Textiles in Focus 2012, Cambridge, England

Yippee!!! It's here again!! The event not to be missed for anyone interested in textiles, fibre art, embroidery, art, craft.... you name it! 'Textiles In Focus' will be taking place the 17th, 18th and 19th of February 2012 at Cottenham Village Collage, just North of Cambridge, England. Event organiser is as usual textile artist Pauline Verrinder.

At 'Textiles in Focus' you will find a vast amount of two hour workshops, lots of tempting vendors in two halls and this years exciting textile exhibitions are by 'Out Of The Fold' (my old textile group, that I sadly decided to leave due to not having enough hours in the day) and 'Running with Scissors'.

Jennie Rayment, known for her folded patchwork, is this years lecture. Her lectures are always very informative and a lot of fun. Not to be missed!

Please visit Textiles In Focus website for detailed information about this excellent event. It is such a good day out!

BTW please keep an eye out for Fibrefusion as we will be there presenting our recent published book, 'Muslin, a stitched exploration of loose weave fabrics'. Looking forward to see you there!

Acropolis: Inspirational photos #1

The last couple of days I have been sorting through my photos. My husband and I travel a fair amount and I tend to take SO many pictures. Most of my photos are inspirational photos for future textile design work and I thought, I would share some of my 'artsy' photos in a couple of blog posts with you. Hope you'll enjoy them!

The following photos are a slightly different take of Acropolis, Athens, Greece. While vising this amazing place, we got caught in some heavy showers. The moisture brought the colours out in the beautiful ancient paving on the stairs leading up to Acropolis.

Unique Heart Ornaments, Tutorial

As a child my mother every year got my sister and I to make Christmas ornaments in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We had little store bought ornaments and I believe that my appreciation for unique handmade ornaments started there. I cannot help making Christmas ornaments, and being able to list them in my Etsy shop: SewDanish has been great. I love giving the old Danish/Scandinavian traditional ornaments an updated twist as well as designing new.

I developed the technique for these Christmas ornaments, while I was having fun experimenting and making samples for Fibrefusion recently published book ‘Muslin’, which is an inspirational and experimental work book about creating lovely fiber art using thin, inexpensive, loose weave fabrics.  

For the hearts start by layering 10 -12 layers of muslin/calico/turbin cotton in approx. 6 x 8 inch (15 x 20 cm) oblong. The muslin can be any colour you like. If choosing white/off white you have the option of coloring the hearts after stitching. 

Draw 2 hearts (or any other simple shape) on a piece of cartridge paper or ‘stitch and tear’. Don’t cut out. Pin the pattern along the 4 edges of the muslin bundle. If stitching the hearts free hand on the machine, you may skip drawing a pattern.

Thread your sewing machine and stitch the hearts either by following your pattern or drawing the  shape in free motion on your machine.

When free motion stitching lower the feed dogs, release the top thread tension and zero the stitch length. Now you are in control of moving the fabric creating the stitched lines.

OR you can leave your machine ‘normal’ with the feed dogs up, normal top tension and stitch length 2.5 – 3. Both will work. I prefer free styling it for a more relaxed look, but have a play and see what suits you.

Stitch, following your first out line, by going over it at least 4 times. You can stitch these bands as wide or as narrow as you like. The stitch lines need to be very close and partly on top of each other.  Now repeat these stitch lines inside the heart. Depending on the size of the heart repeat once or twice (or more).

Remove your fabric from the machine. With a pair of scissors cut very close along, but not into, the outermost stitched band.

Now look at your heart and decide what areas you would like to cut away between the stitched lines. The aim is to create higher and lower areas. With a fine pointed pair of scissors carefully cut through only the 5-6 top layers of muslin. It is easier to cut a few layers at the time than doing it all in one go.

The heart can now be further embellished with hand embroidery and or beads. Add a piece of string, twine, raffia or ribbon to hang your hearts.

If you aren’t too keen on the slightly raw, frayed edges, you can seal the edges with a bit of acrylic paint like shown on the stars.

These stars have a different look to the hearts, as they were sewn on white muslin/calico and dyed afterwards. The stars were then embellished with hand embroidery and the surface was ever so lightly dry brushed with acrylic paint for added texture.

