Dreaming Spirals

Over the last year, I have been doing a lot of family history research.  I’ve been lucky in that first my Aunt, then my parents and my brother, have built up a huge family tree and I’ve been adding to it and looking into it more.  I have also been given various family treasures by family members over the years and I decided recently to photograph them and put them all together rather than scattered all over the house!

I’d love to find out more about this handkerchief.  It was given to my Nan by my Grandad during the Second World War.  I think it is silk, but the edges have been cut in a scallop pattern and outlined in pen, and the heart decoration is a sort of raised embellishment.  The writing is also in pen and there is no stitching on it at all.  Apparently while my Grandad was in the army, one of the things he was involved in was running a prisoner of war camp so I wonder if this was made by one of the prisoners?

My Nan wore this hat at my parents’ wedding in 1959. 

My Mum’s cousin (who was a lot younger than her because she was the daughter of my Grandad’s oldest brother… I had to look that up on the family tree!) was a house servant when she was young and she gave me her maid’s uniform – this is the cap and one of the cuffs she wore.  I’ve got the apron and collar as well but the apron is too rumpled to photograph at present and I don’t want to risk it picking up all the gunk on the iron (wonder how that got there?!).

I took this photo the other day of the reflection on our bedroom ceiling and thought it fitted in well with a post about vintage textiles.  Doesn’t it look lacy?  (I think that is a reflection on the state of the windows but the less said about that the better.).

While I was writing my article for Quiltwow on using acrylic paint on fabric, I decided to do a few tests to see which sorts of acrylic paint worked best and also to see how much wash out there was if I used them on poly cotton.

I used Golden thick bodied acrylic, Golden fluid acrylics and some Daler Rowney FW acrylic inks that I had.  I painted each one on some thick cotton duck (canvas), some fairly coarse cotton fabric and some not all that thick polycotton.   I painted two of each and washed one of the pair to see how much washout there was.

Here are the results.  The ones on the left of each photo are the washed versions and the ones on the right, the unwashed.

Heavy acrylic paint on the canvas:

Heavy acrylic paint on the cotton fabric:

Heavy acrylic on polycotton:

Acrylic ink on canvas:

Acrylic ink on cotton:

Acrylic ink on poly cotton:

Fluid acrylic on canvas:

Fluid acrylic on cotton:

And finally, fluid acrylic on poly cotton:

This experiment wasn’t at all scientific but it was interesting to me, especially to find that acrylics seem to be fine to use on poly cotton (next time I’ll have a go with 100% polyester) and the fluid acrylics are best of all for painting on fabric, predictably because they contain less binder and more pigment. 

The little sample book, by the way, is another that I made with the Bind it All.

This is just a quick reminder that I still have about 8 fabric bundles for sale… and as a way of clearing some space in my studio the next person in the UK to buy some can have 3 bundles for the price of 2! Just pay with the Paypal buttons for two and email me to let me know which other one you want and I’ll mark them as sold. I’ll post on here when they’ve gone. You can find them here. This offer will expire at midnight on Wednesday 3rd June.

And I also have a number of Print Gocco machines for sale – I haven’t got any B6 machines but I have several PG10s and PG10 Supers. They are on my Print Gocco machines page.

If you haven’t the foggiest what I’m talking about, there’s a page of links about the Print Gocco here.

This is a card I printed with it. I really must get it out and print some more… they really are addictive once you get going!

I found some undyed silk cocoons, silk rods, throwsters waste and silk noil fibres yesterday. I’ll put them into the packages of the next two people who order fabric goody bags here on my blog.

I’ve also got two bags of metallic non fusible angelina that you are supposed to put in between the fusible angelina to add glitz. If you want them, let me know and I’ll add those to one of the parcels as well.

So that this blog won’t get boring I’ve made a blog page with all the fabric bundles I’ve got for sale – there is a link to it just underneath the blog banner. I have now put photos of all the bundles with Paypal buttons underneath each of them, and eventually I’ll add them to my Etsy shop as well.

Here’s a pic of the yellow/orange fabric bundle:

And in its bag:

SOLD

And one of the red ones (the other is in the post before I went away).

And in its bag:

And this one has reds and purples:

I’ve had a request for photos of the blue/purple and blue/brown bundles, so here they are!

The blue/purple one:

And here it is in its bag:

SOLD

And here is the blue/brown one:

And in its bag:

SOLD