Where the Twig People Dwell

I recently finished a piece that's been sitting on my design wall for quite some time....

It uses a lot of different surface design techniques. I often create fabric and then stash it away and forget about it....

and then while thinking of a new piece, I usually find one piece that strikes me more than others and work around that, pulling from my stash...my design wall is covered with bits and pieces of everything until I start eliminating. The piece of fabric above is a brick wall with color changes and printed in Photoshop E. The printing is a silkscreen of a recipe from my grandmothers "home made" cookbook. Adding her writing keeps a little of my past in the present. Below left is an eco print of leaves done on silk and on the right is a silkscreen of trees from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

An organza overlay of a page from my mother's autograph book from the 1930s...

and my "twig people" - little people made out of twigs and made into a silkscreen. 

The twigs are one of my favorite silkscreens....

Time for quilting using a very thin batting.

And the finished piece...I could not for the life of me come up with a name...forests, trees, writing and twigs ....nothing worked and then the Aha moment...probably in the middle of the night...but it came to me none the less and I think it fits..."Where the Twig People Dwell".  I do think Twig people would most likely be found amongst the trees and leaves....Take a look and see if you can find them...next time you're on a hike in the woods...

Til next time..Stay safe and happy!

Sometimes you just have to cut your losses..

 like with this piece...which I really wanted to work. During my teaching career, one of the workshops I taught was "Bobbin Couching and Stumpwork" which involved working with heavy threads in the bobbin.This is a great technique when you want to use a heavy thread for texture but it's too heavy to fit through the eye of a needle. Winding it on the bobbin and working from the back so the heavy thread appears on the front is the way to go. Couching is the overall design you see in the center; the stumpwork is the heavy build-up of threads you see on the applique edges .The original sample looked a lot like this. When I finished teaching, the original was turned into a small wall hanging with an appliquéd tree in the middle. It was part of an exhibit/sale at the NC Arboretum and did very well, especially since it embraced a nature theme which the arboretum encouraged.

The second piece (above) was the one I had set up to demo on...it also appeared to be the beginnings of a nice piece or so I thought.

Instead of doing an applique of a tree, I thought to use a silkscreen. Now I should know better to always make a sample first, but I was in a hurry and took the shortcut which lead to poor results.

The paint I used is a fabric friendly paint which means it contains a special binder making it permanent on fabric. It's made by Speedball and very thick making it ideal for silk screening...You can see how dark, heavy and "globby" (new word) the image is. It has nothing to do with the paint itself...just the screen image was a poor choice.  I should have chosen something more delicate.....AND TESTED IT!

So here is my big mistake and I hope I learned a lesson to not be in such a hurry and do a little experimenting before diving into the final piece...So maybe I'll be able to get a few cards out of this...we'll see...

Have a great day and til next time.

Serenity

This is a new piece, very small that uses a wonderful technique created by Wen Redmond.

Basically, it uses 2 prints of the same photo - one on an opaque fabric and the other on a sheer fabric such as silk organza. The idea is to layer the 2 images with 3/4" of space between them....That is 

accomplished by using a pre-stretched canvas, cutting away the canvas part.  The outer wooden frame is covered with black felt or batting and the opaque print is attached to the back of the frame. But before it is attached, stitching or further embellishment can be done. I used a metallic thread which creates a pretty little sparkle underneath the top layer of organza. A staple gun was used to attach the opaque fabric to the back.

Next, the sheer fabric of the same print is applied to the front where the canvas was cut away. 

This is the tricky and perhaps most time consuming part. 4 strips of fabric are sewn around the edge of the sheer print, sewing in a little closer than the opening. Any fabric can be used for this; I used a black silk noil which has some body and a slight nubby texture. I used 1'2" seam allowance and treated the seams with Fray Check as organza frays easily.

The opening with the organza should be perfectly even when it is stretched over the top. The fabric frame should also be even all around from side to side and top to bottom. This part was tedious also as I used T-pins to hold the fabric in place and worked from top to bottom and side to side, alternating sides with each pin added. You can understand why working with a small frame is so advantageous. 

I also used safety pins as they didn't go as far down into the frame area but I had to find a way to lay this piece down (to flip it to the back) without disturbing the pins.

I found an empty bin I could lay the piece on top of, which imitated a flat surface and easy to maneuver around.

A tedious process....Once the fabric is wrapped round to the back and secured in place with an electric stapler, trim the edges of the frame fabric to within 1/2" of the staples. Cover the back (forgot to take a picture of this) with a pretty backing fabric

But the results...so interesting..It almost has a blurred effect. This is because of the double image and being able to see through the sheer image to the opaque one. This is an 8x10" piece.

And here a view from the side in hopes of being able to see the layers. If you are interested in learning more about this technique....google Wen Redmond...she has a website, several books and probably some videos on You Tube...She's very talented and does a good job explaining how and showing the technique.