Its in the Details

Recently, I have been playing with some ideas of adding details to garments I make. I tend to wear a LOT of black (there is not much in my wardrobe that is not black) but lets face it, black can be boring. I LOVE to hand stitch with interesting thread, so I thought why not try it on my clothing.

Of course, if you know me, you will know that I have to do more than thread a needle. In this experiment, (just a test sample for now)  I wanted to see if I could create a subtle print on black and then add thread.

I began by drawing an overall print

I created a stencil with freezer paper

Next, the stencil was ironed securely in place to a piece of lovely rayon knit fabric and brushed with discharge paste. This has to be done quickly as the freezer paper will become saturated if you take too long... it must be removed. As I found out rather quickly, I will want to secure the fabric in some manner next time as the "stretchy-ness" of the knit made removing the stuck down freezer paper without disturbing the design, just a wee bit tricky.  (You can learn a lot by doing little test samples) I also learned that if I want to use this method on a large area, I will want to break the stenciling job into smaller sections to better facilitate the whole process.

Below, is what the design looked like when the paste was dry, but before it was "activated" with the iron.

this next image shows the result of activation and rinsing the remaining product from the fabric.

the hand of the fabric remains unchanged and I am left with a  lovely ghost print to stitch around adding texture and interest.

Something as simple as hand stitching around neck and sleeve bands can add interest, here I used a variegated 12 wt thread and did a double line of stitches.