My new T-shirt, iPhone case and Print design

After a slow start to the year (my sewing machine is still at the doctors - sob!) I decided to spend some time with my trusty Mac and Photoshop and produce another piece of work for my Redbubble store. The end result is this digitised Aston Martin DB5 from 1964 - I've been assured it's just like James Bond used to drive! 

I started with a pretty average photo I took with my iPhone 4S on Australia day at a vintage car show at the Royal Botanical gardens here in Melbourne. The 4S phone takes a decent photo but the size is never big enough for large format work. I need to either redraw or digitise the pics in a way where they will print high resolution in big sizes. The photo is a half decent one of the car but there are too many reflections and a piece of paper over the steering wheel. Plus I like to get rid of real number plates and the less said about the background the better!!

This was the original photo:

I cut out the car and shadow from the background, erased the number plate and made up my own.

The interior of the car was messy and covered up with the paper so I redrew most of the insides including the steering wheel and the seats and then spent a very long time removing reflections. Those two girls on the side were reflected in about 3 different parts!

A couple of hours later I had this - nicely cleaned up but it's just a photo and lacking some graphic punch. I altered the levels in Photoshop for much greater colour saturation and contrast, applied the 'cutout' filter, rejigged the levels again and reapplied the filter keeping the numberplate as is.

The finished product - you can buy it as a print, t-shirt, baby onesie, hoodie, greeting card, sticker or iPhone cover by clicking here.

How to paint a Seascape on fabric - Tutorial

Here's a quick tute for how to paint a shimmering seascape that you can use for further embellishment or simply frame as is (and if DIY isn't your thing feel free to commission a piece off me from $25 for a fat quarter size 50x 50cm). I love painting and fabric, so it only seems just that I combine the two frequently!

An example of the technique described below.

1. First wash and iron white cotton an inch or two bigger than your intended finished piece. It should be 100% cotton, washed to remove any sizing (coating) and then ironed to be wrinkle free.

2. Lay your fabric on a paint proof surface - I use a piece of metal or acrylic but you could use the glass from an old picture frame (put tape around the edges so they aren't sharp) or in a pinch work on a chopping board you've covered with a wide sheet of aluminium foil. Spray it with water until thoroughly damp and smooth down.

3. Decide where your horizon line will be. I like to use the Jacquard Lumiere acrylic paints as they have two tones in the one pot - where you paint thickly appears quite metallic and gold and where the paint travels and soaks into the wet fabric is quite matte and the alternate colour. For a sky over the sea I start with halo violet-gold straight from the tub and paint a line along the horizon allowing the colour to bleed out into the wet paint.

4. Add colours to the sky. I've added halo pink-gold, burnt orange and sunset gold. However using pink-gold by itself can create similar effects if you use it both watered down and straight. Allow the wet fabric to merge the colours and keep your paint lines mostly horizontal - the more angular you do them the windier it will look. Spray more water as needed.

5. For the sea bunch up that part of the fabric and paint over the top folds. I've used halo blue-gold.

6. The colour will soak down a little way into the fabric. After painting the visible folds with both straight and watered down paint (to get different effects) re bunch the fabric to make the white ares stand up. Using a different colour paint the now exposed white areas (i've used pearl turquoise). Lastly re-bunch the fabric again to show any remaining white areas and paint those (i've used the very metallic 'super sparkle' for these. Keep bunching and adding paint / spray with water as needed until you have covered the fabric and are pleased with the result.

7. Lay your fabric out flat and admire your work. Ta Da!

My Sewing Studio - ideas for making the most of a small space

I've just finished a 3 day clean up of my textile studio and between refolding all the fabrics to prevent fading, sorting colours and boxing threads I decided it was good timing to do a studio blog. We live in a 2 bedroom apartment of about 11 squares (about 102 sq metres) so innovative space consumption is paramount. Cost was a major factor too, so most of the storage ideas are budget friendly.

Click pics to enlarge.

The sewing studio in in a smallish second bedroom with one wall at an odd angle which made organisation a bit tougher. Here's the view from the door:

We live on a main road - so great lighting and an ever changing view. The downside is it's always of traffic and the heat coming in these east facing windows is quite amazing during the warmer months!

The desk is a Horn Magic box - both wings fold into the centre and the entire front and middle fold into the box the TV is on. This doesn't happen often though! The sewing machine shelf is height adjustable with an acrylic insert for flatbed sewing (my machine is currently having a holiday with a technician).

I've found most horn cabinets to position you to either side of the machine needle, I love this one as you can sit right in front and the cutout is large enough for the new, longer throat machines.

The Sew-Easy table and ironing board fit well inside the T shape of the Horn desk.

 A second Sew-Easy table in front of the window provides an alternate work area and also a good spot to photograph smaller artworks from.

 I had a friend make a full acrylic insert for one of the Sew-Easy tables, so when I'm quilting larger pieces there's no gap for them to get caught up in.

An open backed ornament wall display unit purchased from a home-wares store for $20 makes good fat quarter storage and all my fabric glues are kept on top.

Under the right wing a chipboard cube fits a woven basket for plastics while a present from my Mum - the Madeira Treasure chest fits beautifully on top. (All luck here, I made the chipboard cube as a stand for a record player when I was about 16!) The Madeira treasure chest comes filled with the most gorgeous collection of Rayon threads.

I had 3 untreated pin bookcases made and delivered for around $150 each, adding them as I needed the extra storage. The first holds my cotton fabrics, the second threads, synthetic fabrics and yarns and the third all the other bits and pieces. A built in wardrobe with mirrored doors helps to create more light.

All the cotton fabrics are stacked in colour-ways. Handpainted and multicoloured fabrics have their own stack as do very long pieces. The white woven crates hold dressmaking fabrics.

