Tricia's Textile Challenge for February.

Earlier this month I joined the Yahoo Group called Tricia's Textile Challenge.  Each month members participate in a mixed media Challenge and Tricia's gives guidance and instruction.  February's challenge is about Tonal changes.

I chose a photograph, changed it to a black and white image, and attempted to pick out the tones of colour.  Then you traced the design lines and made a record of several of the tones in the picture.  You could then go on to change the colours but trying to keep the tonal structure.

I chose a photograph of a church dome taken inside a church in Paris.  I did think that I would use a picture of a lane going through fields with hills in the background, which would probably have been easier as it turned out.  However I did like the structure of the dome and thought it would be a good exercise using mixed fabrics, machine and hand embroidery.

I picked out satin, net, synthetic and metallic voiles and layered them onto a piece of craft vilene. I used the line tracing on the back of the craft vilene, and I free motioned stitched all the lines through all the layers of fabric.  Then I proceeded to cut away varying layers of fabric to get the tones.  The piece is 7x 5.25", and being this size made it quite fiddly to cut through the layers of fine and slippery fabrics.  That done, I did some free motion stitching with metallic threads.  I couched the lines of thread by hand, then added beads to highlight.  Finally I did three rows of machine stitches in metallic threads, squared up the embroidery, stuck it on to a piece of card and edge stitched it.

I haven't done anything like this before so it really was quite challenging, but also enjoyable.  The pity is that I can't get the glitz and glamour of the fabrics and threads to come through on the photos.

My thanks to Trish for the Challenge.