Monotype printing on fabric

I was playing with mono printing on fabric recently and decided to use the images to make journal pages like I do in my art journal. I used stitching in place of the doodles I would normally do but then still added quotes as I love to do. I used any fabric paint I could find in the colors I needed. Some were Lumieres, and others were Jaquard fabric paints.

This was my first mono print using a girl stencil I made some time ago. When it was dry I used a swirl stencil to add more pattern. The blue dots are Quality Street chocolate wrappers. When I ironed them under a non stick sheet they wrinkled up into an interesting stiff material that was easy to stitch. A good excuse to eat chocolate in my opinion. I outlined the images with machine stitching and hand stitched the quote.

This mono print was a little more complicated to do. I started with a previously printed piece of fabric and did the mono prints on top of that. The trees and top section were done first then I put more paint on the printing plate and used torn paper to mask the sections I didn't want to print. I printed each layer separately. It is hard to see with this photo but the quote was hand stitched in two colors for interest. I added a few wools and cottons as well.

When I do mono printing I usually get two prints. The first one is printed normally then after I removed the masks from the plate I spritz it with water and do another print on different fabric. This time I used plain white fabric and the colors are much brighter. I decorated with hand embroidery and stamped words this time.

The center of this wall hanging is the second print I got when I did the landscape above. I liked it so much I decided to make this art quilt. After the quilting, some of the patterns didn't stand out enough so I used paint to extend the central image and high light the quilting. I also used stencils on this one to do extra circles and some scrolls.

I made the branch using gold wire for the leaves. I covered it with fabric strips but it didn't look like a branch so I wrapped strips of brown painted Lutrador over the top of the fabric and used a heat gun to melt it and make it look like bark. The gold leaves became almost invisible against the wall so I used alcohol ink to make them darker.

Journal cover

I had an old quilt in my stash to find a new use for. I made it many years ago and it hung on my bedroom wall for a long time but I was never really happy with it. The colours of the diamonds in the middle were the wrong tone (they should have been darker) and I thought it looked odd. I made a new quilt and then put the old one aside to use later. I can't seem to throw away things I have made but I am prepared to cut them up for a new idea. Now is the time for something creative...

I laid the pages of my journal that have already been stitched together on top of the quilt and found I could use the top portion with the gold stars for the cover and the rest would be saved for something else. I cut the quilt to size. Earlier in the week I was given a paper lined foil bag at a pharmacy and I really liked the feel of the bag so I put it on my desk. When I saw that next to my quilt it became the perfect inside cover for my journal. I stitched the two items together with a few lines of straight stitching.

I gave the foil a light coat of gesso to cover up the store name on the bag.

Next I cut the bag slightly larger than the size of the cover so I could use the edges to form a border around the edge.  I sprayed the inside cover with various dye inks and glimmer mist sprays to add colour. I had to give the paper a light coat of varnish to protect the inks because they were rubbing off and would have marked the first page of the journal.

After this step I decided to add some extra lines of stitching to hold the layers together more. I folded the paper over to the front of the journal and stitched it in place using blanket stitch and gold thread. I realised I had forgotten to put the stiffening in between the two layers. Oh well, mistakes happen. It would just be a soft cover instead of the hard cover I had imagined. I finished off the front cover with some ribbon, then a couple of swipes of gesso and paint. I used scrapbook letters wrapped with thread for the title. I stitched the journal pages inside and added some gold charms to the spine of the book.

The letters are glued on with Scotch quick-dry adhesive that I have found will stick a lot of different surfaces together quite strongly. I have never had anything fall off so far...

I am quite happy with the new purpose for my old quilt.