Playing Around

It doesn't seem like four days since my last post! At least I have something to show for my absence...

I've had a bunch of junvenile prints in my stash for a long time that are cute as heck but I could never seem work them into anything. Finally I decided to just bite the bullet and cut them up into strips a la Bonnie over at Quiltville. I cut those prints and some others I wanted to get rid of into mostly 1.5," 2.5," and 3.5" strips. Then I picked up a couple of strips, sewed the short ends together, and before long I had this:

It's not quite up to preemie size yet. It needs another 3" in width and obviously needs to be trimmed across the top. I expect to add a narrow strip to each side to get the necessary width. The rows (columns) are not sewn together yet because when I got to this point I received a tiny little box in the mail. Probably the smallest size the Post Office will let you get away with mailing anymore! Inside the box was a set of salt dough medallions made by Sara S. If I were a better photographer I would have taken their picture for you. Because they are white and kind of shiny there's no way I'll be able to get a decent group shot of them. However, I was inspired to use one of them right away. In fact, I was inspired to try several things I'd been wanting to play with for a while now...

The medallion I chose to use features an impression of a set of long skinny leaves. I put that on a Color Catcher sheet that had been dyed this lovely color by going through the wash with one or more things that bled. I've been saving some of my more colorful used sheets for just this purpose. The bulky (boucle?) yarn is couched down with a variety of beads. I tacked silk roving under and around the nest charm. I also finally got to use a few of the vintage rectangular sequins I've had in my stash for a long time. The one problem I ran into was that I'd stitched the Color Catcher sheet to a piece of Peltex before I added all the other embellishments. So now I have a finished top but all the threads are exposed on the back. I will not use fusible products because of my chemical issues. I think what I'm going to do is use double-sided tape to adhere a piece of watercolor paper to the back to finish that side.

The one thing I would like to do is figure out a way to enhance the background somehow. It's too late for this particular effort, I think, but there have been a couple of other pieces where I've felt the background lacked something. My first reaction is to seed stitch the background with floss. Sometimes that's just too much effort! I guess what I'm looking for is a way to make marks on the background that will be subtle and not time consuming. And not harmful to my delicate system ;- )