Pohutukawa

Christmas is upon us, so something Christmassy. The Pohutukawa symbolises NZ Christmas for me.
Textile inked some calico in different strengths of green.
Pohutukawa flowers. Drew 6cm and 4 cm circles on wash away stabiliser. Put the stabiliser in an embroidery hoop. Using red variegated crochet cotton in the bobbin, I sewed straight stitch from edge to edge, 1oclock to 7 o’clock, to 2 o’clock to 8 o’clock, etc, making sure I met and crossed in the centre.
Changed the tread to normal cotton and did none more large flower, then zigzagged 30 gauged beading wire to the flowers, about 8 times, making sure the thread is touching other thread.
I also just sewed 4 lengths of beading wire with zigzag stitch over the beading wire. Cur all the threads on the outside of the circle and washed it all away.
Leaves – painted Lutradur (sp) with textile ink, and then rubbed some Shiva paint sticks over when it was dry. I cut heaps of leaf shapes.
Onto the green fabric I zigzagged some red flowers, then stitched the leaves into place. I folded some over to give a 3D effect. Stitched some more red flowers and added more leaves.
Hand stitched the “wash away” flowers to the stitched one and manipulated the wire.
Unfortunately the picture doesn’t do this piece justice, but it is so 3D you expect bees and flies to land on the flowers.
Perhaps the quilt could benefit with brown stalks or yellow beads on the tip of the sewn down flowers.

Spirit

I would like to try laser printing onto fabric. I have tried bubble jet, but the main printer is a laser and want to see what happens.
The focus is on the word “Spirit” so in Publisher, typed in as many words I knew that reflected the meaning of the word Spirit.
Energy, life, élan, spunk, enterprise, tonic, zest, oomph, drive, joie de vivre, dynamism, mettle, vitalise, flourish, electrify, energise, animate, enliven, soul, spirit, self, vigour, capture the spirit, verve, ephemeral, spirit of the moment, breath, heart, dash, intrepid. Symbol: dove, flame, wind. 5 Elements; wind, earth, fire, water, love.
Very nervous about using the laser printer, as it gets quite hot, but then paper doesn’t burn when it goes through, so cotton should be okay.
Ironed the calico, and then backed it with freezer paper. I trimmed it all to A4 size, and ensured there were no loose threads.
I then re-ironed the freezer paper just before printing to ensure it was joined everywhere. Set the printer to manual, HQ1200, thick paper. Very nervous threading the paper though the printer. It worked. A small amount of loose toner on the bottom of the freezer paper, but printed even the fine fonts onto the fabric okay.
Cut the fabric into strips for weaving and laid it out on some fusible stabiliser, with the adhesive facing up. Wove the strips with other fabric, ribbons, yarns and thread. Once happy, I ironed it to make sure it stuck to the stabiliser. I even found a spelling mistake in the words I printed out. Drew some dove and flame images onto freezer paper, and made stencils. Using purple and gold Shiva paint sticks I found the stencils appear most effective when using 2 colours with each stencil, eg wings-purple, body-gold.
I wonder if the stencils will lose their luminosity under the chiffon. Left everything to dry for 24 hours. Added feather to add another dimension, and some Angelina fibres. Laid some blue chiffon over the top of everything, and some plain calico on the back. Machine quilted with pink threads, and metallic threads, meandering around the stencils and the words for effect. I tired to be as unstructured as possible. To bind the quilt, I used gold metallic thread zigzagged in a medium with. Reminds me of the Russian Icons. Everything got trimmed back to the stitching. Now some beading to finish it off. I followed circled lines with beads, and small circles with beads. Then with variegated blue crochet thread fern / feather stitch “branches” in one third of the spirit, connecting the beaded curves and circles. This spirit was fun to make, and now going to make on 4 times as big. Time for play.

Frottage and ferns

Shiva Paint sticks have been sitting in my drawer, and I need to play with them to understand their qualities a bit more.
I wonder if they can create the sense of sunlight filtering though the forest.

I tried rubbing them over a woven flax mat, (frottage) but the design that came through to the green fabric wasn’t strong, just random blobs of colour. So…I masked off sections on another green fabric and frottage bronze, gold and green Shiva sticks using the mat as a background. This was a better effect than trying to frottage the whole mat.

Found some brown chenille yarn from Spotlight, and it reminds me of the furry part of the ponga fern, so I am going to create a frond in front of the frottage paint stiks.
Using wash away stabiliser and a long zigzag, I secured the yarn to the wash away in a coiled stem / frond.

After washing the stabiliser away, I hand sewed the “koru” to the green fabric. The spirals were difficult to sew, but at this stage, I cannot think of another way to attach them.
I machine quilted in one direction, only following the line of the making tape “blank spaces. To me the result was similar to the dappled sunlight filtering into the forest.

Some Jazz yarn framed the piece, but maybe it would have been better as a spiral, instead of a diagonal? What do you think?