Heritage Heirloom Project:- the sampling

Having now decided my colour palette and what it is I would like to sample, here is an insight into my sampling section of the project. Below is my colour palette inspired by my parents' bedroom, along with the three highlight colours which are based on the children's three favourite colours of orange (myself), navy blue (Max) and black (Daisy). 

From my drawings I am trying out a technique that I haven't used before called indirect dye. I have painted the dye onto a silk screen, which I will then screen print onto my fabric to get a subtle tonal change. This technique will be used for the tree. 

Before I apply the tree to my hand dyed fabric, I firstly want to create a texture inspired by a beautiful flint wall in my garden. This texture has been taken from a rubbing which I have enlarged and rotated to create a larger scaled drawing. I have printed with a dye here instead of a pigment as I wanted to maintain the feel of the soft raised natural cotton I have decided to use. 

Once this textured print has dried, I can then apply the tree print over the top. These have then been put into the steamer for 25 minutes to enable to dye to cling to the fabric. 

I can now start free-hand machine embroidering onto my sample with my stylised interpretation of the bark. 

Onto the chickens......

Starting with a plain white felt, I have screen printed my drawings onto the cut out chicken forms. 

A screen printed house form with the flint wall texture printed over the top.

With all the samples now done, this gives me an idea as to how I want my final piece to look. 

I now need to think about what scale I would like my bedspread to be, taking into consideration the size of my parents' bed. I'm excited to move into the next phase of this project. 

Creative Kitchen Comforts; The Christmas Fair

Showing the final piece to the long journey of making and creating, here are a few photos of the Christmas fair in action. It was a great day filled with lessons learnt and other ideas in mind for the future. 

Katie setting up her display for her delicious cupcakes.

After a long day both Katie and I packed up having had a successful and fun day. Katie's cupcakes sold out so well done to her - They looked fab!