Strings and Things

Before Elizabeth left for Uculet, she needed a sweater mended. Digging through old needlecraft kits for black wool, I wondered if there wasn't something I could do with all this yarn. Much of it is wool, so needle felting came to mind. Never done it, don't have the equipment, but thought I'd see what would happen with yarn and a sewing machine. Oh, and some fusible web. The yarn was fused to a piece of muslin. I discovered in the process how much I like to look at things straight on when designing, rather than from above. This couldn't be done on a design wall as the threads would have just fallen off, so once fused it sat on the design wall for a bit. When I added extra threads to make the colours work better, they wouldn't fuse, so I stitched it with metallic thread before quilting it. It didn't seem to be the kind of thing to put a binding on, so I stretched it over canvas instead.


I've been trying to find a way to get water soluble pencils to stay in fabric when washed. This is easier said than done. I had a brainstorm that might work though. Using Golden's GAC 900 mixed half and half with water produced a slightly faded result, but not as much as with no treatment.

Pre washing:


Post washing with metallic thread for quilting:

I'm going to try it with less water now just to see.

I've found the perfect background fabric for my wallflower quilt idea, and I'm just itching to get at it, but it will have to wait until next week as I'm off to Seattle for a couple of days to take workshops with Julio Balmaceda and Corina de la Rosa. Guess that means I should go pack.