Progress or Not Progress

At this point Cynthia St. Charles can not be blamed for what has happened to the piece inspired by her background. You can call it taking her technique and making it my own. But I am not sure I want to claim the technique either!!

This whole 2012 Journal Quilt rule (of using 1 colour with only 25% of any other colour) has got me learning about how to do monochromatic with limited knowledge and materials. Even though I am learning through trial and error! I thought blue might be easier. Maybe I have given myself too many restrictions on top of the original rule?

Anyway, you saw the stamped blues the other day. Several commented positively. Now you see what NOT TO DO and how to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear if you have GONE AND DONE IT ANYWAY.

So, I sort of had this landscapey idea in my head. The yellow was meant to be stitched into a sun. It was too transparent. So, I got out some other fabric paints - like you use straight from the bottle on t-shirts with kids?

I went over the lines from the stamp. So far so good.

So, why not try Jacquard paints in bottles! let's see, we have these which may work for blue.

Oh yeah, if you do? Don't forget, A little goes a long way and You don't need as much of it as you do the t-shirt paints.

And so, before long we have an OH NO! situation!

I forgot that when you use these on dark colours, you can only see the shimmery bit. So, a few waves in a pond become a really bad ice rink. A few squiggles for trees become Christmas trees decorated for sale.

NOW WHAT?

Okay,
blot, blot, and blot again with scraps.

I am sure they will be useful at some stage of my life.

scrub, scrub, and scrub some more with blue textile paint from a nearly finished jar

which makes for something like a kiddie might do as a dry brush technique. but I think it has knocked some of the shine back and turned things blue again. Unfortunately, it is now a dark winter evening with the light glinting off the tree and the snowy field, which does not have a bright or even not so bright sun in the sky. So I have also had to knock back the yellow to be somewhat like it was before. I hope I can turn it into something like a background for a moon.

At this point, I am going to rely on stitching to resolve this. Watch this space.

Only you might be watching between fingers with your hands over your eyes!