Bamboo Forest Finished!

I started a piece a while back as a result of creating fabric using a stencil and modeling paste at a Fiber Junkies meeting..To see the beginnings, click on this link.

It's been ready for stitching for a while. I played around with a few ideas on how to handle the bamboo - whether to outline it and leave the background plain or do something to make it pop.  I also had a lot of thread choices to make.

I often use a monofilament when I want the stitching to be subtle, but in this case it was too quiet and the rayon was too bold. My friend kate, who has lots of different threads brought me some to preview and help with the decision. I used Bottom Line by Superior in a gray color.  It's very thin but still added some presence and color when I stitched around each line.  The gray also blended nicely with the variety of colors in the piece.

I've become addicted to using silk organza as a binding because it offers such a soft edge both in color and in texture. I painted a piece using a very light wash of Dye-na-Flow.

I laid plastic down to protect the surface underneath, crumpled up the organza and applied the paint in a very haphazard fashion. Having the silk crumpled will give you variations of color throughout as seen below.

I decided to paint 2 different color ways as the edges were so different...wanted to see which worked best.

One side was predominantly green

and the other side a lot of blue.

When you use organza as a binding, it folds back on itself as any binding does, but because it is transparent, the color will deepen so it's a good idea to preview it on the edge by doubling it. Here is the green edge and you can see the sheer organza in the single layer off to the left.

I decided to use both green and blue. Here it is stitched on before turning to the back...

and here it is finished - a nice soft edge. I like the fact that you can see through to the quilt.  The stenciling on this piece came right to the edge in places and you're able to see that through the binding.

I tried several types of quilting for the background, something that would sink the background, be interesting but subtle. My friend Kate also suggested the circles, it is something she uses often and it's very effective.  The circles were smaller in the main part of the quilt and larger near the edge (see 2 pictures up). The combination of the thread and pattern worked well with this piece.

And the finished piece. I like the results and what started out as an exercise at my Fiber Junkies group turned into a quilt. I love this group and all the wonderful things we experiment with and learn from each other, but I consider these play days. Being able to create a piece of art is just the icing on the cake.