Tag: fabric

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Purple Boots and The Ocean Wave

I am looking forward to more Powertex workshops as we approach Christmas and I am making lots of new products to tempt you in to one of my courses. This week I have been working on mixed media pieces inspired by the sea. My best friend recently moved to Cornwall and her son is a surf instructor so he has had my ten year old out on the waves while the mums watched and ate cream teas. Then my daughter convinced me I had to have a go and I managed to stand up. I’m am actually quite proud of myself. I always tell my girl she should try things once and then she will know whether she likes it and can politely say nope not for me if she doesn’t. She’s a totally natural surfer, her mother, not so much and no one needs to see me in a wetsuit but I may just give it another try.

Being near the sea always inspires me and I often take my sketchbook out and about when we are on family holidays. I love the ocean especially when it is rough so it made sense to try to capture the feeling of the huge rolling waves. I am experimenting with white Powertex as I really want the colours of the sea to show through. Being a total beachcomber, I always manage to come home with pockets full of sea shells, driftwood and sea glass so I have incorporated some of these pieces into my waves.

Cotton lace and old t shirts are a great medium for Powertex so after applying a base layer of fabric I spent a couple of happy hours sculpting a pair of canvases. I wasn’t sure about how  effective lace would look in a piece of ocean art so I opted for narrow pieces that echoed the waves. Several coats of Powertex were needed over the bulky parts of my work to help them stay in place and then I moved to a layer of colour. What I love about this product is that I can happily make mistakes, either in colour choice or by using too much colour, and these can be rectified with a quick dry brush of gloopiness ready for me to try again. It really takes the fear of making mistakes away as I know I can’t ruin my work.

I had great fun experimenting with these.

 

Purple Boots x

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Shop Update
To everyone who visited the shop and made Sew Saturday such a successful day on 21st October.
Congratulations to Angela Scutchings
who was delighted to win a metre of fabric in our raffle and was one of our first 5 lucky customers to receive a Goody Bag
Newon our website!!

We’ve got some lovely little bargains over on the website. Every little helps in the run up to Christmas!
20% OFF
NEW!!! from Lewis & Irene 
Themed with a selection of fabulous diggers, trains, planes and more …. ‘Small Things on the Move’NOW £10.36 per metre
Offer ends 7.11.17

18% OFF
Anne Smith Designs
Fun little doll patterns with painted faces allow you to experiment with new techniques while creating a toy to be given as a gift or kept for you to admire.
The dolls are no taller that 17″ when finished so they are great for using up scrap fabric. You can try out all sorts of colour ways to put your spin on your doll! 

 NOW £9.00 
Offer ends 7.11.17

Also reductions on the lovely squishy Wendy Supreme Cotton Chunky – pop over and have a look and treat yourself to a bargain.
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Purple Boots and the Powertex – Part 2

Back with my Powertex uniform on…well not so much a uniform as my painting clothes! Powertex is designed to make fabric hard so obviously it does exactly that, not so great in your favourite jeans. My ‘out of the frame’ pieces have been so popular and the course is filling up so I have produced another sample to entice you.

My fantasy house is made from a large pickle jar. I love the way this great product lets me upcycle so many things. I start with a design idea – where will the windows and door go, do I need a chimney? After some very careful wrapping, using t shirt yarn that I make with my trusty rotary cutter, I am ready to Powertex. A firm brushing embeds the Powertex into the yarn and forms a great base to build on.

An hour later I have a quirky, individual roof for my house, the door is attached and the window frames are ready for some titivation. Old lace or crocheted doilies are spot on for this part of the project. A little drying time and my house is ready for colour. Today’s decoration is teal and purple but Powertex can be coloured in lots of different combinations.

 

Why not come along and make your own? Your house could soon be living at the end of the garden for the local fairy population, or go darker and make it appeal to some hobgoblins, perfect for the Halloween doorstep. Because my houses are built around a jar, just add some battery powered fairy lights for a whole new effect.

Next project is a seated figure. Perfect for a spot in the garden. Best get my thinking cap on.

Join Purple Boots for her Fantasy House workshop on Wednesday 29th November.

Click here to book online.

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Purple Boots and the Powertex

 

I have been having lots of fun this week experimenting with our new range of Powertex products. Having worked with a visiting Powertex tutor I took myself off to Powertex UK to learn more about this exciting product.

Powertex fabric hardener and textile hardener is an environmentally friendly water-based liquid sculpting medium. It can harden absorbent materials such as textiles, paper, cardboard, fabrics, leather and fiberglass and can be easily combined with self-hardening clays, concrete, stone, ceramic, wood, sand and Stone Art.

Over the summer I have been collecting a range of materials to recycle as Powertex offers masses of opportunities for ‘green’ crafting. I have turned many old t-shirts into t-shirt yarn which we will come in really useful once I move onto bigger figures. Old jewellery is also a great resource, broken necklaces and old buttons and beads. I also discovered some lovely but stained old crocheted doilies in a charity shop and these too will be getting the treatment.

As a way of introducing Powertex I am running a course called Out of the Frame. This week I have been busy making the samples. First I covered my base materials – old frames and canvases – with some of those recycled t-shirts then I got creative. Powertex is absorbed by the fabric but takes some time to become hard so it allows for lots of opportunities to change my mind and reposition the elements of my designs. In order to get some elements to adhere you need a little patience and some jiggery pokery with scraps of lace and paper.

 

Time for a brew and step back for half an hour, and now the pieces I have been working on are well on the way to dry. At this point I need to pick a palette of colours for each piece I’m working on. Steampunk is gradually turning into shades of blue while my fantasy frame is a little more subtle with metallic shade.

Unlike other coloured media you cannot go too wrong with colour on Powertex pieces. If it’s too strong I simply take a little Powertex on my brush and blend it over to soften the effect. A little patience, a little layering, and I am done.

 

Now….fairy houses….hmmm!

Purple Boots x

 

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Not Christmas Already?!

Well no, but panels and fabrics are arriving thick and fast so that we can all be ready in time. Gifts
created and decorations made.
Today, I’m at the sewing machine making Christmas Stockings.
It’s a bit of a chore, however, to find inspiration when the sun in beating down and the temperature
is topping 26 degrees C. Not that I’m complaining about the sun at all, just finding it hard to think in
terms of Christmas and the Winter season.
What embellishment will enhance the stockings? Do I go for glitz and sparkle or something more
subtle? It is a Christmas stocking after all so maybe sequins and seed beads. The panel I’m using has
a Scandi feel to it so perhaps embroidery with a bit of glitzy DMC. Watch this space.
Jon has already been busy putting together an incredibly simple “folded” advent calendar. We are
all amazed by how quick and it easy it was to make and customers are loving the end result. Proving
popular already.
Who else has started getting ready for the festive season? Tell us about the projects you’ve got in
mind. My mum is making bags for her friends this Christmas, it was cushions last year, and already
has 2 completed. Only 5 more to go!
Delighted with the finished result. Only took a couple of hours, computer had to be worked at and
customers had to be looked after in between!
I’ll be in touch with my next sewing challenge….Joy