Please note the boring bits:
These instructions are for personal use only. You are however welcome to use a single photo and a brief description, linking them back to where you came across the instructions.
These instructions may not be republished in their entirety without the permission of me, the author, Birgitte Hendricks. I can be contacted here info@SewDanish.com  J

FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE from SewDanish

I'm currently, for a limited time, offering worldwide free shipping from my Etsy shop SewDanish - Scandinavian Textile Art from 19th -30th November 2011.
It is only the second time that I have offered free shipping, so this is your chance to get unique handmade gifts for the upcoming festive season.

Browsing my shop  SewDanish , you will find lots of inspiration whether you are looking for hostess gifts, stocking stuffer or Christmas gifts. Most of my items are either one of a kind or made in very limited editions. If you are looking for unique handmade Christmas ornaments, then please take a look at my Christmas section. Lots to choose from. I like using the old traditional Danish/Scandinavian Christmas ornaments techniques, giving the ornaments a modern twist, as well as designing new ones.

Minimalistic Muslin Cards from SewDanish

Recently Fibrefusion Contemporary Textile Art Group, the textile group that I belong to, published their 5^th book, Muslin, a Stitched Exploration of Loose Weave Fabrics  . While exploring the potential of muslin, I worked quite a few samples that I absolutely love and that I’m planning on exploring and taking a lot further.

I have for a (long) while been fascinated by working white on white. I have been focusing on and challenging myself to see how minimalistic I can go before there is ‘nothing’. In a busy life where I’m constantly swapping in and out of ‘my’ three cultures the Danish, English and American, working rather minimalistic gives me a bit of breathing space (if that makes sense). J

Removing the color from a design puts emphasis on texture and shading and something very exciting starts to happen. Don’t get me wrong I love color, but currently in my work, I prefer to use it quite restrictive, as an accent to the design.  The cards in this blogpost are made as a result of my Muslin, white on white exploration. The small collages are stitched with strips of muslin on to torn pieces of Khadi (cotton rag) paper. Due to the ‘relaxed’ technique all the collages are slightly different and very organic.  All cards are avaiable from SewDanish - Scandinavian Textile Art

FibreFusion' new Muslin book!

I promised in my latest blog post that I would post a picture of 'my' textile group Fibrefusion's brand new book, Muslin, a Stitched Exploration of Loose Weave Fabrics'. Well here it is :-)
It was so much fun being part of making this book. A new and very exciting process and challenge to see a book take shape.
FibreFusions exhibition at Art Van Go in celebration of our new book will be on display until the 15th of October 2011. On most days Fibrefusion members will be there to meet you and demonstrate various muslin techniques. Looking forward to see you there :-)

NEW BOOK! by Fibrefusion - Contemporary Textile Art Group

Seed heads from Belstead gardens

This is so exciting! The textile group Fibrefusion that I belong to, has just had its 5th book published! The book ‘Muslin, a Stitched Exploration of Loose Weave Fabrics’ is an inspirational workbook using the lovely fabric Muslin throughout the book. The book can be seen and purchased from Fibrefusions website. On the website you'll as well find our 4 previously published books.
In celebration of our new book, Fibrefusion will be exhibiting from the 10th September to the 15th October at Art Van Go There amongst others, you’ll be able to see the samples and finished work shown in the book.


Belstead weekend: Muslin samples galore

Muslin, calico, scrim is such a fantastic, but also quite often an overlooked medium, which is why we chose it as the subject for our book. This past year we have had total fun working, exploring and stretching the boundaries for what can be done with Muslin and scrim. The result was an amazing amount of colourful, stunning samples many of which can be seen in our book. A big THANK YOU goes to Pauline Verrinder Fibrefusions mentor, who has done a huge, wonderful job in writing the text, keeping us honest and pulling it all together.


Belstead weekend: Fibrefusion girls at work.

In August the 16 group members met for a working weekend at Belstead house (link). We partly worked on the tying the last bits up for the book and exhibition at Art Van Go and partly on a new body of design work for upcoming exhibitions. We had a superb time and the weather was beautiful.

Belstead: Beautiful wall design