Eco printed apron

 Last summer I did a course with the Wild Dyery online.  For the Leaf  Print Cloth course I made an apron out of all the eco printed samples I made.  They are mostly on silk noil.  I've printed plants from my garden and area such as rose leaves, buckthorn leaves, strawberry leaves, maple leaves, iris petals and a Bachelor's Button flower.  The pink is from natural madder dye.   The browny pink is from avocado pits.   Here's a photo of the apron spread out so you can see all the fabrics.  Click on it to see the details.  I added embroidery on some areas.

Here's a photo of the finished apron.  I'm quite pleased how it turned out:)  This was part of my last assignment of the course.  Thanks for having a look!  Please leave a comment below.

More shopping bags made of recycled packaging

 Here are a few more bags I made by sewing together used food packaging.  I just cut off the zip part and then sewed the packages together.  I was concerned that the straps weren't sturdy enough but I seem to be able to carry quite a lot in them.

I hope this inspires you to make something similar!  If you do let me know in the comments section below.

Recycling plastic

This winter I've been thinking a lot about keeping things out of the landfill and incorporating materials I have into artwork and other projects.  I seem to accumulate a lot of plastic food packaging and I've kept it because it's colourful, because I don't want to throw it out and I wanted to make something with it.  Here's an example of some of the packing I have.

Below is a grocery bag I made out of eight packages..  It's lying on its side.  I've cut off the zip part and then just sewn the packages together so each side is double layered.  I've cut out a square from each side for the bottom and have sewn the two layers together (quite hard to turn).

Here's another angle below.  It was quite heavy plastic so I had to use a jeans needle.  This bag is quite large and will hold lots of groceries.  My next step is to make a handle for it:)  Stay tuned for more...

Eco print cushion

 This month I made a cushion with eco printed cotton fabric and onion skin dyed cotton fabric for the borders and back.  It measures 14 inches square and the plants are coreopsis verticillata and strawberry leaves both from my garden.  The fabric was soaked in tannin water first and then the print was made.  I was going to embroider the print but decided to leave it as is.  Thanks for having a look:)

My piece in the Stittsville show

 Here's a close up of the piece I made for the 2020 Stittsville Library show. It measures 12 inches by 15 inches (30 cm X 38 cm).  It's called Finding Comfort in Nature.  I made an eco print on watercolour paper and scanned it onto white cotton fabric.  Then I attached it to a hand painted piece of blue fabric to use as a background and did some hand and machine stitching.  Click on the image to enlarge.  Look at the posts below for more of the Stittsville 2020 show.  Thanks for having a look!

Few more photos of Stittsville Library show

 I went back to the library to take a few more photos of the ones that weren't as clear.   Please note you can click on the photos to enlarge them and see more detail. 

 Here's Suzanne's The Way Forward and Frances Taylor's work Home Sweet Home:

 

Below is a closer photo of Frances' work:

Next this is Kathy Lajeunesse's Movement in the Field:

And Roberta Russell's piece Country Living During a Pandemic:

I hope you can visit the show.  It's on until December 31st.  Stay safe and well everyone!

Stittsville Library Show 2020

Every year for the last few years I've organized a show at the Stittsville library for Out-of-the-Box Fibre Artists.  We hung it up today and it will be up until December 31st.  The theme this year is "2020: Year of the Pandemic."  Members were encouraged to make something related to the theme or to contribute something they made this year. Hopefully some people will be able to go and visit it.  But in case they can't here are some photos.  Here's a photo of the approach to the gallery area:

Here you come closer to it:

And from another angle:

Here's one wall of the show:

And the other wall:

A view of the glass display case showing work by Andree Faubert Ça va bien aller , Juanita Sauve Michaelmas Daisies and Rita Rottman's Live Life in Colour and Got the Blues:

Here's another shelf in the display case showing work by Olive Jones' Grape Vines on the Douro River, Garrie Bea Joyce's Within Dwells Passion and Lorraine Lacroix's Dangerous Flowers:

And the top shelf showing Suzanne Caron's The Way Forward, and Home Sweet Home by Frances Taylor:

A closer look at the pieces on the wall.  This is by Loree Tannet and is called Pennies from Heaven:

Below you see Cindy Brown's felted piece called Memories of Ireland:

The top one below is called The Journey by Anne Warburton and the below it is Country Living during a Pandemic by Roberta Russell:

Next we have  Movement in the Field by Kathy Lajeunesse and Pat Hardie's Scrappy Times below:

Next below we have Sinister Cecilia by Crystal Angers on top and a hand embroidered piece Flower Girl by Lori Savignac:

On the other wall we have a beaded piece Meredith Filshie's Silvery Reflections:

And beside it Connie ten Bruggenkate's Finding Comfort in Nature above and a beaded piece Creating Beauty and Bringing Joy by Liz Tyrwhitt.

And here are my wonderful volunteers who helped me put up the show today!:

I do encourage you to go to the library if you can because everything looks much better in person.   But if not in the meantime stay safe and well!