2019 Topic 13: Mushrooms
Keren's
brain seems to sprout ideas as easily as a mushroom growing in the
dark! However, this one seemed to have her scratching her head a fair
bit. Now I know what her stencilling onto fabric cryptic emails were all
about! ~ Leandra
Hi everyone, it's Keren Baker with
you today, and I'd like to share with you a slightly 'marmite' bag that
I loved creating using recycled materials. I wanted to try painting on
denim and Darcy's Mushroom stencils were perfect for this piece. I've
painted on fabric with Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics before, but not on
anything as textured or tough as denim, so was interested to see how it
would turn out.
To
begin, I created a template and then cut out two denim tops from blue
jeans, 2 mushroom stalks from white jeans and had a red belt on hand.
I'd bought them all from a charity shop.
The first stage was pretty easy. Sponging Snowflake Fresco through PS104 by Darcy.
I
began with adding roughly 1:1 paint to Ranger Fabric Medium. It needed a
couple of layers. Snowflake is opaque but there is a little 'sinking
in' to the fabric initially. Leandra recommended dampening your fabric
for small areas at a time when painting fabric, particularly for
colouring in a stamped area.
With
a stencil it's hard to limit the damp areas, and I wanted a clean crisp
edge, so had to do a couple of layers of paint instead. The fun came
next, as I debated how to get London Bus (which is a translucent) onto
the base and to still be a bright red. I consulted the oracle again, and
Leandra said to mix the colour with a little Snowflake, paint it on and
then when dry, add the final colour of pure paint colour, London Bus,
on top.
Well
it worked. Perfectly! I was only adding a smidge of red. Mushrooms are
often red topped with white spots, but I was using a stencil, so rather
than paint in between where I'd stencilled, I opted for an illusion of
the mushroom.
So far, I'd used only 3 colours: Snowflake, London Bus and French Roast.
Usefully,
the denim provides great texture, so I only needed to dry brush the
French Roast colour on and it just did its own thing, gently seeping
into the valleys.
Following
on with recycling theme, I added some recycled interfacing. Vlieseline
has recently brought out some interfacing using mostly recycled products
so you can feel good about using it too.
Truthfully
the next part was a nightmare. I do like creating pieces that evolve.
The amount of head-scratching involved nearly drove me to throw it in
the bin. Trying to work out how to sew the piece up was really hard. I
took a few decisions in the wrong order, but managed to solve most of
the problems and used the belt as the handle by unpicking some of it and
reassigning it somewhere else!
The
bag is pretty quirky and so I decided as the bottom was roughly the
same size as the top, if I made a bit where it could be folded back, it
would make the mushroom, less mushroomy and a little less weird!! In
this configuration, my kids are happier to accompany me and the bag.
The
inside shows the top mush'roomier' section; suitable for fitting your
phone sideways. Due to the slim nature of the inside stalk, not very
much will fit in there other than keys and makeup!! You can see my
mistakes. Had I made all design decisions in a timely fashion, I'd have
hidden the stitches inside!
I
wanted to add a little more texture. I'd already stitched around the
edges of the mushrooms to help make them more distinct from the denim
and give a quilted effect. It did feel fairly finished already, so I
simply added some french knots onto just one mushroom and called it
done!
It's
great having the basic idea of where you're going and making design
decisions as you go along, but it would be much less stressful if I'd
worked out every layer and order in the first place (but where would the
fun be in that!!). I loved stencilling on denim. Due to time
constraints I didn't add a layer of Fabric Medium over the stencilled
areas once I'd finished, but I'd recommend you did that for keeping the
painted areas from cracking and wearing. Stencilling onto fabric is
definitely something I want to do again soon, but perhaps onto an
already created piece!
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