#storycloth

For the last 6 weeks we have been involved in a community art project with local visual artist Denise Stanton creating a family story cloth. There are 2 sections to the cloth one part created by us the other by our family in Chicago.

20140719-233506-84906671.jpg

This has been a great experience, we’ve learnt new skills, met new people & created a piece of work we are really proud of. We created a stash of little pieces of printed & stitched material to make up the story cloth. We also added flashing lights behind the book spines print on the cloth, programmed & stitched by Owen using Lilypad Arduino to include some tech.

The project involved weekly sessions as a family creating pieces for our story cloth by printing into fabric & sewing as well as a couple of morning sessions which I attended alone giving me the chance to focus.

Our first step was creating a design for a screen print. We agreed on books as something we all love & added the family names of those involved in the project.

20140719-233940-85180536.jpg

In possession of our screen print we then learnt about what paints to use, mixing colours & made numerous prints on different fabric. Denise suggested making a patchwork of fabric & printing onto them with a mix of colours.

20140719-234411-85451678.jpg
Other printing techniques included Lino cutting, which I had previously attempted but this time I got to work with colour opening up new possibilities of combining prints on different backgrounds. A key lesson I learned with printing (aside from have an organised space) is to make lots of prints & experiment.

20140719-234534-85534863.jpg
We also discovered some child friendly printing techniques, the simplest was mono printing where we etched out a drawing into the paint then laid the fabric or paper on top to print onto.

20140719-234901-85741944.jpg

We also used some foam to cut out a simple shapes to create a stamp. We used this technique to make a ribbon by making a couple of simple stamps & repeating the pattern onto long strips of cloth.

20140719-235128-85888790.jpg
Another printing technique was easy print/ safe print where the children impressed a design onto a polystyrene type printing material. Easy to use & no sharp cutting tools like the ones used for Lino cutting.

20140719-235332-86012324.jpg

Using these techniques we all learned how simple designs were the most effective and that using the rollers was the most fun part.

20140720-000014-14853.jpg
Aside from printing I had the chance to overcome my fear of sewing machine, using a machine with a speed setting was a big help. I loved freehand stitching, moving the fabric to make pretty designs was great fun.

20140720-000242-162666.jpg
My new found confidence with the sewing machine was put to the test when I had to sew on all the different prints and finish with a bias binding bordering to the cloth.

A fantastic project allowing us to celebrate our creativity, be bold with our ideas & turn Owen into a knitter.

20140720-001916-1156933.jpg

3 thoughts on “#storycloth

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *