PaperArtsy: Embroidered tea towels with Minis {by Riikka Kovasin}

Hello everyone, Riikka here with you today for a project that combines stamping, fabric paints and embroidery! You can include all three or any combo of them in your take.

I'm working with Minis in this project and combined several ones to make a bigger design. My focal point is a portrait of a lady (MN10), which I chose because of the nearing Mother's Day. I used two flower stamps to create a wreath around her, the more delicate bloom, with tiny flowers (MN67) and a strawflower (MN68). Inspired by the upcoming holiday I also added a crown (MN40) to finish the circular design.

When choosing colors for my piece, I drew inspiration from my grandmother's embroidery work. I recall her having a lavishly decorated cloth covering the towels in use. It was embroidered only using blue thread in the shade of cobalt or lapis. I went for a more muted tone in my choice and picked up Fresco Finish Baltic Blue (FF07). To compliment the blue, I also chose to use a touch of green, Fresco Finish Beanstalk (FF182). If you study the materials photo closely, you see how I turned these acrylics into fabric paint, but let me guide you through my make!

This time I started my process with an intricate cutting task. While this is the actual first step I did, I also wanted to include it here as a reminder. Putting it bluntly: stamps are tools. Most of the times you can mask areas or use other methods to hide parts of the design, if you wish to stamp a specific area. However, sometimes it's also handy to grab a pair of scissors and cut the design into smaller pieces. Like in the case of this Mini (MN128) with a plethora of little designs. While in this case the cutting of the bigger plate is kind of obvious, just remember that it can be applied to bigger stamps as well.

In this project the first layers are also the focal points as well as quite monotone! I chose to use a black ink for the design and add color through painting and embroidering. However, you can use different ink colors during this stage already, especially if you are not thinking of adding anything extra to your project. A multicolored stamped design can be highly effective decoration on a tea towel!

When thinking about the position of the decoration, I went with the traditional placement. I was first thinking of adding the decoration to the top of the towel for practical reasons as one might dry hands more often to the hem. On the other hand, if stamped to the top, the embellishment would be partially hidden when hanging from a hook as the fabric drapes. So, I decided to follow tradition and decorate the end of the towel.

So, my first layers were done using a black ink meant for fabric. I started by stamping the focal image - the lady (MN10) on my tea towel. Next, I then stamped the crown (MN40) hovering above her head, kind of in British royal cyphers.

When I stamped the blooms, I tried to manipulate the stamp to be more curved. I pressed the bloom bit first delicately to the towel while holding the rest still up. I then warped the stamp to form a curve when pressing the stem down bit by bit. With the delicate flower (MN67) it worked fine, but with the strawflower (MN68), as the design is bulkier, it was harder.

To finish the design and hide the straight edges in the lady (MN10), I finished my towel embellishment design with the tiny stamps cut loose (MN128). I used the two text stamps to stamp over the lady so that the script kind of frays the edge.

Now that I had my design stamped, it was time to add some color and texture to it.

This technique is really easy as it is just mixing. But while the technique itself is effortless, the impact may be a huge one!

So, maybe you have a great Fresco Finish color and would like to use it for a T-shirt or to another item of clothing? Of course acrylic paint will stick to almost anything, but especially in a surface that bends and moves, it's handy to add some elasticity to the paint. This way it will handle the washing and using better. How to do it? In comes a fabric or a textile medium! To simplify things, it's a transparent fabric paint, which you can add to your acrylics (or even watercolors) to turn them into fabric paints. Vey handy, don't you think? The possibilities of your Fresco Finish paints just got bigger!

Following the instructions on your medium, mix the medium with your choice of paint. Mine had 1:1 ratio and as I didn't need much, I just added two drops to a piece of waxed paper and mixed them together using a palette knife. I wanted a limited color palette, so I picked up just a blue (FF07) and a green (FF182), but you can use as many colors as you like!

I then used a delicate brush to add hints of color to my stamped design. I added the blue to the flowers - both the delicate ones and strawflowers and green to the leaves. I also put some dots of color to the crowns.

I then let the paints to dry and went rummaging for some embroidery thread for a next step...

Before threading my needle, I ironed the towels. Both the ink and fabric paint need to be heat set in order to be washable. As I wanted to make sure the design is properly set, I chose to do this step before adding any embroidery. I feared that the ironing might flatten the stitches too much as I didn't dare to risk to be too delicate. Remember to choose a temperature fitting to your material and iron according to your mediums instructions. I ironed my towels for several minutes.

Note that the picture is taken after I've already ironed the image from top and bottom. When doing the first pass from the top, I used a baking paper on top of the motif.

Like I said in the beginning, in your make you can decide if you want just the stamping, stamping and fabric paint, or all three: stamping, painting, and embroidery. To me the latter brings an extra finishing touch to the project and adds texture.

For the embroidered details I used two colors of embroidery floss - blue and green matching to the Fresco Finish paints I had used. I also used a thin golden thread. I concentrated my embroidered details to the flowers and even avoided adding any stitches to the leaves. I chose this because I wanted to really highlight the blooms.

You don't have to be an embroidery wizard to add some interest to the design. I used back stitch, French knot and (poor) satin stitch in my towels. Remember, embroidery is kind of your handwriting on a piece. Even a little bit can make a great impact, shout your handprint in a finished piece. The project is hand made and whimsical stitches tell a personal story.

While I concentrated the embellishments to the flowers, I felt the crowns needed some highlighting. I had painted the pearls of the other crown green and then used satin stitch to cover them. However, I had painted the pearls of the other crown blue and wanted to add a touch of green to that towel as well. After stitching a couple of back stitch lines there, my gaze fell upon a spool of golden sewing thread. It added just enough "something" to the crown! I also used the same thread to give the lady an earring using a couple of French knot stitches.

After finishing the embroidered details I then ironed the towels again to get the wrinkles out that the embroidery caused. This time I used a more delicate touch as I didn't want to smush the puffy embroidery.

Here the two finished towels are! This project is quite a straight forward one, but I hope the substrate and mixing of paints will inspire you to try something new. Even if you don't want to create a tea towel or another fabric item, try adding hand stamped pieces of fabric to your mixed media work or use a stamped and embroidered focal point in your next card.

I'm happy how these towels turned out as they capture the air of my grandmother's towel but with a modern twist. Maybe it's the limited color palette, the flowers or the ladies, but I feel that I accomplished what I set out to do!

I mentioned the different stitches earlier. In this picture you can see several different ones. There on the top, on the pearls of the crown is the satin stitch. As you can see, it's quite haphazard, but I still like it. It adds a personal touch to the crown and highlights the design. The French knot stitches were an fitting solution to the delicate flowers. These stitches are easy to do and add a great texture. They even turn the flower design a bit lavender-like, don't you think? The strawflowers got some stitches to mimic the petals. I didn't want to use satin stitch here as I wanted part of the stamped design to show.

Remember I wrote about hiding the edge of the focal lady with stamping? Underneath you can see how I did it in the other towel. As I was using just one color, I stamped the little designs partly on top of the lady so that the added visual texture hid the straight line of the stamp design. As the lady stamp (MN10) already included a bit of text, this worked nicely.

Minis can be mighty. Even though the individual stamps may be small in size, by combining them you can create bigger designs. This also allows you a lot of creative play and freedom - each take can be a bit different, an individual representation of your inspiration.

Thank you for stopping by today! Wishing you a lovely day!

xoxo Riikka