Machine Quilting an Inktense Wallhanging

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #19 - Hibiscus Wallhanging

After Nellie and I took our Surface Design course with Elaine Quehl I played around a bit with one of my new tools - super fun Inktense Pencils.

One of the projects I experimented with was this Hibiscus. The first thing I did was to find a few pictures online such as this one:

Using this picture as a guide, I outlined the general shape of the flower and then started shading in with my Inktense Pencils . After all of my colours were set down, I covered my cutting board with a large plastic bag and then started spraying the fabric with water. The colours then intensified and started to bleed into the surrounding areas - you can see that the pink travelled quite a bit into the green background.

Although I loved using the Inktense pencils and the finished result, I wasn't sure how to finish it off until now!

The first step was to add some borders, so I picked a pink batik for the inner border and a green leaf print for the outer border.

After loading it onto my Gammill, I needed to pick some threads to do some thread painting. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my variegated King Tut Threads from Superior Threads.

Green threads for the leaves and background.

Orange and fushia threads for thread painting the flower.

I started with the flower, by outlining the petals with a darker thread and then using some of the lighter threads to add dimension.

Close-up of the flower centre.

The background and borders were next. Here is the finished product! Project number 19 is done and hanging on the wall! I can't wait to use my Inktense Pencils again!!! Machine quilting over top of the Inktense design just makes it come alive!!