2020 Topic #21 Mini Calico Wallet with VI&D (by Jennie Atkinson)

  2020 Topic 21: Masterboards

I'm so glad that Jennie has experimented creating a masterboard on fabric. It shows how versatile the Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Paints are and gives a wonderful softness to this lovely softly stamped project. Spying her special mitre tool might mean that Santa gets a few requests for it this year too!
~ Keren.

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live The Dream) with you today sharing a textile project using a collection of Vintage Ink and the Dog stamps.

I love making masterboards using different substrates as I just love the total uniqueness of the process. Using calico is always an interesting outing as sometimes the material takes up the paint really fast and then another time it will just sit on the top and take ages to dry! My intention had been to cut the calico into ATC size pieces but I just loved the finished piece and couldn't bear the thought of cutting into it, so it became the cover of a mini wallet.

The days are quite grey and dull here now with the days shortening and so it is nice to sometimes recreate some summer warmth. I fell in love with all the wonderful new blue Frescos and they pretty well all fell into my basket ... and then I saw Rose ... how had I missed that one before? It was just a gorgeous compliment to those wonderful blues.

I love using the Gelli Plate to get colour on my substrate and calico is just as easy to work with as paper, although you do have to use a lot more paint to get a brighter colour. I have used four wonderful Fresco's: Cloudy, Chalk, Azure and Rose, along with Sara's lovely stencil which is becoming a huge favourite.

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The stencil didn't work that well on the calico, but you can just see it here and there in places. It did take a while to dry (in fact I left it overnight) and then I was able to start stamping. I am a great fan of the smaller stamps within a set and these two VID sets have some gorgeous ones.

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I generally start with some of the bigger stamps and then start filling around them with text. I used Archival Ink (Hydrangea) which looks quite grey on the calico. This was a second piece of calico which I did not use in the end, but you can see that my stamping on the Gelli Plate came out better than the stencil.

As I said above I couldn't bear the thought of cutting into the calico as it was all so lovely. I found I could just about fit the covers of the Eileen Hull Pocket Notebook within the painted area, so decided to make a small wallet. If like me you are an avid bookmaker it really is worth investing in a mitre tool - it really does save all the guessing!

Before glueing the covers I started stitching a little collage on the front cover using a lovely sentiment from Alison's Time Edition:

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 I kept the inside quite simple covering with some good quality printed paper and making a small pocket on the inside cover and a sleeve on the right hand side.

Both are handy to hold some tags and a little notebook. I really like having a little wallet like this to note down little ideas or technical bits of projects (particularly my knitting or spinning). It doesn't take up much room in a bag or on a desk, but can be very helpful to refer back to particularly as my decaying brain requires me to write down just about everything these days!

Drying time aside this was really quite a quick project to make and I think would make a lovely gift. The only thing I would suggest is that you try different weights of calico with the Gelli Plate. The calico I used for this project was quite heavy and had been washed so was quite porous. Some of the thinner unwashed versions sometimes dispel the paints. It is a cheap material to experiment with and I always have a stock sitting around waiting to be used. I even like it in its natural state.. and do iron it before you start.

As always thank you for joining me.

Jennie x

Blog: Live The Dream