A new photo/fabric piece

This week I started a new desert photo/fabric piece. I'll stretch it over a 16"x20" frame when it's done. I took the photo of the magnificent saguaro as storm clouds were moving in several years ago. I printed it on an 8"x10" piece of cotton, which is as large as my printer can handle, then I needed to paint fabric for the borders to make it bigger.

I'm not used to mixing stormy colors. I figured a dab of black with one of my blue paints would do it, but my black Setacolor fabric paint was totally dried out. Panic! Then I remembered some ancient Colorhue dyes that I bought at the IQA-Chicago Festival in 2007 that I haven't used in probably 10 years. They can be mixed with paint, so I added a drop of black Colorhue to my blue and tada! I bunched the fabric up a little to let it dry, and this is the result.

The card stapled to the bag of dyes shows that I bought it in 2007 -- 18 years ago! I could have raised a child from birth to college in the time I've had those dyes, and they still work just like new.

I decided it was time to use those dyes, so I colored some silk organza the way I was shown at the quilt festival, putting the dye and fabric in a baggie and squishing it around until all the dye is absorbed. That's it! No fixative or batching. You can iron it dry and it's ready to use. 

I didn't put enough blue in to color the whole piece of organza, so I colored the rest with a mixture of pumpkin and canary.

This time I painted it on so I could be more targeted.

I also baggie dyed another piece of organza with the pumpkin and canary and love the result. You can see how the color is intensified as you put more layers on top of each other. That's what I like about working with organza and other sheers.

I bordered the photo with some crinkled green silk from my scrap bag and then added another border of the blue organza that I just dyed.

Then it was time to pick embroidery thread colors.

I looked at some of the fancy stitches that I used on a crazy quilt project for inspiration ...

... but I ended up using my good old big cross stitches because the desert isn't fancy or delicate.

I still have more stitching to do, and then I'll think about adding beads and maybe dove feathers that I collect from my back yard. I think the feathers might be too big and distracting, but I like the idea of them blowing around in the storm.

It's 95 degrees outside, so now I'm going to settle down in my nice cool house and stitch.

Have a colorful day