Christmas Wall Hanging

Some of these panels are hard to resist. This one came from a local show.
And just in time for Christmas.

The bulk of the background is done in snowflakes!

Now that it's quilted and after the binding, there are small lights to be installed, cut into the tree portion. Should be cute.

Quilt Interlude

Blue and white are my favourite colours for a quilt. They were also my High School colours. Fancy that.
Another donation quilt assembled by the ladies of my guild and now,  quilted.

Enough Cards for This Season

I selected the best of the paper printed images and attached them to the card. A a few were printed directly to the card stock.
I even included two that were printed on cloth!

That's done........
Still thinking about how to incorporate this.........

Lino Cuts Test Run

I finished 3 and 4 this morning, so after lunch I played with Ink and Paint.

The ink runs were pretty good so I switched over to the paint to get colour.

And........ I'm not happy
The paint is a different creature. It behaves in a much looser manner and I had some difficult loading the brayer.
I tried a couple directly to card stock.
Again not happy.
I can see the need for a bracket or brace for holding the lino block and aligning the card. Everything totally disappears using the heavier card stock.

Just like Goldilocks, one too little, one too much and one so-so.

And then because I love this fabric, I printed on on a scrap.

Getting Ready for the Season

Finally,
My board is cleared and I can get back to playing with the Lino cuts
Nothing too ambitious here as I'm still working on the process.
So 4"x6" plate for Christmas cards sounds about right.
Cloth or paper?
We'll see.

I found some simple line drawings on line. Just my speed for this go around.

Seascape Sample - Final

I must have played around with the placement of these two for, all told, an hour. No position was wrong but with such a small background the balance had to feel right. This is a personal thing.

As this was a small piece I gave it a traditional binding.
I enjoyed the FM work. It had been a while since I tried something like these two fellows.

Seascape - Partners in Crime

Here are the pair of Seagulls. The top one still has visible tags of tulle that will help me anchor the patch to the background when I stitch them down. The lower one has them also but they are white so they disappeared.

I had a request yesterday for technique details. I usually include the construction photos and for some reason this time I didn't. I guess I thought you'd be bored.
The rest of this post will deal with the method.

I call this FM Embroidery.
I always start with a photo sized to the dimensions I want. Even with the hoop there will be a bit of shrinkage but in most cases it's not an issue.
I trace the outline of the photo (using a light box) on a white, non woven interfacing.
Sizing it to my collection of embroidery hoops, I back it with one or two layers of tulle.

Once it's tight in the hoop it's good to go.

coloured cartoon

Colouring the 'cartoon' with pencil crayons aids in disguising the gaps between the lines of stitching. If you stitch over a solid coloured applique form of the picture it serves the same purpose, but I find that's an extra, unnecessary step and it can make it hard for the needle and thread.

Grey threads

It's then an exercise in controlled stitching.
With any surface, the direction of the stitching is important to get a smooth appearance. With animal coats, they have to lie in the correct direction.
When you use high end embroidery thread the gloss takes on a different hue, depending on how the light falls on it.
This second picture has most of the main colour of grey applied.

The finished birds are complete but still in the hoops.
All that remains is to carefully cut away all the interfacing and tulle. With enough stitching, the interfacing generally tears away leaving the tulle but there are always a few spots that need additional trimming.

I use the cheapest thread I can get away with as these guys eat it up. Using such a thin surface there is seldom any breakage. Some thread is shiny and some not. Shiny usually goes on last, over top.

Hope this answers some questions. If not ask away!

Seascape - Plus one

Apply some heavy cropping with PS changes this totally.

And then there is this route.

 

Seascape Background

Yes, this is just a background.

But for who?
These guys!

Finishing a Seascape

I'm not sure when I started this piece but it got put aside. For how long I can't say as I can find no photographic record of it.
I actually sorted and organized my thread yesterday so the way was clear to revisit this one.

So here's a photo... of the photo
I got as far as all the material placement and again I neglected to take a photo assuming it was already in the files. But no.
I added cheesecloth to the ground portion only,  using all the bits pieces left over from other things. Lovely shades of sandstone and browns.

 After committing to the full sandwich, I added netting, using two different shades of netting, white? and tan.

Finding the thread colours was really easy. (fancy that...an organized collection). 

Tomorrow I can finish the ground and move onto the sea and sky/

SAQA - Final

Colours

 

It's done.
It's over.
(Sounds like movie I once knew by heart)

SAQA Colours - Final Layout

A LOT of angst went into this final layout.
Pining and repining.

NOW...... how to attach................
I love the clean look of pure colour on the fabric leaves but I don't think simply fusing them in place is going to cut it.
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You do realize that I will have to unbind the facings to do ANY machine work........

Progress

As the weather this morning totally altered my commitments I could find no more excuses.
There are leaves in the forest.

After ditching the branches, I fused 3 different fabrics to 3 different backings, stone washed fabric scraps (hubby's old shirt to be honest) and started tracing and cutting leaves.

I'm liking the view but the decisions are not over yet.
How to embellish?
How stitch?
How to attach?
How many!

Scrapping the cheesecloth was the right decision here.

I'll probably take them all off and rearrange them.....many, many times.

And Because Not All Leaves are Red

I painted another yard of cloth this morning.

While it looks too irregular to be of use, 'cookie cutters' show the potential. 

But there is one more issue...to branch or not to branch.....

A Hard Decision... Finally Made

I feel like I've been beating my head against a wall this whole summer.
First, to use leaves or not and then what materials.
I'd been blindly leaning towards the paint soaked cheescloth for months but I fianlly realized there  were two big issues.
The first one was physical.
How to fix the edges so there would be no fraying. I considered a glue line, fully fused to the surface and last a tedious but effective satin stitch around every piece.

The second road block was an artistic decision. Would the complexity of the cheescloth fabric compete with the woven background. In the end I decided it would and yesterday I abandoned the idea.

While I love this material I decided it wasn't for this piece. Reluctantly I've pit it aside.


There was nothing in my stash remotely intense enough for what I envisioned so this morning I got out the paints. I pinned a piece of blank material to a large frame and mixed and blended, red, blue, orange and yellow.

I have two art pieces in my folio that I loved and subsequently didn't offer for sale. Both had the leaf component made from my own painted cloth. They were the deciding factor in my completely turned around decision.

So here are several shots of this new material, approx 1 yd.
It's still wet and the colour is still moving but now I have the luscious red I wanted for the maple leaves.