Setting them out this way means I can find a value or colour very quickly and it's easy to see any missing colours - right now I'm low on oranges, bright sky blue and lime greens.

To stop fading i've made a curtain from 100% UV block out fabric and drawn a design on it. I've also made curtains to fit the room with a layer of this block out under a layout of thick upholstery weight fabric. It helps to keep the heat down as well.

The top of the second bookcase has tubs of threads sorted into type (I have separate tubs for cotton, wool, poly, metallic, decorative extra-thick, spools, bobbin weight, viscose, silk and rayon). Rayon felts are on the top shelf with synthetics and organzas underneath.

I use very sheer organza for layering and doing heat work. These are too slippery to stack so they are folded according to shade and pushed tightly into plastic boxes. This makes them easier to take out to the kitchen which is handy as I use the flat glass hot plates to do my heat gunning and soldering iron work.

More threads boxed according to type.

Thicker synthetics I keep on a separate shelf and are often used mixed with cottons for art quilts or in my burnt works. These shelves could do with a re-fold too! Being slippery it's hard to get them perfect.

Boxes house yarns for the embellishing machine and couching. More woven crates  hold upholstery and fabric samples plus clothing items from opshops etc that can be repurposed in burnt works.

The third book shelf has plenty of boxes from a $2 store that I have labelled. These hold notions, UFO's, roving and the like.

My Babylock overlocker and Pfaff embellisher sit in the bookshelf when not in use.

Scraps have been organised in snap lock bags according to colour range and then put in these tubs for doing small fused pieces and confetti quilts.

A coat rack found in the bin room on our floor makes a good hanger in a space that would be otherwise too narrow to use for anything else.

An old stretch canvas painting forms a makeshift pin board for displaying some of my smaller works.

I've tacked a large piece of white flannelette to the wall to use as a design board. I love how most fabrics just cling to it without pins and it helps me to keep an eye on the bigger picture while making components for a work. When not in the middle of a large project I can use it as hanging space.

The floor lamp is a $30 uplight that was capable of taking a 100w globe from Bunnings and is essential when sewing at night. I've also put a fluro tube above the middle bookcase.

Even behind the door is utilised with hooks for handbags (there's just no-where else to keep them!) and large watercolour paper. The polystyrene is used to bounce light for photography when there's not enough even light naturally.

On the left hand side of the wardrobe a repurposed bedside tables has stacked racks on top holding all the silks i've collected while travelling. Sadly these have to share with my hubby's pants as the wardrobe in the bedroom is stuffed tighter than an emo band lead singer's pants.

The top of the wardrobe shares towels with Coco the wonder dog and rather inexplicably a basketball- all my wool fabrics and synthetics that don't seem to fit in anywhere else are stuffed into a crate here.

The bottom RHS of the wardrobe fairs a little better - battings and anything else on bolts or in rolls fills up the corner including Lutrador, Tyvek and bamboo sheets for felting. Novelty fabrics are folded into a box on their left which sits on the very large pieces or white on white and black and black backing fabrics I have.

The top of the wardrobe has flannelettes and a box of mending.... almost out of sight out of mind :)

Colorbond Steel fabric painting area with brushes in stainless cutlery containers and paints in CD shelving (both Ikea).

For painting fabrics I've set up a panel of Colourbond Steel in the lounge room. The coating Colorbond has means it won't rust and gives the metal a nice smooth service to work on. It's non porous so paint and water sits on top and nothing sinks in - so while it can stain it's easy to clean. To make it sturdier I used silicon glue to adhere two pieces of L shaped aluminium tubing from the widest part at the bottom to the centre of the top. This cuts down on wobbles and ensures it stays in place. Wet fabric can be smoothed onto the steel and stays in place even when dry - but to help ensure it doesn't start to peel off I use some magnetic vinyl strips or other fridge magnets. A sheet of thick clear plastic sits underneath with the length rolled up in front. When the board is in use it's simple rolled out to protect the carpet.

Besta CD/DVD storage from Ikea makes great fabric paint and marker storage. We have gone digital files only with CD's so it was nice to find a second use for these shelves.

'Brunelleschi's Broken Bicycle' 12x12" Art quilt

I made this quilt for the Aus_NZ Art Quilters yahoo group challenge. We all agree on a theme at the start of the year and then aspire to make one quilt per month to this theme. The best 5 of each person who wants to exhibit will be seen at next years Australian Quilting Convention in Jeff's Shed.

click pics to enlarge

For my first quilt for the year (hey I'm a late starter and arranging a wedding got in the way a little!) I chose  Italy and Florence in particular. One of the things that surprised me while honeymooning over there was the sheer number of broken bicycles that littered the streets - generally still chained to bike racks. Some corners had four or five formerly very expensive bicycles with wheels kicked in or bent frames.

To make this I:

• Cut bikes from a pre-printed fabric and fused them with fusible web to a backing fabric, I pleated and creased them before ironing down to abstract and 'break' the bikes.

• I made a bike wheel with Expander Paint (by Setacolor), I put some into a folded trough of aluminium foil, added a little black Jacquard Dye-na-flow paint and mixed. I stamped the bike outlines using a bamboo cooking skewer that I bent into arcs for the wheel.

• I ironed the Expander Paint to raise it (it's like 80's puff paint on steroids!) and then painted the middle of the tyre with gel medium with a tiny amount of gold paint mixed in followed by a gloss varnish.

• Rather than conventional binding I sewed around the edges and then bordered them with leather tonging that has been couched down. I figured leather was something else quintessentially Italian.

I wanted the worn look of stamping for the tyre as so much of Italy is, while beautiful, very old and worn without a lot of the upkeep that we saw much of in places like Paris. This was very noticeable in the main museums over there when compared with places like the Lourve.