One Down, Fifty-one to Go
It was a mite bit busy around here at the start of the new year -- guests, spouse and child with the stomach flu, the start of school -- but luckily, I did manage to sneak in some art. First,I finished embroidering around the circles on my funky circles piece, aptly named Circles I. I've titled it #1 because I already have the makings of a second piece about circles on my design wall. I finished it with my first pillow case finish, thanks to a great tutorial on Melody Johnson's blog; she calls it the "Escape Hatch Finish".
Today, I sewed around the edges of my first journal quilt for 2009. I'm intrigued with collage, but I haven't gotten a good comfort level with some of the tools of collage, like gel medium. If you've been reading my blog, you know that I haven't had much luck with it; I clearly need some practice. So, I started with the flower picture I posted at the start of the new year and fiddled with it a bit in PhotoShop (another thing I really need to practice!). Next, I printed the photo onto Extravorganza. It was a murky altered picture to begin with and it looked even more muted on the organza. Since I wanted it to be easier to see, I used gel medium to adhere the organza onto a piece of very light green fabric. It wasn't enough, so I colored it with pencils. Once it was dry -- but now with the texture of a plastic table cloth -- I used invisible thread to sew the flower onto second piece of fabric that I had dabbed with paint and covered with cheesecloth. French knots with sashico thread are the flower centers and help hold the whole thing together. The finished piece is 10 x 12; that made my experimentation a bit easier to manage.
What did I learn?
1) You have to wait to apply gel medium until the ink on your fabric or paper has dried. I did wait this time and didn't get the smudges I've gotten in the past.
2) You can't use gel medium if you want to keep the softness of the fabric. I know it seems self-evident, but I was really surprised at how plastic-y the organza felt after a thin layer of gel medium was under it and on top of it.
3) Gel medium does a good job of securing the edges of organza. I had a border around the flower when I first used the gel medium. Everything stayed stuck together, even after I trimmed off the edges.
I'm more encouraged this time around, so I think I'm going to continue to play gel medium. Maybe next week... Oh, and sorry about the size of the pictures. I thought I resized them, but I guess I didn't do it correctly. I'll work on that, too!
Today, I sewed around the edges of my first journal quilt for 2009. I'm intrigued with collage, but I haven't gotten a good comfort level with some of the tools of collage, like gel medium. If you've been reading my blog, you know that I haven't had much luck with it; I clearly need some practice. So, I started with the flower picture I posted at the start of the new year and fiddled with it a bit in PhotoShop (another thing I really need to practice!). Next, I printed the photo onto Extravorganza. It was a murky altered picture to begin with and it looked even more muted on the organza. Since I wanted it to be easier to see, I used gel medium to adhere the organza onto a piece of very light green fabric. It wasn't enough, so I colored it with pencils. Once it was dry -- but now with the texture of a plastic table cloth -- I used invisible thread to sew the flower onto second piece of fabric that I had dabbed with paint and covered with cheesecloth. French knots with sashico thread are the flower centers and help hold the whole thing together. The finished piece is 10 x 12; that made my experimentation a bit easier to manage.
What did I learn?
1) You have to wait to apply gel medium until the ink on your fabric or paper has dried. I did wait this time and didn't get the smudges I've gotten in the past.
2) You can't use gel medium if you want to keep the softness of the fabric. I know it seems self-evident, but I was really surprised at how plastic-y the organza felt after a thin layer of gel medium was under it and on top of it.
3) Gel medium does a good job of securing the edges of organza. I had a border around the flower when I first used the gel medium. Everything stayed stuck together, even after I trimmed off the edges.
I'm more encouraged this time around, so I think I'm going to continue to play gel medium. Maybe next week... Oh, and sorry about the size of the pictures. I thought I resized them, but I guess I didn't do it correctly. I'll work on that, too!
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Melanie