You may remember that I have done a couple of City and Guilds courses with Jane at MK ACE.  In the past I have posted my progress on this blog.

In honesty, this piece is not part of the C&G work, but Jane was very happy to hang it to show the potential of mixed media and textile work and generally just to promote her forthcoming courses.

I have got a couple of my sketchbooks/sample books on display too.

That's mine on the right in the picture below.

And you can just make out another of my sketchbooks in this picture (the one at the rear of the table).

There is other lovely work too.







Jane is a lovely lady and if you are in MK do go along to the library to have a quick look.

And if you know anyone who might be interested, point them in the direction of ACE.

The exhibition is on until the end of October.

After 15 weeks - we have finished!

City & Guilds Creative Textiles Level 2 is done - final fabrics are printed and portfolios have been handed in.

This is what a final portfolio looks like (all neatly packaged up!)


There was a sketch book, a stitched sketch book to hold all the fabric samples and the final 1m length of fabric.

The last bit of the task was all the paper work - all the method statements, cross referencing, contents pages etc.  I know about portfolios like this - it is part of the day job after all - and it is all about 'showing and telling' the assessor what you do.

And here are our final pieces of work!

On my last post you might have detected a little bit of stress?? Just a little bit??

Well, things may have worked out after all!

I have over printed the final design and I think I might get away with it!

What do you think?

I just thought I would share my pain!

I had this problem on the first City and Guilds course I did - scaling up!  Frankly, the ironing board, the kitchen work surfaces and the sewing room are just not the right environment for printing 1 m of fabric.

My problems (with a meter of fabric - not evidence on an A3 size)

• The freezer paper did not stick properly and came away with the print block.
• Laying out the freezer paper into a regular pattern was nigh impossible on the ironing board
• I ended up having to print on the the kitchen floor and the floor tiles have left an imprint on the fabric.
• The print block (using the wall paper method on my last post) just looks messy on 1 m of fabric
• I have had to drape the fabric loosely over furniture in the sewing room to dry (which I hope it does today so that I can overprint this evening)
• I should have made the back ground design with a screen print - but I just cannot register screen printing when I am repeating!
• I need a printing table!!!  
• This would have been more satisfactory if we had been allowed to do digital printing for the final piece

I am in a panic to get my portfolio finished for the City and Guilds course (which is why I have not written many posts lately - method statements aren't so exciting and anyway, many are based on the various blog posts from the last couple of months).

But in a last minute dash to the finishing post I have determined what the final piece will look like - and now I am trying to replicate on fabric the effect I had created on paper.

Here is the inspiration piece for my final piece - the 1m length of fabric I have to print. I did this on paper, using a paper template to create the white circle and colouring the background by literally just putting the paper onto another piece of paper with inks made from Procion Dyes.  Then I used one of the Thermofax screens to print on top.  

The textured wall paper inked up is on the right hand side with the  fabric sample on the left.

The textured wall paper inked up is on the bottom with the  fabric sample on the top. This paper gives an effect similar to a bark pattern.

A few more thermofax delight to share with you.

All printed with acrylic paint on paper coloured with procion dye used as inks.












Some of these area really jewel like.