i will be the guest designer this thursday at one powerful hour and thanks to caroline for the opportunity! last year i took a class at work from lynn koolish to learn how to transfer images to fabric using gel medium. we copied our desired picture on to a transparency sheet from an inkjet printer, then we brushed the medium on to our fabric, laid the transparency ink-side-down on the fabric, and burnished it like crazy with the back of a spoon.
my picture, the millinery shop, was from my favorite degas book. of course in the original painting, the woman is facing the other way, because this transfer process reverses the image. this piece of fabric has been sitting in my stash for almost a year; i just didn't quite know what to do with it. this challenge was perfect, because it made me think about what i could make with it in just an hour.
so I decided to try a collage. i spent about 15-20 minutes selecting and snipping a few fabric scraps, laid them on top, pinned it down to a piece of timtex, and then spent about 40 minutes "quilting" it with metallic copper thread. my quilting group told me to sew a little slower with metallic threads because they can break easily. and steady won the race, i made it all the way through without breaking.
i sewed one continuous line for the whole thing, starting in the upper right corner and just stitching freely up and down, around and across, until i ended at the tip of the red triangle in the middle. i changed the stitch length a few times, and switched between straight stitching and zig zag.
the kaleidoscopic flower scraps are from one of paula nadelstern's fabric lines - have you seen her new kaleidoscope note cards and tote bag - gorgeous!