George Weil Blog & FAQs
Welcome to the George Weil Blog FAQs which includes information about the art and craft products sold on this website. There are project ideas, photographs of items created by our customers, product reviews, and step-by-step instructions. See also our USEFUL LINKS page which includes a listing of websites offering information about the products sold on our website, training resources and Guilds.
If there is anything you would like to see included here or if you would like to contribute an item, please email graphics@georgeweil.com
Filigree Balls using Art Clay Silver Clay Syringe
These stunning silver balls have been made using cork clay as a core. The cork clay can be moulded to any shape, allowed to dry and then used as a former or core for the Art Clay Silver clay. The...
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Silk Painting – Getting Started
Painting silk fabric can be very exciting and satisfying. The silk paint colours flow easily and readily the moment the loaded brush makes contact with the silk. Silk fabrics such as Pongee and Habotai are smooth and finely woven and the surface...
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Silk Fabrics
Luxurious, light transmitting silk fabrics give vibrant results when dyed or painted with acid dyes or decorated with silk paints. What is a Momme (mm)? The weight, and therefore thickness, of silk fabrics is classified by the Chinese system of mommes...
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Silk Fibres for Spinning, Dyeing, Needle Felting and Silk Papermaking
These luxurious Fibrecrafts fibres are available in a variety of forms and each is the result of different stages in the silk production. The silk fibres can be dyed to vibrant colours using Acid dyes and the reflective light qualities...
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Selectasine Screen Printing System
Selectasine binders are well established and highly proven for screen printing on fabric, paper, cardboard, wood and other surfaces. The printing system is simple, economic and flexible in use. When combined with the Selectasine pigments, the Selectasine binders produce a...
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Screen Printing on Fabric with Dyes
There are a range of printing inks which have been developed specifically for printing on silk screens, including the Selectasine Screen Printing System. It is also possible to use commercial dyes combined with a thickener, making the consistency similar to...
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Screen Printing Techniques
Screen printing a method of printing images onto fabric and paper. It is possible to duplicate an image many times using a simple stencil placed on the silk screen. An ink colour is poured onto the screen to one side...
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Tapestry Woven Fish
We had great fun making this fish at an experimental tapestry weaving workshop. You can use any flexible materials to weave, so exploring the craft doesn’t have to be expensive. For this project we used lengths of left over yarns...
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Shibori & Tie Dyeing Fabrics
Shibori, the ancient Japanese technique of fabric folding and dyeing has been brought right up to date. Traditionally indigo was used to create patterning. However, using modern dyes, discharge agents and fabrics you can easily develop complex patterns. Tying and...
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Patterning Fabric with Rust
There are a number of ways to create rust patterns on cotton and silk fabric and here is a simple controlled method. Natural fibres take the rust colours better than synthetic fibres and fabrics should be free from oils or...
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How to make a Round Bead from Polymer Clay
with Sue Heaser Making your own beads with polymer clay is great fun to do and after a little practice, you will be able to make beads of all shapes and sizes. It is best to start with a simple...
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How to Degum Reeled Silk
Fibrecrafts Reeled Silk is the finest quality filament silk, containing 25% sericin and suitable for silk papermaking or couching. After degumming, the silk fibre can be dyed and spun to a lustrous yarn. The Silk Throwsters Waste, Carded Cocoon Strippings...
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Reeds for your Weaving Loom
Selecting a Reed Collecting reeds is often found in the committed weaver. Although it is possible to sley a reed with a wide mix of ends through adjacent dents, to achieve the desired pattern of ends across the width, the...
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Handmade Papermaking with Pulp
Use handmade paper for card making, paper crafts or as a surface for stitch. Pulps – an Overview The papermaking supplies offered on this site have been chosen for the qualities they can bring to your handmade paper. Linters are made...
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Using Procion MX Dyes on Wool
Although Acid dyes are usually recommended for protein fibres, you can also use Procion MX fibre reactive dyes (here is the fibre reactive dye recipe for cellulose fibres). Even old dyes continue to work well on wool. Some of the...
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Procion MX Fibre Reactive Dyes
Procion MX Dyes, which are also known as Fibre Reactive dyes, can be used to dye vegetable fibres such as cotton, linen, and sisal. They can also be used to dye silk using a simple cold water process and wool...
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Printing with Procion MX Dyes
Procion MX dyes are suitable for printing on cotton, linen and viscose rayon. They have excellent colour fastness, provided they are set using soda ash. The results are less vibrant when used on silk fabric and we recommend you use...
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Printing and Painting on Silk using Acid Dyes
It is possible to achieve excellent levels of colour fastness when colouring the silk with Acid dyes, making the dyed silk fabric ideal for clothes, linings, and wall hangings. The silk scarf below was painted by Katherine Barney using the...
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Polymer Clay Christmas Trees using an Extruder
Polymer clay is very easy to shape and smooth into shape and using an extruder allows you to create lengths of consistently shaped clay which can be coiled, pressed together to create complex multi-coloured canes, woven or plaited. These Christmas...
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Hand Spun, Knitted Hat
Karen Malledent sent us this great photo. ‘Thought you might like a photo of my daughter wearing one of my creations using your merino and blue faced Leicester (the one I dyed yellow using your acid dyes). I call this...
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