Raw-edge Appliqué

Poppies – Getting There

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Made quite a bit of progress today – having decided to use the blue/green fabric for the border, I chose some blue/teal embroidery thread and overstitched in the dark green areas and while it isn’t sharp in the photo the stitching does tie in the blue of the border.

Thread Painting and Borders Almost Completed

Then I began working on the poppies – finished the centres, did some thread painting on the petals (may still do a bit more), added a bit of red stitching to the opening flower buds. Then I added the wide outer border and blind stitched the mitred corners.

Now I need to cut a piece of muslin for the back, and a couple of strips from the outer border fabric to do a hidden binding.

Poppies – Original Photo

Above is the original photo that served as inspiration for the textile piece. I think I’ve come close to capturing the vibrance of the poppies at the peak of their beauty.

Now to finish the piece and move on to the next one.

 

Poppies

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Yesterday, I started by adding fusible web to background fabric. I also did slight enlargements for a couple of parts of the image and printed them on fabric (adding fusible web to those fabric printouts). Today, I started building the background. I had laid out a piece of muslin 20″x24″ and backed it with batting; I serged around the outside to hold the layers together, then marked the horizontal and vertical centres to use for marking the 9″x12″ layout for the image. The muslin/batting functions as a canvas for the fabric/thread painting that becomes the art piece. I’ve purposely made it quite a bit larger than the image to give me lots of room to frame, then trim the piece.

Rather than trying to piece the hosta in the upper left corner I elected to use the image printed fabric and I will add definition with thread painting. Same with the poppy leaves – they are very fine and frilly and I didn’t have any fabric that implied the texture so I also chose to use the image printed fabric for them as well. The taxus, the grass, and the blue house are filled in with printed/batik fabrics. I pressed the elements into place leaving an opening for the poppies which, for the moment, are being shown with an outlined  paper cutout.

Background In Place

Once the background was set up, I traced the poppy petals based on the lines marking petal edges on the paper flowers. So far I’ve cut out the templates for the larger flower and begun cutting out fabric using the templates – I’m about half-way around the flower. I numbered each petal element both on the template and on on the paper so I can easily reconstruct the flower.

Templates Created For First Poppy

I will set up the poppy using a silicon press sheet so the fusible web on the back of the petals won’t stick to my ironing board. Once assembled, I’ll iron the completed flower in place – that’s after I build the other flower because the flower on the right overlays the smaller, one!

And then the thread painting will begin….

Tropical Flowers – I Can’t Believe It’s Finally Done

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I finished thread painting yesterday afternoon. I added a muslin backing and hidden binding. This morning I hand stitched the hidden binding in place. After all this time (I actually started this raw-edge appliqué piece on May 17, 2018) I have it completed – absolute done!

Tropical Flowers – Finished!

The project sat around for months while I worked on other things. I started thread painting this piece on Jan 8, 2019 because I was teaching a class on thread painting and had to have something to work on myself. I got into the thread painting seriously after Jan 17 – when I completed the framing (I’d done that early in the process because I wanted the women in the thread painting class to see how I go about finishing my work). I spent time filling in leaves, then flowers. In the beginning, each leaf took a day or three to complete.

I was sure I’d taken on more than I’d expected when I started out. But as days went by I could see I was making headway. Jan 20 – one leaf finished; Jan 22 – a second leaf; Feb 11 – I got back to the piece (after working on some new quilts and planning two wall art pieces) and finished an Anthurium; Feb 12 – more progress; Feb 13, Feb 17, Feb 18, Feb 20 – I continued thread painting elements until yesterday when I stitched the last of the Plumaria!

People often ask – “How long did a particular piece take”? It’s not a simple question. As you can see, I started this piece on a whim back in May, it sat around for several months before I returned to it. The thread painting was slow going to start with but as I made progress I was able to stick with it for longer. When nearing the end I worked on and completed elements in a single sitting (although I felt tension in my neck and upper back).

You can’t see the thread painting in the upper photo – here are photos of the detailed work:

Epiphyllum – Detail

 

Plumaria – Detail

 

Anthurium – Detail

I feel a weight lifted having finally completed this work. The gals in the thread painting class are meeting again on March 5 – my piece is done. We’ll spend time that day working on framing and finishing, even if their thread painting isn’t completed. I want to create motivation for finishing their projects.

