watch this video to see how beautiful rugs are hand woven in India, usually natural hand dyed wools.
Learn more about Colouricious Textile Holidays
If you love creative art textiles, you will love gelli printing. This is a mono printing technique, using Gelli Art techniques. Watch this gelli arts play list to learn how you can improve your creative art textiles.
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The teaching point for this textile workshop is about textile design. You will learn how to hand print your own fabric, which is then used for a huge variety of sewing projects. Perfect for quilting arts, textile art, patchwork and embroidery. If you are a quilting group then we will also develop your printing skills in this textile workshop by incorporating layers – combining colour contrasts and definition. In the textile workshop for embroidery groups you will learn how to create some stunning textile art for your stitching – be it hand or machine embroidery. These textile workshops are suitable for all levels – from total beginners to more experienced creatives.
When you book this textile workshop, you do not need to bring anything except an apron. All the materials, paints and wooden printing blocks are provided in the price. So learn to block print til your heart’s content!
Learn a little about the ancient history of block printing.
We have always had very positive feed back about our block printing textile workshops – as we have a busy structured day. Book Now!
If you are in interested in any of the Colouricious workshops, please do not hesitate to contact us via email, or call us on 01494 72147
Jamie Malden MA Bed (Hons)
- professional block printer and textile tutor
My personal teaching style: – I have been a teacher for 30 years. I like my lessons to be well planned, prepared and organised. I like my students to always feel they have all got tasks to do and are not sitting waiting for the next instruction. Busy structured focused lessons. I am happy if at the end of my lessons, my students feel that they have learnt a great deal and have improved their skills. Different teachers have different styles and bring out different aspects in their class. I feel happy to teach didactically in a more formal structured way, to learn the rules, which we then move onto break! Happy Block Printing!
See our full range of wooden printing blocks
Love Textiles – If you love textile arts and crafts and looking for new ideas and blogs, supplies and inspiration, Colouricious specialises in promoting textile art featuring leading British textile artists.
Sign up for our free Colouricious weekly online newsletter to get up to date cutting-edge ideas.
Staying Locally? Some of our guests like to stay in a B & B
Recommended by our ladies –
1) Manor Barn, North Road, Amersham Buckinghamshire HP6 5NA
Hand Embroidering with Colouricious
Hand embroidery is a lovely way to embellish and bring your block printed project to life. There are hundreds of stitches that you can learn that will really make your projects unique and special. The beauty of hand embroidery is that you can add embellishments such as sisha mirrors and beads as you embroider to make more complex designs.
Colouricious has a Hand Embroidery page on its website which includes lots of videos on hand embroidery techniques from many of Britains leading textile artists.
If you are interested in learning more about hand embroidery we have a DVD made with Gilda Baron that covers lots of the aspects of textile crafting, fabrics and embroidery. The DVD is on special offer at the moment, so why not take this opportunity to get this DVD; it would make a wonderful Christmas gift for a fellow crafter.
Colouricious Tutorials
This weeks tutorial is perfect for people who love making hand made gifts for Christmas and they technique is versatile enough to be used for many different projects.
Bead Making using block printing and old paper
If you have a particular tutorial you would like us to cover in more detail please contact us and let us know the tutorial you are looking for and we will do our best to get it uploaded and sorted out for you.
Colouricious Christmas Blocks
It is just over 5 weeks until Christmas so if you have plans to make any gifts or decorations now is the time to get started. Colouricious has a wonderful range of Christmas blocks for printing. I am confident that you will be able to find some blocks that would be perfect for your Christmas Cards or table decorations.
Check out the Christmas blocks here!
The Stencil Shop
We have a wonderful selection of Balzer Stencil Art Designs that have proved to be very popular with the Colouricious Club members. If you use stencils or are interested in learning how to use stencils on your block printing projects then this is the place to go.
Check out the video and our super selection
We have some wonderful trips and tours lined up for 2015 and we would love for you to join us. Each trip will be unique and certainly be something to create memories that will last forever. Whilst there will be a significant crafting aspect to each of the tours, it is worth remembering that India and Vietnam have so much to offer the traveller, that even the non-crafter will still find plenty to see and do. The sights, sounds and smells of these countries will stick in your mind as we explore and see villagers at work. The holidays will appeal to photographers and anybody who is keen on exploring and seeing India and Vietnam.
