Completing Some Work

My sewing machine put in many miles this week.  What fun to begin completing the gelliplate monoprints created this winter. 

gelliplate monoprints on cotton, January 2013

My Mother gave me a  Gelliplate for Christmas and I've spent many many hours happily printing in the months since.  I'm printing on both paper and cotton, captivated by the rich surface textures possible with the medium.

my design wall in February, 2013, with Gelliplate monoprints 'fermenting'

 I've ended up with quite a stack of prints (to put it mildly).  This week I got busy bringing closure to the lot done in January on cotton.  I am using stitching (by hand and machine), painting, beading and prismacolor pencils to develop the images first revealed in the prints.

 Before stitching, I fuse the untrimmed images to felt using Mistyfuse - with out a doubt the BEST fusing material I have found.

 None of these little guys have titles yet, but there is time before they leave the studio.

 Sometimes I have to live with them for awhile before they give up their names.

These are all quite small, averaging around 6" in height.  

After the machine stitching is completed, I trim the piece and bind it with rat tail cording or other fiber using a zigzag stitch.

I am back in the groove machine stitching again and look forward to moving on to the larger images this week.  Our summer weather came back meanwhile. 

 Hope you have an outstanding week ahead!