Samantha Pope Creations

A Place for Everything - Hand Bag When I can't find the perfect handbag with all the right pockets in my favourite colour, then I make it. I had a lovely leather hand bag made by leather artist Yvonne Twining in purple leather. While the leather was still solid the colour had faded after 3 years and I needed a new bag to accommodate all the stuff that I have to carry around. Materials First I needed a solid body and shell to support the shape. I bought a small Belkin laptop bag from Dick Smiths, it had a honeycomb shell in purple. I unpicked all the seams, keeping the innards, zips and binding for my bag. The upholstery fabric is from spotlight. A chenille leaves pattern fabric in black and grey and a red dory slub fabric for contrast. I used thick card like felt for the sides to help maintain the shape. Construction I embellished the chenille upholstery fabric by embroidering onto the leaf pattern. I used bobbin work machine embroidery with Ricki Tim

Backgrounds and Beyond - a workshop in manipulation Velvet, Vlisofix, Lutradur and Gossemer Fuse Working with a variety of different fabrics including natural fibres, man made non woven fabrics and material can enhance the background for an textile art quilt. I have taught a Backgrounds and Beyond workshop introducing textile artist to fibres like Lutradur, Tyvek, Sizoflor, Nappy Liners and plastic as surface for paint and stitch. The first part of the workshop focuses on mark making, patterning and colouring the different fabrics with paint, crayons, dye and ink then adding stamped and stencilled images and patterns. Students at a workshop in Renmark decorating canvas with paper The decorated surfaces can then be manipulated with heat tools including an iron, soldering iron and heat gun. The non woven fabrics shrink, distort, melt and contort with different kinds of heat application. Using resists to form specific shapes can also be fun. Painted an

Wet Felted Jacket In 2012 I attended Sandra Tredwell's felting workshop at the Australian Sewing Guild convention in Adelaide held at Immanuel Collage. Materials The felt is made from layers of wool and other fibres wet felted together to make a stable fabric. The base is a prefelt of wool fibres k nown as needlefelt or wool batt, it is crafted from 19-20 micron Merino wool, grown and made in Australia, I purchased it from Fibre Fusion.  T o this black pre-felt I added overlays of dyed silk chiffon strips, silk velvet and shaped wool tops.  The swirls of coloured wool tops are also from Fibre fusion. I pulled out a thickness of fibre from the hank and snapped it into a flat swirl. The grey leaves are made also from wool tops. When I went to Contexart Forum held in the Blue Mountains in April 2012 I bought a beautiful piece of black silk velvet with a large iris motif.  I used the motif as a focal point for the back of the jacket.  Around the edge of