Saturday, September 27, 2014

Bath Summer Textile School - Jan Beaney Class

This was supposed to be a two day class with both Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn, but while vacationing in Greece six weeks early, Jean’s husband had a stroke and they were still in Greece at the hospital at the time of the class. I think Jan was pretty stressed not to have Jean, but she had an assistant and the class went on.

On the first day of class, we went out in the drizzly rain with two angles of white paper to find things to sketch.





 
I’m not so good with sketching, but I did my best. Here’s what I ended up with (don’t laugh!)

 
Next we used markers to draw our pencil sketches in color (again, don’t laugh!)

 
We ironed these marker drawings onto fabric and started stitching over the drawing.

 
Our next project involved dissolvable stuff.  I still have a lot to do on mine – it involves orange ribbon, with beads to be added.

 
Another thing we did was scribble on tissue paper and wad it up and wet it, then tear it up and stitch it to fabric.


 
After that we stitched on this horticulture covering stuff, then used a heat gun to dissolve away the stuff, leaving only the stitching. I really like this.

 
After that we stitched on some burlap, ironed some gold leaf on top, then stitched some more on it.


 
We did another little thing stitching on top of stitches in different directions.

 
Here are my samples after two days of experimentation.

 
My classroom at the American Museum -
 
It was an interesting class!

5 comments:

Beth in IL said...

Great job! Looks like a wonderful class.

Queeniepatch said...

You did cover a lot of areas and techniques in this class! I have never heard of the scrunched up tissue paper method. What stitch did you use for the blue leaf design on the horticulture covering sheet?
The marker sketches that you ironed onto to fabric, did the ink seep into the fabric or did you actually stitch through the paper, too?
I think I would have loved this class. I am so glad you shared your experience with us. Thank you, Pamela.

Wendy said...

You have some great samples Pamela...I have used some of these techniques myself...if you enjoyed this class you should take a class from Karen Ruane, she is currently running a class that you can still join....you should put your samples in a ledger unless you are going to use them in a project...I think you have done a marvelous job.

Thoeria said...

What a great class this must have been! Your drawings are lovely! I'm a stick figure drawer so believe me...there's nothing laughable about your work! Who would have thought to use scrunched up tissue paper when stitching!

Pamela said...

For the blue leaf design, I used #8 perle cotton and a whipped chain stitch. For the marker design, only the markers transferred to the fabric, the paper peeled off. It was interesting and not things I would have thought of on my own to do.