward to seeing you there!

Stamp making with a friend

Last week I spent a day showing a friend how to make stamps with fun foam or craft foam, with Magic Stamps and carving erasers and rubber.  Here are some of the stamps I made that day.   We stamped with acrylic paint on paper afterwards but you could easily use them to stamp on fabric too.  A nice relaxing activity.

This stamp was made with craft foam which has an adhesive layer behind with backing paper which you peel off.  After drawing the flower design onto the craft foam I cut out the shape with an exacto knife. Then I stuck it onto a thicker piece of foam and again carved out the shape.  Then I attached the thicker piece to a piece of rubber floor tile using double sided tape.  This gives a nice deep surface and a good base to hold onto when stamping.  You can see on the right paper the flower as I carved it and on the left I double stamped it.  I find the simpler the design you start with the better.

Above is a Magic Stamp which I heated up and pressed onto some textured wallpaper.  They recommend heating Magic Stamps with a heat gun.  I have also used a hot iron (with a press cloth between!).   It doesn't take long to heat up.  This gave a nice crisp image which is easy to stamp onto paper or fabric.

These are regular office store erasers carved with a Speedycarve tool or in my case using my wood cutting tools.  Very simple pattern and it makes an effective design on paper or fabric.  Now I can turn the erasers over and carve another design on the other side.  Please leave a comment below!

Fibre Fling 5!

I'm getting ready for the next Fibre Fling at Kitchissippi United Church.  Here's the brochure:

I've been busy making fabric bowls this weekend.

Sculpting with Cheescloth Workshop with Mary Pal

Back in October 2015 I organized and attended a workshop with Mary Pal, an internationally known artist who makes portraits and landscape quilts with cheesecloth.  Here is my piece from the class at Kitchissippi United Church.  I took a photo I had taken of a White Breasted Nuthatch and have interpreted the tree in painted cheesecloth.  Then I drew the bird on fabric with watercolour pencils and hand embroidered in some details.  The background is hand painted white cotton with textile paint.  I just have to finish this.  I have a lot of unfinished pieces that I want to finish and mount on a canvas for Fibre Fling in April 2016!

Here's a close up of the bird so you can see the detail:

Please leave me a comment and/or let me know what you're working on.