Samples 2016: Week 12, Peeling/Night

My own handmade black and grey paper, machine stitched onto hand dyed cotton fabric. Then I soaked it and rubbed the paper to get a peeling effect. The low wet-strength of the handmade paper made this really easy. After drying I highlighted some of the edges with silver paint.

 

Not really my kind of thing, especially in the monochrome "night" colours, but I can see this would be effective for bark or peeling paint.     

Samples 2016: Week 11, Lacy/Orchard

Pleased with my little light bulb moment here. The randomly allocated design and colour themes aren't supposed to be linked, but it dawned on me that plant cells would be perfect for a lacy sample in orchard colours.

So I based this on a copyright-free drawing of a grass stem by R. Annheiser, in " Microscopic Art Forms from the Plant World".

It's free machine embroidery on Aquasol.

Samples 2016: Week 10, Crunchy/Multicolour

"Crunchy"? Not sure what I had in mind when I added that to my list of themes! But I decided to interpret it as highly textural.

I started by knitting a fancy multi-coloured yarn, with lots of dangles, in garter stitch. Then I used to the embellisher to attach it to a felt backing.

No French knots this time - I chose Sorbello stitch for my chunky texture, in thick yarns and cords.
  

Samples 2016: Week 9, Web/Stone

For cobwebs in stone colours I turned to free machine embroidery on Lutradur again -a thin one this time, thoroughly zapped with a heat gun after stitching.

I could've used a dissolvable film, but for this design Lutradur is much quicker and more effective. You can get away with much less stitching, and the curves keep their shapes better.

I'm pleased with this one, think it's got potential for framed pieces.