Wallhanging using Inktense monoprints

I see that I made the monoprints last November and blogged about the stencils in January. Well, it's only March and I've done something with them!

I decided to make a wallhanging and to print a backing for it. I made an overall tessellating pattern, something I learned from Lisa Walton's book. I knew how to make a tessellating shape (I teach it!) but I had never thought about making a repeating pattern. The pink is my backing fabric. You can see the repeat block but hopefully you can also see that those leaves form an overall pattern that repeats.

I wanted to do some bobbin work using my leaf pattern on the back. I tried out some beautiful soft bamboo thread that Lisa included in an order. It was just the right colour for what I wanted and created this lovely boucle effect when stitched but as you can see, I didn't get very far before I had to stop and rethread. I'll save it for something with more straight stitching. I used a crochet cotton instead, leaving the needle tension quite loose so that it creates a couched stitch. I used a variegated thread in the needle.

I also trialed some quilting in between the leaves. I was originally going to pebble the whole thing but I felt that it was going to build up too much thread and the printing and stencilling would be lost. The echoed curves are also in some of the printing so that seemed appropriate.

This is the bobbin work on the wallhanging. Since I was working from the back, I could follow the shape of the leaves in my backing design.

And I've done some of the quilting between the leaves.