Monochromatic 2 - Neroli Henderson - "The Churning"

It's been quite awhile since I did a work in one colour only. I decided to combine the paired down colour scheme with a minimalistic design and contrast that with some pretty intense texture and stitch work.

I chose blue and then did up some purely abstract sketches, however I seem to have a knack of deciding to do something either ultra realistic or purely abstract and then still finishing up with a quite stylised pictorial design no matter the original intent.

'The Churning' A3, Fused raw edge appliqué, metallic paint and stitching with cotton and polyester threads. Couched edging.

After putting my designs up for vote on my Facebook page to see which was most popular I sketched the winner onto white Kona cotton with watercolour pencil. I coloured the waves in with Jacquard Lumiere paint mixing 2 blues and a pearl white with an interference blue, for a little colour change when viewed from different angles. I used the same colours on a separate piece of fabric for the background.

The metallic acrylic Lumiere paint gave a really lovely sheen to the surface, plus with the addition of bag batting used on the base gave a really sturdy work surface that resisted warping with the intense stitching.

I decided to use decorative stitches for the sky and used more open stitches for the lighter areas closer to the horizon. I fused the waves down into place and then used a combination of free motion stitch and running stitch on the sashiko machine to fill them in.

Rows and rows of free machine straight stitch and sashiko running stitch. Variagated thread with the sashiko machine was particularly effective as each stitch came out a different colour (middle section).

The birds are fused fabric and then stitched over the top and for the edging I used a cream and white cord and couched it down using an invisible mono-poly thread zigged zagged overfor the edging.
I had to get my old Pfaff machine out for this - the Bernina doesn't seem to have a couching foot that will do the same types of thick yarns and threads.

Close up of the couched edging. It worked far better than I had worried it would.

Everything is in a shade of blue - except for the white parts on the edging and the fabric for the birds, however they were overstitched with a very pale blue thread. It was a real challenge to not throw coppers in as I think they would have looked great but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

You can see it being made step by step including the original concept sketches on my Facebook Page here.

-Neroli