Sharks on the Wall

The sharks are finished and delivered. My customer was quite pleased, and so I am as well. I enjoyed this process. I will probably do more dye painting in the future.

It was a good learning experience to work with the thickening paste and the dyes, then to hoop it and work with the threads in the machine.

Now to focus on finishing other projects before Christmas. I do realize I'm running out of time, so I must get on with it.

Progress with Dye Painting

I'm making progress on this piece of the coleus leaves. If you scroll back a few posts, you'll see this piece in process. I have finished the thread painting and have added some borders, a little fabric paint (not dye) to the background to enhance it some and am considering whether I want to put any quilting in the border or not. At this point I'm leaning toward not doing any.

I was asked if I had cut the leaves out and appliqued them onto another background because they come over the borders. The answer to that question is yes and no. I slit the fabric around the bottom of the leaves, put some fusible on the back of the tips and after I had sewn the borders and squared everything, I fused the tips down and stitched around the raw edges. The rest of the background is the same fabric as the leaves.

This is the dye painting of the first shark. I have been commissioned to do two fabric paintings of great white sharks for someone. They will be painted with dye, then with thread, then stretched on stretchers like a regular painting. I was practicing with the coleus leaves because I'd never painted with dye before. I think it's really fun. We'll see how well the sharks turn out.

Questions about the process are welcome. I feel as if I'm learning so much just by doing them.