Halfway through a workshop

As the title says, I am halfway through a workshop - with Michelle Mischkulnig of Chelle Textiles.
I have long admired her work, having seen it mostly through the Stonehouse Gallery in Warrandyte.
I have also posted about her work previously.

The workshop was at Lee Vause's (Threads and Tangles) studio. I have previously done a Zentangle workshop with her and it was through her Facebook page that I saw the class advertised. Funny how things work out.

Here is the work that Michelle brought along to show us how it might turn out.

Today we painted some butterfly shapes onto silk, front and back (not that the back was all that carefully done as it should not be very visible).  We used Inktense pencils and a variety of fabric pens, experimenting with damp and dry fabric, putting water on after drawing, etc.

That is all we did with them today, we needed to get them done and dry so we can sew on them tomorrow.

Then we made some backing fabric.
This was made with a layer of calico, Vliesofix, silk hankies teased out, more Vliesofix, cut up bits of threads and velvet and various tiny bits of dyed silks, then more silk hankies teased out (a different colour this time). Then it was all ironed together.

I didn't get it all to sit quite flat, so tomorrow's workshop may be frustrating if the silk hanky decides to get caught around the foot of the sewing machine. Time will tell about how well I can handle this.


I think this process will need a few practices to get it right. Something to look forward to. I haven't done much playing around with different techniques and bits and pieces for a while. I seem to have some of the stuff hanging around, I was going to throw it away because I hadn't used it but now I am glad that I didn't.

We also prepared some fabric for making leaves. All we did was use some oil pastels and/or crayons to rub over a texture plate then iron it to set the colours. We will be using this fabric tomorrow also.

All of the materials were provided in packs, all labelled so that we knew exactly what to use when. It was easy!

I am looking forward to tomorrow and may even end up with a finished piece. I was treating the workshop as a sample making event, a technique learning event, but I may actually have a finished work. That will be a bonus.