Painted & Stitched Heart Cards

Well, January has seemed to fly by, and it will be February next week!
So it is time to be thinking about showing appreciation to those we care about. 

So whether you are into celebrating Galentines Day on the 13th or Valentine's Day on 14th February here is a painted and stitched idea!

I took a piece of well-washed cotton cloth (a piece of sheet to be honest) and stretched it on an old wooden frame. Three-Point pins are great for stretching the fabric to a frame, not causing tears, and come with a handy tool for removing them too, but you can use drawing pins.

I then had a play with three Markel Oil Sticks:  purple, light gold, and red. These look good on their own but will resist added paint too. They do sink into the cloth so don't rub off as you are stitching later.

I then used some batik dye powder I had mixed up in jam jars.
These are handy concentrated cold water fabric dyes and I mix up lots of different colours just from the three primary colours. You just dilute them to get pastel shades!
For an average jam jar, I dissolve 30g of table salt in a little hot water and then make it up to 250ml with cold water. You then add 5g (1 level tablespoon) of Batik Dye fixer powder and 1g (a quarter of a teaspoon) of the dye powder.

I painted these on the fabric making several hearts.

You can see here how I let the paints bleed as I was wanting a shabby-chic effect.

When the paint dries sandwich two layers of fabric with some wadding in the middle. 
You can secure this with a couple of pins but I used an embroidery hoop.

I used a couple of different embroidery thread colour and used running stitch around my painted lines.

I then trimmed the hearts and used double-sided tape to secure them to the front of cards. I'm not sure whether to leave them simple like this or whether to add a sentiment cut from the ribbon. What do you think? (Sometimes crafting on your own can seem lonely when you want another opinion, but here the online crafting community can be wonderful, so please do tell me in the comments what you think)

These heart cards also seem like a good idea for weddings and even thank you cards too!

I did make a heart-shaped padded shape too but haven't found the safe place I put my lavender to fill it with yet. I'll keep looking and will hopefully find it before February. It's nice to show yourself some love too and so I plan to put the scented heart in my wardrobe.

Batik Bag

And it's now November! 
Here on the Colourcraft blog, we will be looking at surface layers throughout the month.

Today I'm sharing my batik bag. Batik is a technique of wax-resist dyeing which originated from Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing the resist with a spouted tool called a tjanting or by printing the resist with a stamp. My bag used both these and also rubbing wax colour onto the cloth.

First, I washed the cotton bag to remove any "dressing". I ironed it and let it dry. Then I used a wooden block and Markal sticks to apply some coloured wax.
There are a wide range of individual wooden printing blocks to choose from (flowers, leaves, animals motifs, geometric shapes) or you can get a selection box.  There is a wide range of Markal stick colours to choose from too.

I then put a thick piece of card inside the bag so that I could treat each side differently and the wax or dye colour wouldn't seep through both layers.

I fastened part of a stencil (gathered flowers) to one area of the bag using masking tape and applied melted batik wax over the stencil with a brush. I also dipped the wooden blocks in the wax and printed with them. All these areas will resist any dye and remain the original bag colour.

I melted the wax with a wax melting pot which has temperature control to keep the wax melted. The non-drip rim and 6 openings to allow the wax to flow back onto the cup, which is ideal for me to use at workshops. If you are just giving batik a go, you can place the wax in a washed-out food can and place that in a saucepan of water on the hob. keep a close eye on it and don't leave it unattended though! Alternatively, you can use an electric tjanting, but I've not tried one.

In the picture, you can see the wax melting pot with some tjanting. Use this to add dots, lines etc to your design. 

I then painted on some batik dye using a sponge brush.  I mix the powder with the fixer and water in clean jam jars. I would recommend the Batik Fabric Dye Complete Starter Pack which contains 3 x 25g Dyes 1 each: Red, Yellow, Blue, 1x 500g Fixer, Wax, Tjanting Tool, sponge brush, Gloves & Instructions for use. 

I then let the dye dry before applying more wax. This will remain the first dye colour.

Finally, after removing the card, I scrunched up the bag, which cracks some of the wax to give a distinctive crackled effect, and put it in a jar of second dye colour. A good shake distributes the dye onto the bag. 

After letting the bag dry the wax was removed using a dry iron and newspaper to absorb the wax. Make sure all the bag is ironed to fix the dye.

Here is the finished bag.

I got pastel shades but much deeper colours are possible using more batik dye powder and less water. Different stencils and wooden blocks would also create a very different design.

I would love to see your batik designs, please share them with me