A Beginner's Silk Painting

What do you think of my naive and clumsy efforts at silk painting? Would you like to have a go?

It was much harder than I thought it would be and most of it was achieved through trial and error but it hasn't put me off. I love the feel of the loaded brush against the silk fabric and how the colours look and behave. The silk has amazing absorbency and sucks up the colours with gusto!

If you're interested in having a go, you're welcome to visit my web page in the Gallery at Fibrecrafts to see how I got on and how you can learn from my mistakes.

The Silk Painting Explorer Pack offers the materials and equipment to get started with free-style silk painting and you'll also need an gutta outliner if you wish to emulate the effects used in my painting. Have fun! Allison

Over the Sea and Far Away...

But not so far that we couldn't get Mrs Malledent's parcel out in extra fast time! Ordered only yesterday, Mrs Malledent's alpaca/silk tops arrived in Guernsey this morning. Here's what she thinks about us!

Hello all at Fibrecrafts,

It was good to meet you on our visit there in September.

Just had to say a big thank you for my order. I only ordered the alpaca/silk tops yesterday and it arrived this morning! I had a stall at our local coffee morning in aid of Cancer Research UK and I sold a scarf I made in this lovely blend, and I have an order for another one - hence I needed more tops!

I'm attaching a photo of the first scarf, but my photography is not as good as my spinning and knitting!

Thanks again.

Kind regards,

Karen Malledent


Thanks for the (not so bad!) photo Karen

Silk Hanky Spinning

Thank you to Dannelle Frost who took the time to email us regarding our page 'Spinning from a Silk Hanky' which can be found on the web site under Projects.

"I love spinning silk hankies. I read a long time ago that rubbing your fingers with lemon helps the silk not stick to rough spots on your fingers when handling the silk. This really does work! I keep a wedge of lemon in a small bowl right next to me when preparing and spinning the hankies. The oil in the lemon keeps your hands smooth and spinning a breeze. I have noticed no harm done to the silk by the lemon. I have hats created from yarn spun using this lemon method that look just as nice today as when created years ago."

How can you Resist it!

Silkpaint Water-Soluble Resist offers the textile artist a variety of options for patterning their fabrics or paper.

It can be diluted with water or dyes and used as an outliner in silk painting or it can be used as a thickener for printing and painting with dyes. It can be used to inhibit the flow of paint on treated fabrics by diluting it to 1 part resist and 3 parts water or it can be stenciled or screen printed to create batik effects. Steam, heat set or fix dyes according to manufacturers instructions, machine wash on delicate cycle and iron while damp. We recommend you create test pieces prior to starting a project. See more...

These rollers are ideal for using with the resist. They can make light work of creating borders or patterns. Click here to see these items on our web site

Now we have it...

make the most of it! The glorious sunshine we've been having is perfect for experimenting with Heliographic printing.

This decorative technique is simple and effective. It depends on direct light from the sun or a bright artificial light to fix the colour in the exposed areas - leaving the dye to vanish from the shaded areas!


Enjoy sitting in the sun waiting for the magical reversed-print transformation, your children will love it too. For best results, use Pébéo Setacolor Soleil fabric paints which work effectively for this method. Find out more...

Are you an Intrepid Explorer?

FIBRECRAFTS have launched a selection of Explorer Packs designed to encourage the cautious, excite the creative and provoke the imaginative.

Each pack contains the main items needed to explore the craft by which it is named. The Knit & Crochet Explorer Pack includes a chunky crochet hook, four types of yarns and a FREE set of handmade Surina Knitting Needles. We've even included basic instructions to get you started!

The 3 other Explorer packs, which include Feltmaking, Weaving and Silk Painting can also be found in the Special Offers section of the site. Each of them contains a FREE gift - worth at least £3.30 - and all the ingredients to get you started.

Christmas Decoration Ideas

If you've got some free time between now and Christmas, here are some Christmas projects just begging to be explored....

Computer Printed Silk Organza Christmas Card

This card was designed and created by Linda Chapman. It is a relatively simple design but nonetheless very effective. Linda used a card blank, available from most stationery stores, and stuck a layer of batik decorated tissue paper in the centre. The tissue paper was wetted with a paint brush before being pulled apart to reveal a feathered edge. Find out more...

Angelina Fibre Bell

Heat bondable Angelina fibre can be used in a number of ways. Here we have discovered a fun and simple way to bind them into a three-dimensional shape. The Angelina fibres need only a very small amount of indirect heat to make them fuse, in this instance, boiling water is involved so please take care! Find out more...

Felted Santa

Felt is created by agitating wool fibres until they mat together to form a non-woven fabric. The fibres can be laid flat on a surface or molded around a former such as a hatshaper, cardboard or even a ball.This Santa was felted entirely in a washing machine. The head, body, hands and nose were created from balls while the limbs were made by shaping the fibres before rolling them and tack stitching them into J-cloth. Find out more...

SILK: 5, 6, 7, 8mm...

A useful fact to know about silk fabric. The weight, and therefore the thickness is classified by the Chinese system of mommes, pronounced mummy, and normally shortened to 'mm'. The metric equivalent of 1mm is 4.3gm per square metre. A small Pongee scarf, 28 x 28cm, weighs just under 13gm.

This heavy Crepe
de Chine scarf is 8mm