Leaves



I am finished the Millinery course I have been taking at George Brown College in Toronto.  I had to travel there and stayed with a friend. Usually I went on the Sunday evening and returned on Tuesday late afternoon so it took a large amount of time for one three hour class. I stayed with a friend. I could have taken the Monday train but had I missed it I would have missed the class so I went early.
Now that it is over I had some extra time on my hands. It has been so hectic trying to work, look after the kids (who styed with their father while I was gone) that my place was a mess. After some major cleaning and tidy-ing I allowed myself some creative me time and decided to indulge in something I have wanted to do for years.
I have long been fascinated with millinery trimmings so I decided to try to make some leaves and flowers based on information from books and the internet. I combined several methods in doing these which I will post later. I have some cleaning up to do before I can find my books right now.
I started with some silk I had on hand. It is a silk satin with a tendency to curl to the wrong side. It took both dye and paint beautifully. I used Folk Art Fabric and Setacolor paints as well as Colorhue dyes to get the effect I wanted. The silk was underpainted with the paints but I painted with the dyes overtop to get it a bit deeper. I would have thought the opposite would be the way. Live and Learn.
I heat set the paints before I used the dye. You can see the paint as the lighter tone of green and blotch red in the upper part of the image.

Some of the leaves were cut with the satin side up and some with the matte side. The painting was done on both sides depending on which side I intended to use to the lines aren't as noticeable as the lower left leaf suggests. 

After the dyes dried, I cut the leaf shape on the bias and used a fabric glue to glue them to a piece of orgaza I had dyed previously with a piece of florist's wire in between. This technique comes from here: http://presentperfectcreations.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-mini-tutorial-on-how-to-make.html . Previous to this I had been using silks that I fused together with fusible web. I have pictures of those as well that I will share.

I like the way they look already. The blotchy bits are my favourite parts. Next comes shaping with a heat tool.