ATASDA Challenge

We have two big craft shows in Perth each year, one in May and the other in August, and they are both highlights of my year.  I love them.  I love going there and bumping into people I know, I love the inspiration of all the amazing creations I see there, and most of all I love buying lots of goodies to add to my stash of things that I'll probably never use.

Last week was the WA Craft and Quilt Fair at Claremont Showgrounds.

This year I had the added bonus of manning our ATASDA stand for half a day, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  

We had lots of wonderful comments on our work and quite a few names added to the list of new members interested in joining us.  We look forward to meeting all you new ladies at our next meeting.

Our groups theme this year was a Green/Teal triangle. We were all given a mystery pack last December, containing various materials in the colour theme and off we went to design and create our own triangle.

Here they are all displayed together - I love how everyone has a different approach, and each and every one of them was fabulous in its own right.  

Then there was the Challenge this year - based on "Exotica".  Another example of wonderful work from our members.

Thank you to the kind generosity of The Thread Studio and Halcyon Steppe for donating the prizes once again.  The winner of the The Thread Studio challenge was Trudy Boyce; and winner of the Halcyon Excellence Award went to Raye Farcic - well done ladies. 

Here's looking forward to next years challenge.

April ATASDA - Sun Dyeing

Time has slipped away from me and I'm going to try and catch up with news on what's been going on with our ATASDA and Art A'peel groups as well as my own stuff.

In April our ATASDA WA group made the most of our sunny weather and had a day experimenting with sun dyeing.

Its amazing how fast it works! 

Within an hour we had amazing effects from the pieces we worked on. I hadn't realised prior to this, that you can do sun dyeing with watered down acrylic paints, but they worked brilliantly. 

I had such a lot of fun that I did more playing at home - there's no point in not making the most of all those stencils and experimental bits and bobs that I'd sourced, before packing them away again.

Anything can be used - twigs, leaves, buttons, stencils - anything works. 

I did experiment with Dyn-a-flow at home, as well as silk paints, and all gave good result. 

Would you believe the one below is created using round paper clips, washers and the smaller dots were made from dried lentils, yep, thats right, lentils. 

I raided the button box for this one, the only down side of this one is that the sun was low down at an angle so one side of the button print is a bit blurry - good lesson learnt - wait till the sun is up high.

I think this is my favourite, its created using a plastic stencil and mottled greens.  Just have to decide what to do with it to do it justice now. 

So don't be afraid to have a go at this technique, its fun and very quick, especially on a hot summers day.  Enjoy!

ATASDA - March Meeting

Despite renewed energy at the beginning of the year, I'm afraid I've still been very slack with the blog posts, but its not for the lack of enthusiasm, I think about it often, but time seems to run away from me. Anyway, enough of the excuses.  I must catch up on what's been happening at the ATASDA group in WA.  Our March meeting was a great turn out with everyone very enthusiastic about trying our hands at Sun Dyeing.

Despite playing around quite a lot with dyes during my City and Guilds studies I never got around to trying the sun dyeing which I'm quite sad about because the possibilities are endless. 

I think I'd always been afraid to try it because I thought it always had to be done with the special sun dyes and I was a bit loath to pay a fortune for a product that I wasn't sure I'd use again.  This workshop changed all that - we used acrylic paints instead!  As long as they were watered down to about a 50/50 ratio they worked fine and didn't leave the fabric too stiff afterwards. 

The weather was a perfect summers day and the fabrics dried in time for us to take them home, the only downside was that it was such a bright day it created a lot of shadows and unless the sun was directly over the motifs it could distort the shapes and patterns intended.  I don't think anyone was too disappointed though, as there were lots of brilliant pieces created. 

Some chose to lay a sheet of perspex over the motifs to hold them in place, and as it was such a hot day this created condensation underneath the perspex sheet which added another interesting effect to the finished pieces. 

I haven't as yet seen what everyone has done with the fabrics they made, but I was so enthused by it all that I decided to have a play day at home a few days later. 

You can use any motifs you want - I used sequin scrim and washers on the one above, and wooden stencils, dragonfly embellishments, leaves and a sprinkling of salt for the one below. 

For the samples at home I did use some Dyn-a-flow inks which I had in my stash and was pleased with the finish, the fabric was softer than the acrylic paints, but a lot of dye washed out and they didn't turn out as strong in colour, despite heat setting them beforehand. 

When you set your mind to something like this its surprising how many things you can use - such as this plastic stencil 

And this one was washers, paper clips and the smaller dots were created using lentils! 

For this one I scattered different sized buttons all over the fabric - you can see what I mean about the angle of the sun and the shadow on this one - some of the buttons have a blurry edge. 

This one is my favourite, created using a plastic leaf patterned stencil.  I'm waiting for inspiration to jump up and smack me before I dare do anything with the fabrics, but one day I'll have just the right piece to use. 

Moving forward

The past twelve months have been a struggle.  In June I lost my best little friend, Bonnie.  As hard as it was to say goodbye I know how lucky I was to have her for so many years, as she was almost 17 years old.  She was a wonderful companion and filled my heart with joy, and I hope she is happy wherever she is.

On top of this I lost my beautiful mum in August, after watching her fight the battle of her life with cancer.  I can't find words to express the loss I feel.  She too was my best friend, as well as a confidante, doctor, critic, supporter, mum - and so much more.  There's a huge hole in our lives but I know we have to keep going.

So now I'm trying to climb out of the dark tunnel and find joy in things that make me happy again.  I have to give myself something to aim for, so I recently joined two textile groups.

Septembers meeting at ATASDA saw Lyn Brown displaying her art books which she is exhibiting in the eastern states shortly.  They were amazing, and came in all sizes. She'd certainly been busy.

As well as Lyn's display other members also showed their work.  Here's Dorothy Boxall with her blankets, naturally dyed using carob seeds and avocado.  I love the patterns created on them.

Wendy Burgess was a new member this week and brought along a wonderful display of her work, including this spectacular dragonfly.  This was only one of her many fabulous creations she shared with us.

Judith Harvey brought along her quilt which she'd recently exhibited.

Apart from Show-n-Tell and a discussion about the future of the group there was no stitching this month.

The following week I attended my first meeting with Art A'peel, a textile group in my local area, and I had a ball.  I got a lovely surprise when I discovered Lyn from ATASDA was also a member of this group, and was teaching us all how to make some of her book covers using Lutradur.

We all had a brilliant time painting our Lutradur, stitching into it, adding embellishments and then attaching it to felt to create the covers.  I've since ordered more Lutradur and hope to make many more.  Here's a few samples of everyone's work.

As well as painting and stitching we got to have a play on a big shot machine, embossing foil/tin panels for future work.

Then Lyn kindly showed us some more techniques, like how to emboss a plastic CD disk using embossing powders and a heat gun.  The finished pieces were so exciting and my mind was racing with how I could use this technique further down the track.  

We did have a good laugh when she produced what looked like an implement of torture but was in fact just an eyelet gun.

My mind was like a sponge soaking up all the new techniques and information, and I can say it was one of the most enjoyable days I've had for a long time.  I spent the following few days working on completing my book cover and here's the finished piece .....

... the only problem is I'm too scared to use it in case I  ruin it!!!