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Tuesday 31 May 2011

FRESH - lettuce!

Sorry about queering the patch for some of you by responding so quickly with my immediate thoughts on hearing the theme.  As it is I went with the first thing that came to mind, although I did consider 'fresh as a daisy' (and have some nice daisy pictures), fresh air, fresh water (have always wanted to do a thread painting of a water fall).



Finding the fabrics was a bit of a challenge as I wanted to use only commercial fabrics and green seems to be my least favourite colour judging by my stash.  I realized I would need to add some lime green to give it some life but had to tone the one I found down when it came together as it was too lively.  Hurray for Fabrico pens.

It was quite a learning curve in construction as the template was drawn out on Bondaweb, pieces numbered and then scanned (for a master copy).  I cut out the individual pieces and ironed them to the back of the fabrics, cut them out leaving allowances for overlaps and removed the backing papers.  I now realised I had lost the possibility to line anything up.  Even having a tracing paper with outlines drawn on laid over the background wasn't good enough.  I also forgot that the whole design would be reversed with the Bondaweb and that didn't make things easy either!  I got the outer leaves in place which was the correct order anyway (always work from the back to the front) but the zillion little pieces towards the centre left me scratching my head.  The solution turned out to be fairly simple - after removing the Bondaweb papers pin them to the top of the fabric pieces and then line up the pieces like a jigsaw - easy peasy.  I ironed the pieces together in small groups and then altogether.

All in all, I'm pleased with the outcome - especially getting it done in two days!

Hilary

10 comments:

  1. I knew you must be posting- your light was flashing! Delightful Hilary. It looks great. And thanks for letting us know your glitches - sounds exactly like something I would do.

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  2. Great visual texture, Hilary. It takes just a little of that chartreuse amidst all the muddier greens to convey the idea of "fresh".

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  3. Great result, Hilary. I'm glad to hear others forget about the image getting reversed when using products like bondaweb.

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  4. I knew you'd make it!

    This does look very fresh with all those crispy leaves.

    I've not used Fabrico pens - a marker of some sort I presume. Which fabric did you use them on, even with the image enlarged I'm struggling to see!

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  5. Fabrico pens are double ended (fine and chunky) fibre tipped dye pens made by Tsukineko. They also do little bottles of the inks/dyes which are made for fabrics and are permanent.

    I used a yellow on the lightest green (it was too pale and not limey enough) and a blue to tone down the bright spotty lime fabric.

    They got me out of a pickle.

    Hilary

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  6. This looks so "fresh" I am still looking for the slug that always hides under a leaf! Thank you for sharing your ups and downs in creating your piece, it is so "re-freshing" to learn what transpires to get a piece from concept to creation. You have so many curvy edges that give it almost a 3-D effect.

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  7. well done, Hilary. I have come to the conclusion you work best under pressure! Murray (my son) does also. I agree with Venetta ....where's the slug!

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  8. What a sensational lettuce Hilary. I love your use of the commercial fabrics, and also love your explanations. Terrific!

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  9. i love your contrast between subject and background fabrics, also the different widths of the leaves provide great visual interest. heather likes the chartreuse - i like the bits of scarlet which look as though they have been overprinted. a nice piece hilary

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  10. I could look at this piece for a long time Hilary, I really enjoy it..All the intricate prints are so interesting in how you have used them. It does have a 3D quality, Nice to know about the inks in pen form.

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