Friday 4 November 2011

Violet Seas




I've so enjoyed stitching this piece , I'm sorry to have finished it! 'Violet Seas' was composed from fabrics produced in CQ Summer School with Jo Budd and I wanted to have a go at stitching on canvas as she does. It's certainly easy to stitch and produced wonderful textures where the stitching alters the surface of the cloth. The downsides  include the terrible fraying of the canvas - had to tack the edge down. The main problem is  I don't know how to mount it for hanging. I wished I'd allowed more canvas so I had more to play with. I'd like to maintain the soft ragged edges of the top fabric. Any ideas? It's about 17x 17 inches.

9 comments:

jan said...

Oh this is beautiful, I love the colours and your stitching. To mount it maybe you could let the canvas fray a bit but stitch it to another fabric for mounting? don't know if that would work.x

Sandra Wyman said...

It looks really good - love the stitching. My "Jo Budd" being big is going to take a winter's quilting.

Haven't any ideas apart from the obvious (didn't think you'd want a mount round it) and maybe impracticable (fraying the canvas and then mounting it on a larger canvas which could be dyed/painted in some sort of background colour)

Peneller said...

This is lovely Mags. I agree with Sandr's suggestion. I think it's calling out for a bit of controlled fraying!

Anonymous said...

Um, not sure how you want the finished effect to look, but, how about treating the back of the canvas to a coat of gesso (or acrylic gel for transparent, lighter effect.) That might stop it fraying, but would make it hard to add extra stitch. Or maybe a backing fabric sandwiched on with bondaweb, and then fray the edges to match? I have no idea if these ideas would work, but I'm sure the gel or bondaweb would stop the fraying, and on the back, they would be out of sight as well as adding extra stability.

If you want to mount it on a canvas, then Sandra's idea of a painted canvas sounds ace.

Linda B. said...

I love the depth the colours of your hand stitching gives to this piece.

reensstitcher said...

It is really lovely especially all the hand stitching. I, too, immediately thought of mounting it on another piece of fabric. How about linen? That might be easier than another layer of canvas but would still have the coarse weave effect.

Judith said...

Wow...your work is really
inspiring. Thank you for
posting these lovely pieces.

Alex said...

Really enjoyed catching up on all your printing experiments - they are fabulous!
The shibori is beautiful and I love the fabrics in your latest piece.

Judy Martin said...

Yummy stitching and background colours.