Friday 23 September 2016

Autumn Birch - Day 3 - Finishing the Middle Background

I got a very early start this morning.

After hand pressing the entire surface of the piece I slowly and gently pulled the netting off the top half. Remember this is a tacking medium, not a glue. Does it dry? Eventually.


Over the background I placed about 10 metres of black and grey thread cut to 2 to3 inch lengths.
These are the fine branches in the crown. I tried spraying them with the krylon on parchment paper but that was rather ungainly as they stuck to me and my tweezers. The next batch I simply laid them in place. I'll add more, later.


After cutting up a "plateful" of pale green and yellow I sprinkled this over the surface.


A light spray and the netting was pulled back up and over. Everything was finger pressed again.

Up on the wall I added trees, some paper cuts, to try placement and number.


MY GOODNESS. It's only 10:30.......... time for another coffee.
Check back later. I will have added more.

3:00 PM
I popped out and picked up a few things I thought would work well as the fine branches.


The embroidery thread, using all strands, works well. The cut ends were lightly sealed with glue. The other two are 3 and 4 stranded polys. I may not use them with this piece but I know they will come in handy.


I cut another bundle of bits and sprinkled them, this time very deliberate about the colour placement. This time NO spray. This application went OVER the netting. The layers of fabric are getting thicker now so it needs to be stitched.
I applied a second layer of netting. This I pinned heavily and then rolled it to facilitate handling in the machine. For the most part, nothing moves when it's rolled.


Some music on the laptop with an insistent rhythm, a stop for coffee when the bobbin ran out...this took about 2 hours to stitch down. I only stitched over the NEW colours. Tight stitches in a leaf pattern hold it very secure. Excess netting was cut away.



So the middle is finished. Now I can work on the birch trees themselves.

No comments:

Post a Comment