Tomorrow I’m going to return to Poppies which I began Feb 4. Time to get back to that and to Two Men in Cortona.

 

Tropical Flowers – An End In Sight…

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An end is in sight – I’m now working on the last elements – the Frangipani/Plumaria flowers. Are they ever tedious to work on. I’ve managed to stitch the dark red/medium red central elements of all the flowers. I’ve just finished the yellow petal colour on two of them!

Frangipani/Plumaria

That leaves two small clusters of two/three blooms and one larger cluster of 7 flowers/6 buds to do. I’m going to work on the small clusters first – getting those done will make the task seem smaller. I’ve reached that point in the project where I just want it done. I’m tired of the careful, meticulous stitching. I want to get on to other projects including a couple of pair of corduroy pants that have been on the to-do list for quite a while.

This is it for today. I’ll get back to this tomorrow – maybe I’ll manage to get the two smaller clusters done which will leave just the larger one to complete – maybe on the weekend. Yeah!

 

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Tropical Flowers – VIII

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Slowly but surely, I’m getting there.

Taking a break for a moment – thread painting tightens the muscles in my neck and shoulders – I need to stop from time to time to exercise a bit, sit with a hot magic bag, until the tension in my body subsides and I can resume sewing.

The Epiphyllum leaf is done – I’m not going to do any more on it – I’m leaving the medium green unstitched.

Epiphyllum Leaf Done

Next is the Plumaria leaf at the top. Once that is done, I will have all the Plumaria flowers to do! Four clusters which I expect will take a couple of days. But then the piece will be done!

Because the framing has been finished, all that will remain will be to back the piece. Then I can to return to the Poppies and the Two Men in Cortona….

Tropical Flowers VII

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I finished shading the pale grey areas of the first Epiphyllum yesterday; completed the edging in off-white this morning. This Epiphyllum is done – phew!

Epiphyllum 1 – Completed

Epiphyllum flowers come in a variety of shades from white to quite striking red. I chose to interpret the Epiphyllum above as a soft pink – shading the petals from fairly dark to quite pale leaving the white highlights without stitching.

In case you’re interested here is some information on Epiphyllum – orchid cactus. Epiphyllum is a genus of 19 species of epiphytic plants in the cactus family), native to Central America.

My friend Marlene has a couple growing in her greenhouse – the blooms are short lived – the bud takes quite a while to mature but it opens and dies in one night – a wonderful sight. Because these blooms open at night, nocturnal creatures, such as moths and bats, are responsible for pollinating the flowers.

Here is a photo of her Epiphyllum in bloom a couple of months ago.

Epiphyllum In Bloom

This Epiphyllum (also now completed) represents a pink one.

Epiphyllum 2 – Completed

I’ve started working on the two remaining large leaves now. They will both go quite quickly because the shading consists of quite long stitching runs that connect easily – this makes the stitching straightforward, unlike with the flowers where I had to plan the stitching so the short runs would flow from one spot to another. I’ve been working for two hours this morning – I’ve stopped for now. I hope to get back to the leaf I’ve begun, later this afternoon.

Tropical Flowers VI

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I wasn’t planning on working on this anthurium but I had the medium pink thread on the machine so I started stitching. Once that colour was filled in, it just made sense to carry on with the pale pink and then finally the white. My plan was to fill in the grey using colour and I think the shading works well.

Anthurium 3

To see the contrast, here is the panel before I’d done any thread painting – you can see this anthurium is almost entirely shades of grey. In the finished flower, a hint of grey is still apparent but the overall sense of the flower is rose pink.

Tropical Flowers – Before Thread Painting

I’ve made headway with the epiphyllums as well – here’s the lower one with the darker greys thread painted with the deep rose thread pair. Maybe later this afternoon (its a full-blown blizzard outside – not leaving the apartment today) I’ll get back to it.

