To this: The first step I took to make this dull natural linen piece stand apart was to soak it in a Procion MX dye bath for 30 minutes. I chose to make it a jade green and I was amazed at how well the linen took the colour. I was expecting to have the beige undertone dull down my colour, but that didn’t happen, the colour was clear and bright after drying.
Since this was my first attempt with fabric painting I decided to hedge my bets and use a commercial stencil. This one is of an Engleman Ivy plant. I used a foam brush and dabbed on watered down violet, then 4 shades of green that I made using the Dye-na-flow fabric paints. After 24 hours of drying time and hot ironing on the wrong side, the stencil is set and feels very soft.
I’m thinking of calling this small piece a flower rug, it highlights the bud vase nicely I think.
For my second piece I decided to be brave with the base colour and chose magenta, again the colour came up wonderfully. Procion MX is a wonder…..
Trying for a bit more originality I unearthed this hottie from my cupboard for inspiration and decided to try a poppy flower.
I sketched the components of the poppy onto a piece of paper; using a sharpie I transferred the design onto clear Mylar stencil medium. I had fears of drawing freehand onto the linen, so this was my compromise. I cut out the general shapes to ensure that my scale remained constant. I could just see myself making one leaf huge and the other tiny, or not having enough room for the flower or something like that! 
After cutting the pieces out I painted in the general shapes with undiluted fabric paint, using several reds and greens to try and get a more life like effect.
After leaving the basic shapes to dry, with black and a fine brush I added bit more definition. Not as happy with this one, but my daughter says I’m very critical of my own work so I just have to find the right flower arrangement to highlight it. Susan, note the vase….and thank you for it! 
In my ongoing attempts to finish up my projects I have finally washed my overshot with borders pieces and here they hang drying. I’m rather impressed with this mirror shot! Moving forward here…
Weaving Words
Linge is French for linen. Lingerie is so called because at one time, underwear was made only of linen.
9 comments:
Your dying interested me a lot as I am a complete novice and about to start trying it. I have been spinning some old fleece and need some colour! I desperatly need to find out about synthetic dyes and naturel dyes and have ordered some books from Amazon.I can't quite understand how you have rustled up those wonderful overshot pieces which you haven't used. What will you do with them....they are lovely?
Two beautiful pieces of linen. I've always been afraid to dye linen but with your blogs to use as a guid I think I might try it. The colors are amazing. I would never have thought of stenciling my weavomg. Great idea and it adds so much to the finished piece.
Very interesting. I've thought vaguely about doing something like this but would have never thought it out so cleverly. They all turned out quite lovely.
Impressive. I particularly like the combination of the stencilling with the lace weave.
Beautiful work, all of it. Did the paint bleed at all
on the pieces? It looks like you have nice sharp clear edges on your stenciled pieces.
Hi Theresa,
Surprisingly there was no bleeding outside of the stencil. As matter of fact I had to do a lot of dabbing to get the fabric paint onto the dry fabric, it didn't want to sink in very easily, thats why I diluted the paint a bit on the green mat. It could also have been because the line linen was so tightly spun. I know that there is a resist pen you can buy to corral your colour, but I didn't need it this time. Cotton could behave differently.
Oh my, what an abundance of loveliness! I'm amazed at your painting - that seems almost as scary as cutting to me. :-) And I love the word definitions you add to your posts. Fascinating!
Your weaving is beautiful and your painting amazes me! I am a very craft person, but I cannot apint to save my life! Your work is wonderful!!!! DOn't be so hard on yourself. Back to the linen, one of my favorite fabrics, makes me wish underwear/lingerie was still made from it!
(I know this comment is coming in late, but I just found your blog for the first time today.)
Wow!! Your stenciling on those pieces looks amazing! I think you should be very happy with the poppy - it's absolutely lovely. Weaving I seem to manage alright, but I know my artistic abilities would not extend to drawing and then stenciling/painting such a life like flower. Good job.
Your overshot pieces look great too.
Now to go browse through a bit more of your lovely work that you've shared here...
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