Visit our Textiles Holidays page to see the trips we have already organised for next year. Booking forms can be downloaded from each holiday page and you can reserve your place.
Our Next Textile Show
Our last show of the year finished yesterday and we are now back home working on our crafting ideas and gifts for Christmas as well as deciding which shows to attend in 2015. We will let you know as soon as we have sorted out our calendar where you can come and see Colouricious in 2015.
Block Printing Workshops – More Workshops – Easier to Book!
To complement the email we have organised a Hand Stitch Embroidery workshop to be held in Amersham. You will get the chance to spend the day with me as we learn new hand embroidery techniques. The workshop will be run on:
Sunday 22nd February
If you are interested in attending this workshop then take a look at the Hand Stitch Embroidery Workshop page of our website. Click on the booking tab and from there you can choose the date you want to attend and then make payment.
We have courses arranged for all of our workshops and we are planning on creating more workshops as well in 2015.
Learn, Create, Be Happy!
kind regards
Jamie Malden
Colouricious
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First, spread a thin layer of fabric paint onto the surface.Then press the wooden printing blocks onto a round gelli plate.Then put a piece of fabric onto the round gelli plate. Now you can use Colouricious block printing and have fun!
Combine gelli plate printing with block printing for your textile designs. Round gelli plates are a wonderful way of mono printing.
We recommend to use fabric paint for this project.Once you have created your own textile art, you can use your hand printed fabric for quilting arts, embroidery and patchwork. Come and join us in the Colouricious Club if you love arts and crafts and looking for new ideas and blogs, supplies and inspiration.
You will need:
Felt is a wonderful textile that is made by pressing, compacting and matting fabrics together. It is durable and easy to work with, and is often the first fabric that children encounter when they get a chance to do fabric crafting.
The possibilities of using felt in a textile crafting project are endless and each project can be as complex or simple as you want. From making a side-stitched purse to detailed flowers, felt is the fabric to use.
Colouricious has a Felt Craft page on its website which includes several videos on how to use felt in projects as well as embellishing to further your felting techniques.
If you are interested in felt embellishing then we also have two super DVDs that covers all aspects of this craft. We are running a special offer at the moment that means that if you buy the Level 1 Embellishing DVD you will get the Level 2 DVD for free! To take advantage of this offer please use the link below.
Buy Embellishing Level 1 DVD and get Level 2 DVD FREE!
Colouricious Tutorials
Carrying on with our Christmas theme, our next tutorial is how to make a Christmas Poinsettia as a table or candlestick decoration. This tutorial is more complex than the other we have run so far, so I would suggest you watch it through before you start so you get some idea of what is required before you get your sewing machine out and get your project underway. The tutorial is well worth doing as you Christmas table would look stunning with these hand made flowers decorating it. You can see this tutorials by clicking the link below.
How to make a Christmas Poinsettia
If you have a particular tutorial you would like us to cover in more detail please contact us and let us know the tutorial you are looking for and we will do our best to get it uploaded and sorted out for you.
Colouricious Christmas Blocks
It is just over 6 weeks until Christmas so if you have plans to make any gifts or decorations now is the time to get started. Colouricious has a wonderful range of Christmas blocks for printing. I am confident that you will be able to find some blocks that would be perfect for your Christmas Cards or table decorations.
Check out the Christmas blocks here!
The Stencil Shop
We are growing our Stencil offering everyday with lots of new stencils available. We now have seven different Stencil categories and are very confident that we will have the perfect stencil for you.
Check out the video and our super selection
Colouricious Holidays
We have some wonderful trips and tours lined up for 2015 and we would love for you to join us. Each trip will be unique and certainly be something to create memories that will last forever. Whilst there will be a significant crafting aspect to each of the tours, it is worth remembering that India and Vietnam have so much to offer the traveller, that even the non-crafter will still find plenty to see and do. The sights, sounds and smells of these countries will stick in your mind as we explore and see villagers at work. The holidays will appeal to photographers and anybody who is keen on exploring and seeing India and Vietnam.
Visit our Textiles Holidays page to see the trips we have already organised for next year. Booking forms can be downloaded from each holiday page and you can reserve your place.