Epiphyllum – Thread Painting In Progress

It really is a blizzard – visibility is much worse than the photo below suggests – I can’t really see the trees across from the parking lot. It’s turning to freezing rain – I can hear ice pellets hitting my windows. Expected to continue as freezing rain until this evening when the temperature will get above freezing but there won’t be much melting until Friday/Saturday when it will be warm enough to rain (which is forecast).

Blizzard

This is winter life in Nova Scotia – freezing rain followed by snow followed by freezing rain – makes for very hazardous driving conditions. Everything is cancelled today – no school, no university, the games centre is closed, and on and on. Good thing my freezer is stocked – lots of soup and chili. Just keeping my fingers crossed the power stays on!

New Wall Art Projects

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I took this photo in the main square in Cortona, Tuscany in April. We were visiting the city and enjoying the food and the shops and just wandering around – these two men deeply engrossed in conversation caught my attention. I’ve known from the outset this would become the basis of a wall art project.

Enjoying The Morning Sun

I started playing with the image yesterday – first I wanted to remove the other people, to isolate the companions. The blue-shirted gentleman is making a classical Italian gesture – thumb pressed to first and second fingers moving his wrist back and forth; in his other hand he has a cigarette. I want to bring the viewer’s eye to this man.

Morning Sun – Initial Steps

With the other people removed and just the shops behind, the men now stand out – I removed the advertising from the supermarket windows – I will do them in the same dark colours you can see through the open shop door. I intend to keep the partial bench on the right (having taken away the woman who is reading and smoking).

Looking at this image now, I think I want the men to be on the right side – it’s got something to do with the speaker being stronger in that position. I’m about to try cutting off the building on the right and repositioning it on the left, reversing the bench so it is cut off at the left edge – that will also allow me to strengthen the greenery growing on the stones of the facade behind.

It’s not enough that I’m taking on this project, I’m also working on a second. I took photos of some poppies in Marlene’s front garden this summer and these two oriental poppies are striking. I started by outlining the petals so I could do a tracing which I’ll use for cutting out red fabrics. They’re growing beside a light green hosta, with a taxus shrub behind and a darker hosta in the top left corner.

Oriental Poppies

Tomorrow I will start looking for fabrics I can use to construct both these images. Generally I work on one piece at a time. For some reason both have been insistent I begin work on each of them.

Moved On

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My sister and niece were here from Toronto last weekend to visit the boys attending summer camp not far from the city. I was able to spend time with each of them at the apartment and to my delight two quilts have found a new home.

My niece fell in love with this “Double Vision” quilt which I completed in 2017. She has new light furniture in her family room and this quilt will be a bright addition to the room.

Finished Quilt Top

My sister came over a few days later – I showed her the quilt I wanted her to take back to Toronto for my niece. She loved the red. I mentioned there were more red quilts in my closet. In the end she chose the Shadow Quilt I made in 2016 to complement her new grey furniture. I love how the red blocks seem to float above the background – that, of course, is the effect of having a drop shadow on an image, it creates the illusion of depth.

That gives me room to make two new quilts. I have to go through what I have in the collection and see if I can find homes for a few more of them.

Federer – Completed

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Just finished the panel. (It’s actually squarer than the photo shows – its all about the angle I’m holding the phone at).

Australian Open 2018 – Federer’s 20 Grand Slam Win

Finished size: 20 3/4″ x 16 1/2″.
Techniques Used: Raw Edge Appliqué, Thread Painting, Machine Embroidery.

In the end I did less thread painting than I originally intended – I did none on the court walls other than to secure the edges. The grunge fabric provided quite a bit of texture which I decided I didn’t want to disrupt so I left the dark backing alone after embroidering the Jacob’s Creek name and logo. I did the barest amount needed to hint at the shadows of Federer created by the overhead lighting. I did densely stitch the white lines on the court to hold those narrow pieces securely. But that was it.

That’s all the wall art for now. This is #9 of the pieces I wanted to complete for the showing at the Art Labs in Parrsboro end of July to mid-August. Added to the 8 quilts I have ready, the gallery walls will be full.

I have two large projects I agreed to do for other people that have sitting around for more than 6 months – I have to get them done and out of the apartment. Then I can turn to making some clothing for myself and think about how to use a couple of fabric collections I bought for quilts a couple of months ago.

So lots more sewing/quilting waiting for me.