Silk Screening

This was the most difficult challenge yet for me. I decided on silk screening since I had purchased the supplies, but never got around to trying it.

First attempt was disastrous. Ink seemed bad (it didn't even come out the color on the label) so I tossed it and started again.

Here is the results of the second attempt. The strong turquoise leaves are a result of the stencil method of silk screening. I wasn't particularly happy since some of the area didn't print at all and other parts glopped a bit. So I decided to try a prepared silk screen on top of that, after drying of course. The result is the green feathered quilting design. Again not all of the image printed clearly, although at least there were no globs this time.

To salvage the piece I grabbed 3 stamps from my collection and stamped "flowers" in pink and purple. I added fused crystals to the centers of the 3 largest flowers.

It has very simple quilting with clear blue iridescent thread (Superior thread) and I trimmed away the outer 1/4" of batting before stitching 1/4" from the edge for the finish.

Quick and relatively painless although it took me ages to work up the nerve to even try. At least I tried a variety of techniques and am working on my layering (a goal this year).

Lisa