Giving Back...

I'm please to share that for the third year, my fibre art group, the Group of Eight is donating beautiful journals to our local women's shelter. It is our hope that the journals will bring some joy to these women, while allowing them to journal about what they are going through, make notes and lists or keep organized for appointments, etc. as they continue on their journey toward a safer, happier and healthier life.

Here are most of them, but I am still waiting to receive a few more before I deliver them later this week!

GOE is giving back...

I'm so exciting to share this fabulous collection of journals and bags made by the members of Group of Eight Fibre Artists.  For the second year, we have made a collection of journals, and this year some large tote bags, for donation to our local women's shelter.  It is our way of being able to give something back to the community.  There are seven tote bags and twenty-seven journals (with three four more journals to come!).

Update...the last of the beautiful journals have been delivered to me.  I'm now ready to take them to the shelter for donation!

Thank you to my wonderfully artistic friends...you've done another fabulous job this year!

Sharpie Faux Tie-dye Tutorial and More Journal Covers

Sadly some sort of a computer glitch has caused all of the images in this post to disappear, and I am unable to correct the problem.  Sorry!

I'd like to share with you a fun faux tie-dying tutorial using Sharpie markers.  You can use this method with t-shirts as indicated on the Sharpie website, but today I'd like to show you another fun use of this method, using cotton fabric (rather than t-shirt jersey).

You'll also need a drinking glass and a straw or eye-dropper.

Step 1:  Cut the cotton up into small squares, slightly larger than the opening of your drinking glass.

Step 2:  Lay a piece of the cotton onto the top of the glass.  You can secure this with an elastic band if you wish, but it's not necessary.

Step 3:  Using a Sharpie marker, draw a few dots in a circular pattern (see first left photo below).

Step 4:  Using another colour of marker, add dots between the first (as illustrated, these can be outside the original circle)

Step 5:  Using the straw or eye-dropper, slowly drip rubbing alcohol, one drop at a time, into the centre of your dots (see photos 2-4 above).  As the alcohol spreads, it causes the marker to bleed and spread.  Stop once you have the look and size you like.

Below I have used a secondary circle of dots outside of the first.  As you can see, once the alcohol reaches this secondary series of dots they too start to bleed and add to the design.

Have fun experimenting with a variety of colour combinations and be ready for some interesting surprises.  The purple in these photos was actually made with the black marker!  Keep in mind that you don't have to limit yourself to circles.  Play and see what happens!

After letting them air dry, I cut the circles out using scissors.  I don't worry about perfectly round circles...I like the more organic look I get when they're a little 'wonky'.

Once I had all of my circles ready, I pulled out some of my hand-dyed fabrics, including cheese cloth, and I made some more journal covers.  

On this journal, I've played with various decorative stitches that my sewing machine is capable of, creating a bit of a grid pattern.















For this one, I started by echo quilting around the 'tie-dyed' circles.  After a few rounds of that, I switched to straight lines of stitches, going horizontally on the bottom half of the journal cover and then doing vertical lines on the top half.

I used hand-dyed cheese cloth on this cover, securing it with a zigzag stitch.  I then added more zigzag stitches to create the subtle lines that echo the shape of the orange cheese cloth.  The circles are secured using more zigzag stitching.











And here's the collection of all three of the new journals.  Thanks so much for visiting today!  If you try this, I'd love to see your creations.  Leave a comment with a link to your blog or Flicker photos so I can see what you come up with!

Making Journal Covers

Over the last little while I've been making a variety of journal covers.  Some fit over standard composition books and others are a bit smaller and fit over some hard cover journals I found recently.

 

 

 

Each member of my fibre art group, GOE, is going to make three journals to be donated to a women's shelter in our area as an outreach program so that we can give something back to our community.  It is our hope that these journals will brighten the women's day while giving them a special journal to record thoughts and feelings as they bravely begin a new chapter in their lives.

Here are some of the journals I have made.  Three will be donated and the others will be available at Windows to the North Gallery.