This weekend I decided to dye my own fabric for a cross stitched wedding card and sampler set that required DMC Impressions aida. As we can't really afford to splash out on specialist fabrics like these, I thought I'd have a go at a new technique that was featured in CrossStitcher magazine last year. Well, I think it was last year, but it may have been the year before. Time evaporates here, you know! Anyway, the technique involved wax crayons. I know it sounds crazy, but there you go! I've been meaning to give it a try since I read the article (I think it accompanied a butterfly sampler, which may or may not have been designed by Angela Poole) but haven't had the right project to start. Well as soon as I decided to make the wedding card and sampler for an old school friend of mine (she's been married a month now but Facebook has been messing with my news feed so I only found out on Friday), I knew that this was the perfect opportunity to try out this new method. The sampler wouldn't look right on a plain fabric, as it relied upon the golden swirls of the fabric to complement the design.
After much um-ing and ah-ing, I got the crayons out of the cupboard along with an A3 sketch pad and practised a couple of swirls before drawing on the fabric. I then placed the fabric face-down on a clean sheet of paper and ironed it to get the wax out of the fabric. It worked like a dream! I used 27-HPI white evenweave for the sampler and 16-HPI aida for the card. The results:
We're picking up the threads and beads this afternoon when we go into town to do the shopping and then I'll have my head buried in another project for a few days (I don't think there's very much stitching involved). I think my swirls will complement the card and sampler designs beautifully and I can't wait for the next project to try out this technique!
What have you been inspired by this week? Have you done anything out of the ordinary in your crafting recently?
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