Working with Deconstructive Screened Fabric

We seem to do a lot of deconstructive screen printing in my Fiber Junkies group - one of our favorite techniques;  but on the other hand, the fabric can be difficult to work with. It's very busy .

 I've had this leaf print for a while...I remember making it while at John C Campbell Folk School; our classroom was next to a garden that had luscious plants and one with oversized leaves. We managed to control ourselves and try to share a few leaves amongst ourselves.  I love the print but don't have a clue what to do with it.

 I have an oversize printer which I haven't used for that purpose in a while and decided to get my notes out from Pat Minks weeklong workshop years ago. She show us how to do settings for an oversized print. This one was 11" x 14". I also thought a tree printed on top would work well with this oversized leaf. I pulled it up in photoshop elements, turned it into a black and white and lowered the opacity of the image so it would be semi transparent when printing. This allowed the tree to show though which I liked. It's still quilt busy but gives me some direction as to where I might go with this.

 I also tried another leaf with a tree image on top but the image did not work well and got lost in the leaf so this might have to go in my scrap pile.

 I had another set of smaller leaves done with the color "Nutmeg" which is so pretty but quite strong. This was only an 8 x 10" size so I used my C-88 printer which does a beautiful job on smaller things.

 I lowered the opacity of the image and it's a hit or miss how transparent it will be but I liked the amount. The image of the tree is still very present but you can see the leaves through it.

 This is a little bit closer detail. I did some stitching around the tree in black thread. I also stitched around the leaves with a monofilament thread - I wanted more texture but not more color.

It lent itself to being matted and I like the double mat with the thin strip of black against the orange. It's an easy way to finish a piece - no borders, no sleeves and looks nice.
Til next time...