Moonlight Layered

It's neen quite a while since I posted here because my husband, who has Parkinson's Disease' had several falls and had to be taken to hospital.  Since then he has been admitted to a care home and all the emotional and physical trials have had to take priority.

But in between all the upset I have found a few moments to practice a little textile art and the result is a small wall hanging which I am calling Moonlight.  The idea is based on the book by Wendy Dolan called Layer, Paint & Stitch.

The clue is in the title:  First you take strips of different fabrics, then you colour them with paint or crayon and after that you add the stitching, either by machine or hand, or sometimes both.

I started with a base of calico on top of tear away stabiliser.

I used pieces of chiffon, silk, scrim, muslin, hessian and canvas.

The torn frayed edges add interest.

 The only design feature I used was a circle of silk to hint at a moon and then a piece of lace to indicate a cloud passing over the moon.

The remainder of the design was random.

I used Neocolour soluble crayons to add colour which I prefer rather than fabric paint.  I like the delicate nature of the crayons which become more vibrant as water is added with a paintbrush.


 This tree was created using Lutrudor painted silver and cut into shape.  Lutrudor can be given a lace-like finish by applying a heat gun to it until it melts into holes.  That's a useful trick for creating clouds.

Here you see I have started to add foliage using free machine embroidery, I added more later on.

This image shows some more free machine embroidery being added to the flower stalks and lower down on the broderie anglais strip coloured blue.

The torn cotton coloured maize yellow at the bottom has a pleasing natural appearance because of the lovely frayed edges.

The border and backing are meant to represent a night sky.