We had a good one

The whole weekend was a success for Bredon Crafters and Quilting Arts.  Lots of visitors to the exhibition and the event enticing us to plan and present our own exhibition early next year.  What a beautiful display in the church, many, many congratulations to all those who planned, organised, created and presented the wonderful floral illustrations of well known books.

Thank you everyone, and most of all Chrys, who contributed to the design and making of Brian the Bredon Bookworm and also those who put him up on the church gate and then helped take him down again.  Let's hope Bredon Toddlers Group enjoy having him and that Brian enjoys his new home.

We need to get started again now so that we have lots of exciting exhibits ready for next year.  So the first thing for Quilting Arts is to try out some Indian Wood Block Printing on fabric which can then be used in various ways.  The project on offer for this is to make table placemats with the decorated material.

The printed blocks will decorate the centre of the placemat. Cut a piece of fabric for this centre piece measuring 16" X 10".

Gather together the fabric, your choice of print block, your choice of paint, a flat palette of some sort (a plastic plate will be available), a foam pad (use a mouse-mat if it has some give in it), a piece of sponge, some wet wipes and some kitchen paper.

Most of this will be available at our meeting - (but bring your own fabric)

 Put a small amount of paint on the palette, take up the sponge and twirl one corner of it in the paint so the paint spreads about and is not too thick on the sponge.

Transfer some of this paint on to the block with little tapping movements until all the pattern is covered.

Put the foam pad under the fabric centrally so that you can start printing from the centre.

Put the block face down on the fabric and apply pressure with the flat of your hand for a few seconds. Keep repeating this process as many times as you want and adding to the design on your cloth. Move the fabric as you work so that the foam pad is always underneath the printing area.

You will find that even if there is no paint left on the palette there will be quite a lot left in the sponge and tapping on the top of the block will transfer it to the pattern.

When you are finished with the first colour of paint it is time to clean everything up.  Your hands, the wood block the palette and the sponge.

Take it all to the sink and using one of the scrubbing brushes under running tepid water scrub the block clean and rinse out the sponge and palette till all paint is gone.  Dry with kitchen paper, squeeze the sponge in kitchen paper to prepare it for your next colour.  Use wet wipes for your hands and also to wipe off any paint traces from the foam mat under the fabric.

Now you are ready to add more to this design or start again with another one.

Here are some other example prints using 2 and 3 colours and which are ready to have some machine embroidery embellishment.

The method and worksheet for making up into placemats will follow.