Finishing Off...

the small piece on muslin I showed you yesterday.  And I do mean small : it's just over postcard size.  I trimmed it back a little more once I'd finished the stitching.  While there are still areas of white on the edges, I'll be adding a mount, which will cover them.  The colours are reminiscent of Highland hillsides, and I'm fairly pleased with it.

  

So now what?  Well... this was the 'ghost' of another monoprint.  This one is much more definite, has a good deal more colour, and is slightly bigger, roughly 8" square, though that includes a fair amount of white space around the edges...probably closer to 7" square, if that were trimmed away. 

You can see the similarities in structure; there's a clear flow down from that top left hand area, through the blue to the bottom right.  The movement inherent in the paint is much clearer, though, just by dint of there being more paint, and the colour is stronger, all round.  Were I not about to do a fair amount of machine quilting on a different project, I might be tempted to machine stitch it...and I still might.  I do think I'd like to get rid of some of that white, as I did in the first one.  This time, though, I think I'll add some more paint, rather than putting cloth between the top and the batting.  I'll do that, I think, and then make a decision as to how to stitch. 

Minor Adjustments...

...can make a big difference.  I love working with transparency, but sometimes it just feels a wee bit wishy washy...   I'm still working through those scraps, and came across this lino cut on bandage muslin, which had been rust dyed before I printed it.  I've frayed the edges a little, to add a bit of texture and visual interest, though it's not obvious in the image.

It fits a small piece of evolon like a dream...even if I have positioned it the wrong way round, sigh.  But you get the drift.  There's a piece of yarn running across the top and bottom of the piece, which I'll couch on with some hand dyed thread I found yesterday, while tidying up (handy, huh?).  But... I want to beef up the rust colour just a bit... so...I'm going to double up the muslin... clearly didn't print on all of it, fortunately. 

Not sure that it's showing up well in the image, but again, you probably get my drift.  It's a good way of working with lutradur and other patterned fabrics; the combinations can be really interesting.  Meanwhile, I need to think about stitching this...but that will have to wait until the arrival of the brown hand dyed perle I've ordered on line.  I'm just not set up for dyeing at present, unsurprisingly, though work on the studio is progressing; might show you that tomorrow.  The shelves are full, all except the one set that needs to be repositioned.  I've moved the cutting table to its proper place...just need to remove the empty boxes, shift and fill the shelves and move the work table.  Then I can get the machines out and we'll be pretty much good to go...hurrah!