Starting to stitch

I am just started on my stitching of the base of my piece.

Here is the bottom layer, stitched.  I am hoping to have time to do a little hand stitching and beading, but we will see.

Now I just have to rinse and repeat with the other layers.

Since four of us would like a bit more time and this is all supposed to be fun, Reveal date has been moved to the 24th.  Breathe.  You now have an extra 8 days!

..and then wait 72 hours.

So today, I painted my Fabric for my piece.

I used acrylic, simply because it was easier.  I intend to do a lot of free motion embroidery and the stiffness helps with that.  The piece at the top was an extra piece that I put all the leftover paint on.
When they dried, which was not long as it was very hot today, I stencilled the feathers.

I used shiva sticks to do the stencilling, although I could have just used paint.  The one on the left was my scrap piece and I thought it looked a bit like monet's waterlilies, so I added a bit of paintstick to make it look more like it!

And now.  Wait 72 hours.  I put quite a bit on, so although stencilled images can dry quicker, I will wait the whole time, 'till tuesday, just to be sure.  and then I'll be doing a lot of stitching between then and the due date.

finding stuff

So far, all I have shown of my process is my inspiration in my journal

Yesterday, whilst looking for some fabric for a class tomorrow, I found this

It was a sample fabric I used when teaching painting with an air gun last year.  So.... I am pretty sure I will spray my fabrics for this challenge.
Now of course, there is one black feather and so I have started to make that in free motion lace

My other half is using the air gun at the moment, so perhaps sometime soon I can get the painting started!

Feathers

Well, I Said I wanted this challenge To be about the process, so I am starting at the beginning of mine.  I have had this page(s) in my journal for a while and thought I would like to convert it to a piece, so My first step is to look at the page and think about how I am going to construct it.

As you can see there are several pages to the spread and I want to maintain it in my piece.  Obviously, I need to change the proportions to make the finished ones fit our challenge size, so I will probably have to upsize my stencils and masks as well.  How I am going to recreate the torn edges in fabric, I am not sure, but we will see, won't we?