Free Motion Stitching on Painted Fabric

 

'Prickly Pear'
 hand painted textile by Eileen Gidman

Unexpected things happened as this piece developed. Adding the fucshia and gold blocks into the border and allowing some clipped threads to extended into the painting were unplanned.

The Prickly Pear picture was painted with dyes onto cotton fabric. Free motion stitching was done in black thread around the cactus to provide a three dimensional effect. For the thorns I left some of the black threads long. As I was clipping threads I thought "Hey that looks like thorns!"

Thread sketching was also done around the saguaro cactus, the shrubs, the mountains and the clouds in order to tack the front painting, the 'warm and natural' batting and the backing together.  This allowed for added details such as ravines in the mountains to be stitched in.

Three of the prickly pear fruit were chosen as a focal point and they were thread painted in three hues of pink rayon thread. Also, small black beads were added to the fruit to draw attention to that area.

Often the pieces I paint are simply framed but I am thrilled with the way this turned out with the pieced border.