Being blessed with a bunch of indigo fabrics, I was ready to make an art piece with them. I knew I’d like to add an accent color, but which one? After some auditioning, I decided on the pink/orange family.
But, how to best use these wonderful designs? I didn’t really want to cut into them, and several were in squarish proportions. I decided on a gridded composition with three vertical columns. This shows an early arrangement, incomplete.
I added in some dull pink. (Dull, because I didn’t want it to shine more than the indigo fabrics.)
And the almost-finished composition, pinned. I was happy with it. But, maybe the pink had too many dull spots?
I auditioned a brighter pink.
I liked it much better EXCEPT I thought it probably needed to be thinner. I auditioned the idea.
Yep. Much better. But, I had a problem. Most of this was already glued, so I couldn’t easily rearrange things. How could I make the pink stripes thinner? I decided to sew a tuck in the back of each, through the muslin support and all. Can you see the seam below?
That worked. As you can see, I also added some hand embroidery. I’ll have more detail shots of that in the next post.
Ellen Lindner
Hand stitching….. yay!
Love love love the indigo. Really shows how to feature fabric that you don’t want to cut up into a bunch of pieces
Thanks, Annette. You get the credit for inspiring the embroidery!
It was really fun to use these fabrics in this way.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. That you share these projects-in-development is incredibly generous and wonderful of you. THANK YOU!
Thanks, Lif! That’s very kind of you to say. I love showing it.
Your play with the indigo squares and brighter pink hand dyed fabric in a gridded pattern is inspiring! I have some indigo scraps from a long ago dyeing project that I think I’ll pull out and play with now. I also have some rusted pieces and some bleach black squares that have been patiently waiting for ideas. Thanks for once again teaching this old girl some new tricks. The hand embroidery in the pink accent color is the perfect touch, too!
Thanks, Becky. This puzzle was quite a bit of fun to play with and I enjoyed the hand stitching, too.
Your combo sounds terrific!
This is lovely, curious as to size? Those indigo pieces are hard to cut! I’m trying to put them all together as a kimono or bathroom. Think it’s a bit much to chew on but fun. I’ll enjot the next update.
Hi Cindy,
I think it was about “lap size” at this point. (Which gives you a hint as to what’s coming.) I didn’t find it difficult to cut. What’s funny is that much of this is flannel. It was given to me years ago, after someone took a shibori class and did all their exercises in flannel!