Bondaweb 'prints'

This week a piece of my textiles based on Daisies was accepted for publication in online creative textiles magazine, Workshop on the Web. I feel honoured and very pleased about this - it is the culmination of a fantastic sabbatical year - and I will be paid too!

The editor of this magazine is Maggie Grey and by chance she was speaking at the local Embroiderer's Guild this week, so I went along and met her. Her talk was engaging and full of interesting techniques, one of which I have tried out straight away.

It is a method of transferring an image onto fabric using the adhesive powers of Bondaweb. As I am working up to a large wall hanging based on a theme of 'wastelands' I chose the image on the right.

This is a drawing from the chapter headings in an old wildflower identification book - 'Dry Wastelands' in this case!

I photocopied it on the printer. Then I cut a piece of calico and Bondaweb to the same size. Iron the Bondaweb onto the calico and remove the backing paper when cool.

Next iron the printed image, ink side down onto the Bondaweb under a piece of Baking Paper so that you don't burn the print.

I left it overnight to 'develop', as recommended by Maggie.

To reveal the print, brush the back of the paper with water to get it thoroughly wet. When you can see the whole image through the wet paper start gently scrubbing away at the paper with the rough side of a kitchen sponge. This is messy but quite quick.

When finished, rinse under the tap and leave to dry.

I am impressed by how easy this was and how clear the final result is. It feels soft and not at all plasticky.

I guess that if you used a less smooth fabric the image would be less clear - Maggie showed us some samples on felt which were quite faint and blurry.

My background fabric and paper colour are a similar colour but you would get a completely different result if done on a dark fabric as some of the white paper fibres are still stuck to the Bondaweb.

I got the results of my seaweed pressing workshop - all my samples survived the pressing process and look amazing. My favourite is this one - the detail it preserves is incredible. It looks like a very fine pencil drawing.

Finally, there were some beautiful quilts on display at Bursledon Brickworks Industrial Museum Heritage Day, where I volunteer. They were by the local quilting group and all on the theme of 'By the Sea'.