VINTAGE HANKIE

Back in 2015, two pals and I tried our hands at eco printing.

After mostly disappointing results, I decided to abandon the idea of printing with leaves and instead to process some vintage textiles that I'd brought along in an iron water bath.  They were squeezed into fabric balls, contained with string and simmered for about an hour.

 I can't tell you how many times I've pulled them from my stash, only to put them back after being unable to move forward with a workable design on their small size, about 9" x 10".  Finally it came to me.....perhaps they could be transformed and then mounted on pieces of dyed silk noil or ????  Why did they have to be stand alone....which was my original thought?!?

Of course every bin and stack of fabric I own was gone through before finally settling on an approach.  This piece is still in the works......so it will be interesting to see what the final decision turns out to be.

 A lot of thought went into how to stablize the embroidered/lacey textile and yet retain the details.  Pellon non-fusible light-weight stabilizer, as is often my choice, was placed on the wrong side of the piece.  I plan to cut away all exposed sections beyond the center section where the motifs will be placed. 

 The biggest hurtle was developing a way to transfer the design lines to the fabric!  The use of pencil or other such tracing material was out......too risky in case I changed my mind about location etc.  Removing those marks may prove to be impossible.  

Here's what I came up with.....borrowing a transfer method I often employ when beading.  With tracing paper over the hankie, the outline of the center section was recorded.  Next, I spent a good amount of time auditioning small scale foliage designs within the marked boundaries using pencil and eraser. 

To transfer the final design to the hankie, the paper pattern was positioned on the right side of the fabric and secured with small silk pins.  With thread to match, I machine stitched a line down the center of each branch.  Carefully the paper was torn away, revealing a guide for the hand embroidery. 

As the first line of embroidery was added for every branch, the guideline was removed.  This approach eliminated all possibilities of having offending marks  on the work.  Stay tuned....I'm gearing up to add the remaining designs....

Check out these links to explore what other artists have been working on this week:  Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday, Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Friday, Crazy Mom Quilts.