Creative Sunday

It's been another beautiful day here today. I worked in my studio with the door wide open to the garden.  Hard to believe it's only February! I can't remember if I've shown you this 'work in progress' before. I've got so many projects on the go but my resolution is to get all of them finished!! This is just a small detail of the pieced top with a band of tree shapes discharged using DeColorant Plus - a discharge paste that substitutes a new colour at the same time that it removes the original colour. I've used red DeColorant Plus for my moon shape.

The freezer paper mask I used with the basic discharge paste was pretty effective even though the twigs involved very narrow channels. I have worked back into the discharged areas to reinforce the lines where necessary and to add a little rusty red colour to the tips of the bare branches. The pigment pen I used for that works really well with the colour of the moon!

One of the most exciting things about discharging onto patchwork is the way different fabrics react to the paste. I knew from sampling that one of the hand dyed linen fabrics wouldn't bleach back as much as the rest of the cotton patches so after I'd ironed the dry paste I replaced the circular mask and added a little metallic gold Markal Paintstik to the top edge of the moon. There's always a way!!

It's fun to see how the stripy commercial print retains its pattern isn't it? That was a black and white fabric overdyed at home.

I can't finish today without sharing a couple more photos taken in my garden this weekend. Spring has most definitely sprung!

There's a ladybird survey going on in the UK at the moment - I think I'd better send them some of my pictures!

Apparently a foreign invader is threatening our indigenous species but from what I can see these are the home grown variety.

And there's no shortage of them is there?

Thanks for dropping by - hope you had a lovely weekend too! Bye for now, Linda