Earth, Wind, Fire and Water

I have made a small wall hanging from one of the fabrics that I made at Craft Napa. It is a bold black and white shibori print, that I wanted to add red to. At Craft Napa, I had stenciled the 3 red circles, and printed the paisley stamp, and used the end of the brush to do the red dots. It looked very oriental so I stenciled the Japanese characters for Earth, wind, fire and water onto the clearest spots. It looks rather crowded and the characters don't stand out very well. I am going to outline them with several rows of stitching with a gold metallic thread, to help them show better.

I accidentally started to free motion quilt with regular polyester thread, in black, so I continued with the white thread. However it shows why I like to use rayon thread with the size 90 needle. The rayon fluffs up a bit and fills the larger holes made with the 90 needle. I used a red rayon thread on the circles and dots. I will add some outlining on the paisley when I get home to go thru my threads for the right color, it is kind of burgundy. I am up near Seattle visiting my sister, I brought a few small projects with me. I started to stitch the binding, but the light is not good enough to hand stitch black on black, so I'll wait 'til I am home. I am going to give the wall hanging to my nephews to thank them for their hospitality, while staying with them while in Napa. Check out the link to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" to see what other great textile artists are doing this week.click here