Welcome to Making a Fabric Journal: An Online Class

 Overview

Journal Cover

This is my first time hosting an online class, so please be patient with my attempts to bend technology to my will.  My goal is to be able to provide supporting documents and videos that will allow you to work independently between Zoom sessions. 

I am very new to video making so I can't vouch at this point for the quality, but hopefully the old adage, "Practice makes perfect (or at least better) will hold true".  

I will also be providing links to videos (by others) for techniques that you may find useful when creating your journals and I'll be available to answer questions by email.

First Page

Caveats over, let's begin

Here's an overview of what I'm going to show you during this class:

Intro to the Class

Here's a video of the materials that are required to make a fabric journal:

Materials Required to Make a Fabric Journal

You can get a printed Materials List here:

Materials List

See you at the first class, Thursday, February 11 at 1:30 pm

A Zoom invitation will be sent to you.

Double page spread

Facing Pages

Useful Reference Links

Links You Might Find Handy for Your Journal Project

As you work on your journal, you might want to refer to the following videos/tutorials to help you with various techniques for stitching or using different media to apply colour to your pages and adding your fabric motifs to your journals.  I've collected some resources I've found useful in the past and posted them here on one page for your convenience. 

Embroidery

Mary Corbet's Needle 'n Thread "How to Videos"

A comprehensive page of embroidery videos from simple to complex stitches that you might find useful for decorating your journal.

Sharon Boggon's Stitch Dictionary (Pintangle)

Sharon's site focuses on contemporary hand embroidery and she hosts the Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) Challenge which is international.

Hand Embroidered Lettering and Text Tutorial

Mary Corbet also provides a 15 lesson tutorial on different ways to embroider text

Adding Colour

Make Your Own Liquid Ink from Derwent Intense Ink Blocks

This is a video by Derwent showing that you can finely grate some of the ink block and add water (it was suggested by a viewer of another video that distilled water be used because it did not contain any minerals or additives that tap water contained -- I can't speak to that) and create your own liquid ink.  The video suggests spraying but I don't see why a diluted ink couldn't be sponged on as well. This would be permanent when dry.

Using Derwent Inktense Blocks and Pencils on Fabric

This video by Derwent shows how the colour from the Inktense blocks can be added directly to natural fabrics.  If the colour is put on dry, a wet brush is used to dampen the ink and sink it into the fabric.  Additional colour can be added to the wet fabric -- it will be more vivid when added this way. When dry the colour is permanent.  You'll notice that bleeding of the colour couldn't be controlled when water was used.

Inktense Blocks over White, Golden Fluid Acrylic Stencil Shapes

This video is here only because I am always astounded by this lady's artistic skill every time I watch it.  She makes it look so easy.  I can do the stencil part. I have the spray bottle with the water and I have some Inktense blocks.  I even have some pictures of flowers I'd love to be able to reproduce -- but that's where the similarity ends.  Once the stalks were done, it would be game over ... but I do love to watch and dream.  Enjoy the video.  Maybe you have the skill. This would make an incredible journal page, wouldn't it?

Using Acrylic Paint as a Fabric Paint

This video is from Plaid Crafts explaining one way to use Textile Medium with Acrylic paint.  Instead of premixing the paint and medium together, the official demonstrator, prepaints the motif area with textile medium and then adds colour, using the medium to thin the acrylic paint where necessary.  The Textile Medium dampens the fabric, allowing a longer working time so different paint colours can be blended and worked into the fabric fibres. 

Some Out of the Box Tips on Using Fabric Paints on Cloth

This video shows how to make gradations of colour by watering down paint, using stencils with paint, using opaque and transparent paints for effect, paint on dry versus wet surfaces and happy accidents.

Using Transparent Fabric Paints and the Sun

Same great artist, Lisa Walton, shows techniques using transparent paints to create interesting effects using the sun. This would make great backgrounds for journal pages if the weather were different.  Just an FYI video.

Applying Fabric Motifs to Your Journal

Using Wonder Under

Video from a Pellon demonstrator showing how to use the product.  Tip: if you can't find the edge of the paper to remove it, use a straight pin to score the paper backing across the middle of the motif. This will give you an easier way to remove the paper. *Keep the "how to use" directions pinned to the remainder of the Wonder Under -- if you don't use if frequently you can forget what it is and how to use it. 

