Monday, August 8, 2016

New Ideas to Finish Whole Cloth Prints


Whole Cloth Prints


The stack of prints I made from deconstructed silk screening was perfect for some experimental stitching, quilting, and beading. Most things I'd seen had little or no stitching, and so I had few examples to compare what might be ideal. Once again, I found myself exploring new territory. (I like that!) I made myself a rule:

When the print itself carries so much interest, the addition of any ornamentation needs to add to it without competing. 



Saturated Backgrounds Need Brighter Colors

The first pieces I worked on were the palms. I chose to highlight the light areas here with embroidery, and add beads. Lots and lots of individual beads gave it sparkle and movement. While I thought the solid stitch was a good choice in this more solid colored piece, I was curious how that would work with a lighter background. Would a stitched line hide the texture more than emphasis it? I was curious if there was a better way to complement the printing.



Quilting vs. Embroidery

Embroidery adds a definitive line to a piece, but quilting gives more of a suggestion of line instead. A single line of stitch wasn't enough, but doubled seemed to feel just right. I was also able to use softer hues of Perle cotton over the lighter background. 


Darker Background, Brighter Thread, 
Quilting Stitch

Another piece I played with over the weekend here was from the tail end of a print session. There's little definition in this print at all because most of the dye was used up, but there's nice overall saturated color, and a few dark shots of dye left. I liked that you could see the vertical and horizontal line in it, and so mimicked that in my stitch. Here I let the lines run off the edges, and it reminds me of Pick Up Sticks we played as kids.

The interesting aspect is I used a mixture of bright and pale colors allowing the pale ones to recede, and also quilting them. It was fascinating to me that I remembered doing a double line of quilting in one place, but yet I had to look for the second stitch line. Can you see it?

We think our thread choices don't make a big difference until we see the differences. It has been a good lesson in training my eye to color.

All these pieces and more are ready for finishing and sleeves, and will soon be available for sale here at Pink Doxies. 

Come on, Doxie girls.
Let's go sew.

3 comments:

Angie in SoCal said...

These are all wonderful. WOW.

Sarah Craig said...

Very interesting - I never thought about embellishing fabric but yours are wonderful! I particularly like the double circles. Silly, but it kind of reminds me of coffee cup rings on a napkin....

Jayne said...

I love the hand quilting! I just finished a mini and went totally crazy with the quilting! Next time I plan on restraining myself, but it was so fun! I like how you worked with the fabric, they are all gorgeous!