Our Next Textile Show
It is now less than two weeks to go until our very last textile event of the year the Harrogate Knitting & Stitching Show, which opens 20-23rd November. If you can make it to this show then we would be delighted to see you. We will have all our Christmas stock on show which will definitely give you some more ideas and inspiration for your textile art.
Block Printing Workshops – More Workshops – Easier to Book!
We are running three workshops on the popular topic of Gelli Plate Printing at the start of the year. During the workshop you will get a chance to learn to design your own fabrics with gelli plates using a variety of different objects and stencils. The workshops will be run on:
Wednesday 14th January,
Thursday 15th January and
Saturday 21st February
If you are interested in attending one of these workshops then take a look at the Gelli Plate Printing Workshop page of our website. Click on the booking tab and from there you can choose the date you want to attend and then make payment.
We have courses arranged for all of our workshops and we are planning on creating more workshops as well in 2015.
Learn, Create, Be Happy!
kind regards
Jamie Malden
Colouricious
Ancient Art, Modern Medium
Block Printing in the 21st Century
By Jamie Malden – Founder of Colouricious
Block printing is one of the most ancient forms of decorative art in existence. Its origins lay in the valley of the Indus some four and a half thousand years ago. Craftspeople living in what is now Rajasthan, Pakistan and Gujarat, carved astonishingly fine and delicate patterns into local teakwood blocks. These blocks would then be soaked in olive oil for ten days and dried in the Indian sun. Then they were ready to be used to press on to vibrant, dyed cloth to create the most inspiring patterns. If you visit North West India today, you will see that artists are engaged in this same process four and a half thousand years later.
Block printing, however, is not confined to a corner of India but is making a global resurgence in the world of textile and mixed media arts. Two hundred years ago artists like William Morris, a pre-Raphaelite poet and artist, and a favourite of Queen Victoria, brought the beauty of block printing to the general public. The brilliant designs of William Morris, combined with Victorian industrial zeal, meant that block printing fabric changed form a hand worked craft to an industrial process and printed fabric patterns spread across the world and became the vogue for fashionable society. Further industrialisation of the fabric printing process rendered the blocks redundant and gradually, block printed fabric became sadly neglected. Now, the world is changing and with it comes the return of this simple and beautiful art form.
As modern society turns away from multi-national corporations and mass production, block printing takes its place as a simple and effective way of creating individual and unique patterns that form the starting point for any surface you create on or with. The blocks are wonderfully tactile and simply enjoyable to print with. The process is uncomplicated, accessible to all and produces immediately satisfying results. The block requires a thin coat of ink or fabric paint, then, with a soft layer underneath the surface to be printed, a reasonably firm press of the block onto the surface ensures beautiful results every time. There really is nothing more to it than that. You can be up and printing in seconds, whenever the inspiration takes you. Background printing on plain paper or fabric ensures that, whatever your style is, your surface will be eye-catching and exciting.
However, block printing is not just a background art; they can form the central theme around which other designs revolve, be incorporated into a larger pattern, overlaid to create a multi-layered effect, or utilised in a multitude of other ways. Nor are you limited to printing with paint or ink, the blocks can be so detailed that using embossing powders or printing into a material that takes impressions will create a stunning textured pattern. Wooden blocks are also incredibly easy to use; being made of hardwood they are extremely durable and, if you are printing with water based ink or fabric paint, only require wiping at the end of each printing session. If you are printing into an impressible surface or with embossing powder then it is necessary to be more careful when cleaning then in order to preserve the pattern, however a soft brush will normally suffice to clean the blocks.
The unique inspiration you can get from block printing is not the only benefit. Five years ago the industry was in a steady decline and talented artisans were leaving traditional work of carving blocks to find more stable work in the factories of India’s massive population centres. Companies like Colouricious saw that there was a market for the work of these craftspeople. Now beautiful wooden blocks, handmade in India, are being imported for sale across the world. The craftsmanship of these Indian masters is combined with the infrastructure of a number of Western companies to make these wonderful artefacts available to everyone, provide a stable working wage to the indigenous people and keep this wonderful art alive.
