Welllllll........not to eat...everyone that knows me, knows I can't tolerate them..how I wish I could as they are used in so many great sounding recipes BUT I do love them as subject matter in creating art quilts. They are so interesting.
I come upon them certain times of the year...When I do, my car screeches to a halt, I catch my breath and calmly move over to the side of the road, jump out and pick as many as I can. The last batch which was a while back, was sliced and used in deconstructive screen printing. This is a favorite technique of mine and I especially love using nature orientated things like mushrooms.
In order to do this technique, objects to go under the screen must be around 1/4" thick or less so in this case, the mushrooms have to be sliced. They can be very delicate and this part can be tricky. If you are not familiar with this technique, I have many posts you can refer to.
You can get an idea of how thin they should be so...
they can fit under a screen such as you see above. Thickened dyes are squeegeed over the top and allowed to dry. Then using a clear print paste mix, the screen is squeeged again onto fabric. The paste mix loosens the dried dye and allows the imprint of the mushroom to be transferred to fabric.
It was great fun although I'll say this time around I didn't have a high degree of success..... You never know what will print which can make it both exciting and frustrating at the same time. But I did get some beautiful and very large mushrooms to work with.
I have learned tho...it's never over until it's over and sometimes not even then. Being with my Fiber Junkies friends who are always enhancing fabrics that should have been tossed, some uglies have turned into beauties....
These are not great but I recently found a place for them in a new piece I'm doing and they look quite acceptable...There is something to be said for that whole "ugly duckling fairytale thing".....
Who would have thought!!! Mushrooms! Great idea and interesting results.
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