A textile experiment...

I wanted to take a small stitching project with me when I was traveling with my hubby so I came up with this small idea that fits in with the circle theme my textile group is doing.

First I did some sun painting with leaves and my Golden brand fluid acrylics. I did a yellow & pink layer first. When that had dried I did another layer with green and let it dry. The Golden paints are so bright that I only used a tiny amount and the fabric remained very soft when dry. I forgot to take a photo of the finished fabric before I cut the circles out but you can still see the results.

 I thought I had explained sun painting before but I can't see it anywhere on this blog so I will do a detailed tutorial in my next post. It is unpredictable but fun.

 After I cut out the shape I wanted I machine stitched it to stiffened felt so it would hang flat against the wall. I then scanned it and printed a copy with my computer. There is a little less detail in my printed image but it will still work as a design tool.

 I took the printed fabric and doodled stitching lines and patterns onto it. I tried to work out thread colors as well so I could use the diagram as a stitching pattern.

 While we were away I stitched the design. I didn't stick exactly to my original doodle but it helped a lot when I was trying to figure out where to stitch. I really enjoyed this freeform style of embroidery and will probably do it again.

This is another one of the circles for the textile group. I saw a tutorial in Quilting Arts Issue 48 (August 2012) by Diane Savona about embedding objects into your quilts that I wanted to try. I started with a stiffened felt layer then placed on top all the objects I wanted to embed. I chose buttons, doilies and scrapbook items like flowers, swirls and letters. Although the scrapbook items are supposed to be acid free I expect they will darken the fabric where it touches them after several years. I then laid a piece of hand dyed linen on top with the grain running diagonally so it will stretch more.

I stitched around each object to secure the top layer and then got out my colored threads to stitch the decorative bits. After I did all the fancy stitching I wanted I used a pink thread to stitch lines across the rest of the background. Lastly I used a fabric crayon in white to go very lightly over some of the raised items so they stand out more. The crayon is barely noticeable but you can see it most on the word. I enjoyed this experiment and will probably do another one with a different theme.