The week of Making Zen retreat just ended, wow! It flew by!
I so enjoyed the Traces of Touch workshop with Rebekah Johnston. The idea was to layer fabrics, cut top layers to reveal those beneath, and add an appliqued hand.
I began with a linen napkin that I had previously dyed with turmeric as my base, then layered on a white fabric with round tufts that are raised, a deep orange satin, a cotton with grey stripes, a bit of silk in soft orange-gold tones, and a layer of heavy rust-gold fabric (not sure the content) that has leaf patterns.
I’m not super fond of frayed edges, so those are minimal in my piece. As you can see, I only opened some of the top layers–and I realize I did not expose the base yellow at all! For the leaves, I stitched close around each one, then again about 1/8th inch away and cut out the fabric between the rows. I love how that looks!
I did all the stitching on machine except the application of the hand and the pink lace the wrist area and to the upper left of the hand. I decided to outline the pale pink lace there with a brown perle cotton, which has the unexpected bonus of giving depth to that shape.
I traced my hand onto paper, then cut it from 2 layers of fabric, the striped one with lace on top.
Layered Hand
Layered Hand 2
Layered Hand 3
Layered Hand Back
I embroidered the ring on the pinky with gold thread in chain stitch, then glued on 4 tiny emeralds that were removed from a gold ring that I sold. I also added some “seeds” with French knots to the opening to left of that pink lace.
All in all, I love this piece and am quite chuffed with how it turned out! EnJoy!