Block printing is incredibly simple and deeply satisfying. Even when you are not using the wooden blocks for printing they stand alone as lovely pieces of art. I would urge everyone to get involved in block printing. Not many of us are fortunate to be able to travel to India and see the skill of the craftsmen as they hand make each block with what we would consider quite primitive tools. Or to watch the printers as they effortlessly print rolls of beautiful fabric. However, it is almost ironic that the march of progress that caused the decline of the industry now makes it accessible to all via the Internet. Colouricious are leading block printing specialists. As Colouricious is an online craft store, you can buy wooden printing blocks, book textile art workshops and even book Colouricious Textile Holidays. www.colouricious.com.
Using the right embroidery thread on your textile craft project can really make it stand out and look fabulous. There are so many different threads to choose from it is important you get the right colour and type of thread for your project.
Colouricious has a page on its website dedicated to embroidery threads covering many different types of threads including D Twist, Accent, Spaghetti, Mirage and Spotlite. We have videos for each of these threads explaining the best way to use them in a machine with the best settings to avoid snags or thread breakages. If you specialise in embroidery on your craft projects, this page is well worth a visit.
Colouricious have organised a Hand Stitched Embroidery Workshop on Sunday 22nd February. This is the perfect way to either introduce yourself to Hand Embroidery or to perfect your current skill levels. Places are limited, but if you are interested in this workshop you can reserve your place by clicking the link below and going to the booking tab.
Hand Stitched Embroidery Workshop
We also have a super DVD that covers lots of aspects of embroidery. Creative Free Embroidery with Gina Ferrari is an easy to follow DVD that covers lots of different stitches in clear and concise chapters. If you are interested in this DVD then you can find more details about it on our website where you can make your purchase.
Colouricious Tutorials
Our newest tutorial is how to make a Christmas Bauble. This would be the perfect thing to do with children and it would be wonderful to be able to decorate your Christmas Tree entirely with hand made decorations. You can see this tutorials by clicking the link below.
If you have a particular tutorial you would like us to cover in more detail please contact us and let us know the tutorial you are looking for and we will do our best to get it uploaded and sorted out for you.
Colouricious Christmas Blocks
It is just over 7 weeks until Christmas so if you have plans to make any gifts or decorations now is the time to get started. Colouricious has a wonderful range of Christmas blocks for printing. I am confident that you will be able to find some blocks that would be perfect for your Christmas Cards or table decorations.
Check out the Christmas blocks here!
The Stencil Shop
We are growing our Stencil offering everyday with lots of new stencils available. We now have seven different Stencil categories and are very confident that we will have the perfect stencil for you.
Check out the video and our super selection
In April next year we will be travelling to South Odisha for a tour visiting some remote tribal villages on the East coast of India. This tour is a rare opportunity to get the chance to visit indigenous people in their heritage villages making their crafts for their livelihood. This 13 day tour will be spectacular and memorable and is certainly not to be missed.
If the idea of this trip has whetted your appetite for the East coast of India, you can link up this trip with the Embroidery Heritage Textile Tour that we are running at the end of March. The two trips are designed to be linked together so some lucky people will get the chance to get two wonderful trips in the same holiday. I told you all about this tour last week, but if you want to read up some more then visit our website where you will find the full itinerary.
Our Next Textile Show
Our very last textile event of the year is going to be at the most fabulous show Harrogate Knitting & Stitching Show which open 20-23rd November. If you can make it to this show then we would be delighted to see you. We will have all our Christmas stock on show which will definitely give you some more ideas and inspiration for your textile art.
Block Printing Workshops – More Workshops - Easier to Book!
If you want to learn more about sewing shisha mirrors onto fabric, then we have the perfect workshop for you! We have set up a workshop to cover exactly this topic on:
Thursday 8th January and
Saturday 17th January
You will learn how to sew on these small Indian mirrors onto block printed fabrics and how to combine the embroidery threads and beads to make your crafting projects totally unique. This will be a wonderful day and I would love to see you there.
If you are interested in attending this workshops then take a look at the Sewing Shisha Mirrors Workshop page of our website. Click on the booking tab and from there you can choose the date you want to attend and then make payment.
We have courses arranged for all of our workshops and we are planning on creating more workshops as well in 2015.
Learn, Create, Be Happy!
kind regards
Jamie Malden
Colouricious
