Another collage

Since I enjoyed making the fabric collage (or more correctly embellishing) yesterday, I decided to do another one.
The foundation I chose was one with pieces of three monoprints, which again, I forgot to  photograph first.

I started by ironing some green chiffon onto fusible, then cutting out gum leaf shapes (My favourite).

I peeled the shapes off and fused them to the collage.

Then free motion stitched around them ( click to see the detail)
The contrast was very low, so....

I cut some out from a sheet of fusible backed baby wipes (If you know me, you will know I have a huge stash of these, which have been coloured from cleaning up after painting and often use them in my collages)

I fused and stitched those down, but I wanted more, so......

I stamped a leaf on top with black acrylic. This is a stamp made from fun foam I made quite a while ago.
I stitched around these stamps as well

Now for the hand stitching.

Here I am adding french knots around the appliques, and seeing this picture, I changed from this little hoop to my big standing frame.  It is easier to make nice french knots when you have two hands free, and of course it is quicker.  I will probably add other french knots in other colours further away from the leaves, but at present, I am just adding contrast.

Happy Creating!

leafy prints

Anyone who knows me knows I am mad about gelatin monoprinting.  I do not have a gelli plate, but have a silicone rubber plate my husband made me.  It works for most things, but not really for plastic or card stencils.  When I want to do that sort of thing I make a gelatin plate.  You can find instructions for that just about anywhere on the internet by typing in 'gelatin printing plate'  I add an amount of glycerin to mine and it lasts for months.  When it gets a bit tatty, I just remelt it in the microwave.
However, one thing the silicone plate does extremely well is leaf printing, and of course, I love leaves.
The other day, I did a few prints on chiffon.

Isn't the detail on these prints glorious?
What I do is ink the plate (sorry, roller paint onto the plate) add the leaves, vein side down.  Then I get rid of the paint around the prints by just printing off on paper.

I get a print like this.  Sometimes I overprint on already printed papers.

And I get something like this, so then there is no waste with the paint.

However back to the leaf prints,  I still have the leaves on the plate, but there is no paint around them  any more, so I carefully lift them up and do another print and get the leaf prints.  Voila!

The prints look a bit pale' but you have to remember they are printed on transparent fabric and in reality, they are quite visible.  These will most certainly find a home in my fibre art pieces.  Very yummy!

Happy Creating!