Friday, October 29, 2010

Batik Flower

Batik Flower


This little flower is for a group quilt.  It is about 16" square.  I made it from a whole cloth, inspired by a photo of a flower.  More on the group quilt later when we get all the pieces assembled.  As for now, it was just an experiment that I had no idea if it would work or not.  It started as a dark pink fabric.  I batiked the stamens and then bleached.  Then I batiked the petals.  Next step, bleach again.  Last, I carefully dyed the area outside of the flowers green.  More wax to protect the green section; by now the entire piece is covered with a solid layer of wax.  Then I etched the little white scratch marks and bleached just that area.  And I etched the long marks between the outer petals and inner petals and dyed those fuschia.  Finally happy with it, I boiled out the wax.

Next was the quilting, which I am afraid that I got a little carried away with.  After completing the quilting, I added the satin stitch along the stamens.  I liked that a lot!  To finish?  Hand stitching with Laura Wasilowski's hand-dyed threads (here).  If you haven't used her thread before, you should try it.  I love the way it feels, and handles, and it's pretty too!  Lots of colorways to choose from!

1 comment:

skye said...

Kathy, it worked!! :-)