Something Different

In the midst of the color block appliqué frenzy that has been going on here,  I also finished another piece that is very different than my usual stuff.

13-1/4 x 12"

hand dyed and commercial fabrics,

fused appliqué, hand stitching,

machine stitching

©2012 Lisa Flowers Ross

I had paper cuts on my mind when I started this.  I was thinking what if I could do something similar in fabric.  Well, I put way too much time into this piece for the results.

For the first attempt I tried using fusible web on the back of the fabric, tracing the pattern onto the fabric and cutting it out with an exact knife.  That didn't work too well as the fabric was still fraying because everything is a curve.

On the second try, I used Terry Grant's liquid fuse method and cut it out with scissors.  The black is all one piece except for that center piece in the flower.  I thought I should still "finish" the edges of the flower and couched a black perle cotton thread around the edges with a zigzag stitch.  The piece was really too small to do this (but I did).

Then, there is a lot of hand stitches on it.  The center part of the flower has lots of french knots.  I should have also taken Terry's other suggestion of using paint dots instead of french knots.

Last, but not least, I finished the background with machine stitching.  There is a wider black border around the red one.  It's bright and fun, but I will not be doing anything like this again, unless it is 3 feet tall.