Summer Blues

The last few days have brought us beautiful sunny weather, so I decided to try making some innovative sun-printed fabric for my innovative project.  I splashed some diluted Setacolor paints onto some prewashed, damp fabric, then lay it in the sun and covered it with various flowers, ferns, vines, and pieces of lace.  I covered a portion of it with an acrylic plate to keep the plants flat.  Then I waited.

 
After a while, I couldn't resist taking a little peek.  It seemed to be working.  Under the leaves, it's lighter, as the sun draws the paint away from the areas in shadow.

Here is the fabric after the paint was completely dry and the plants and things removed.  I've had better results from sun printing, but I did get that great clear fern print in the right corner.

I decided to augment my white shadows with actual plant prints.  I gathered some more leaves and flowers, some diluted white acrylic paint, and a brayer.

The resulting prints added some clearer detail, interest, and depth to the fabric.

I've also been stitching these daisies in the evenings, so . . .

I now have a good selection of collage materials to use in the "Summer Blues" quilt, including an old photo of my sister and myself on vacation (circa 1967?) printed on fabric, the back pocket from an old pair of jeans, and the laced edge of an old cotton summer shirt I used to wear.

I even started looking through my ribbons and rick-rack to see if any of it might be included.  It's a start!

Altering Fabrics

For the piece I'm working on now, the "kimono," I wanted a range of yellow and green fabrics, and some with a little of both.  I pulled some from my stash, bought a couple more, and altered some others to get even more choices.  Above, I had this nice leaf batik with a pale ivory background.  I dyed a section of it with yellow acrylic inks mixed with water to get the piece on the right.

Below, I picked up these two commercial fabrics that looked almost hand-dyed.  They had some nice color variations, but I wanted a little more texture.  I stamped them with two different commercial stamps and acrylic paints.

This piece of sage green fabric had almost a flocked texture, with this swirl pattern etched into it.  I wanted it to have more yellow, so I painted in the swirls on one section with yellow acrylic paints.

The piece below is some sheer man-made fabric.  I knew it wouldn't take paint or ink very well, so I added some yellow stitching in wavy lines.

Here's another peek at the piece in progress with some of the stamped, painted and stitched fabrics.  So far I like the way it's coming along...