Where it Started for Me

The Work of Frances Pickering

She is a British Textile artist who creates incredible hand drawn and stitched fabric and paper books.  Her journals are amazing and when I saw her artwork I was inspired to try and create something of my own.  I've had a fair bit of experience creating handmade books and journals but I've always had problems with the content and it was the content and techniques used that drew me to Frances' work.  If you are on Pinterest, do a search of her work - you'll be inspired, as I was.

A bucket list wish would be to take a workshop with this woman -- the next best thing was to buy her books: Page After Page: Making Individual Books and Journals and Under the Cover: Paper and Fabric Books.

Gallery of her work

Second Step

Preparing Materials

I've been busy preparing handouts to email to my online class participants and trying to figure out the best way to deliver the material.  I could give it step by step and send it out just before each class is ready to begin or I could send it out ahead of time so that those who want to, can read it over and get a feel for the class as a whole. 

I know that I like to see the big picture. If things are going well, I want to dive right in and keep on going.  I don't want to do something and then wonder if I've made a mistake because I don't really know what the next step is going to be.

My first class is going to be an overview of the procedure and a sequence of events.  I'll have sent out a materials list in advance so people can gather what they'll need before class starts. Since they are making fabric journals to suit themselves, pretty much anything goes.  Ideally, what they have on hand should work and we'll just make it work the best way we know how.  I will be telling people what I did to create my fabric journal and explaining alternatives so that they can work with what they have to create the best effects they can.

One method of providing information online that I'm exploring, in addition to videos, is posting information on this blog that can be downloaded.  I've been reading about it but I'm not such a technical person that I have the skill to accomplish it yet.

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I'm going to experiment with posting my Materials List for the class. I've produced it in PDF format and according to a tutorial I read I should be able to embed it in the blog or at least post a link to it in the blog.  I'll try it and see what happens.  

A list of materials for the class will be found here: Materials List

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Online Teaching -- A First!

 Overview

This series of posts is going to document my first attempt at online teaching. I've taught several classes for the Canadian Embroiderers' Guild, London, ON over the past few years and enjoyed them very much.  The classes have revolved around Fabric Covered Books of different varieties and I've been able to bring together my love of textiles and my love of bookbinding.  It's been a happy marriage to date. 

With the advent of Covid, however, face to face classes are on hold and we have had to find other ways to deliver classes and keep our members engaged.  I've never made videos or done too much with Zoom other than attend the occasional meeting so using it as a teaching platform is going a bit outside my comfort zone.  

I have more than one video of me staring at my laptop screen, talking to myself as I try and talk my way through what I think is happening when I record a Zoom video and use my iPad to record what I am doing on my workspace.  I carefully narrate each step I take in the setup of the equipment and what I see on the various screens but I can't tell what the computer is recording until I finish my session and look at my recording.  There is a lot of " this is what I've done and what I think should be happening" only to play it back to find out that it didn't happen at all.

I did get the setup to work correctly but since I didn't take the time to name my videos with meaningful names, or delete the videos of setups that didn't work, my list of videos have the same name and differ only by time/date stamp and the size of the file.  I have had a big problem trying to locate the one with the correct procedure.  (I only hope I did not accidently delete it with a slip of the mouse)

Meanwhile, I've been working with a webcam and with prerecording videos using my iPad. I've been successful (partially) with using the webcam to display my workspace.  I didn't really use it as a second camera, it became the primary camera and was focused on the work area.  That might work.  I was able to prerecord videos using the iPad and I am experimenting with ways to use them during a Zoom meeting through a shared screen.

As well as looking at recording options and hardware setups, I've been trying to come to terms with editing videos.  This is something new for me. I have been looking at the Video Editor that comes with Windows 10.  I wasn't too thrilled with it until I looked at a video tutorial by Kevin Stratvert.  After watching that tutorial, I learned about features I didn't know the program had and how to use them effectively.  It allowed me to edit a video I had taken and eliminate some mistakes from the video and add an opening title screen. It was simple to use and had a small learning curve. Much easier than some of the other programs I had been experimenting with. 

I still have more experimenting to do to see what will be the best option or options for my class.

Here is my first edited video:

Introduction to Fabric Journals: An Online Class