Garden Lady #8 - part Five

This is a continuation of 4 previous posts about the making of Garden Lady #8.  I started making all of the leaves with a ton of different fabric and thread.  I like the look of transparent leaves, shiny leaves, mottled leaves, and tons of fall color.  This was so much fun, I almost forgot to take pictures.  My experience with making leaves is that two layers of fabric sandwiched between dissolving products works the best.  When they are all done being sewn and rinsed, they retain a little bit of stiffness that allows me to manipulate the leaves when I'm adding them to the quilt.  I knew that I needed to design the fascinator on her head too, so you'll see some "gems"  that I could put on top of the hat the same way.

Years ago, I picked up a bunch of fall leaves and pressed them into my sketch book.  I used these leaves for the patterns for the leaves of this quilt.  They're drawn onto freezer paper with a permanent marker because the darker line helps to trace the lines later in the process.

I used 2 different dissolving products to make the leaves.  One product was clear Solvay.  The other was Aqua Mesh, which is a white mesh, but also somewhat see-through.  I like both products - one that is more stable, and one that is see through for placement.  So in the following pictures, you'll notice the two different products.   I layer the dissolving foundation on top and bottom and sandwich the two layers of fabric between them.  Then I trace the leaves by slipping them just underneath the top layer.  I try to place them close together so that I use most of the fabric.  I mark this also with the permanent marker - but don't worry!  The marker is on the piece that dissolves and it goes down the sink with the rest of it!.  

I used several different fabrics and different metallic and/or rayon thread.  

Using a tight zig-zag stitch of 1.8 to 2.0 mm width and 0.40 to 0.45 mm width, I stitched around the outside edge and on top of all of the veins and stem.

Then, I cut out the leaves with a small amount of seam allowance on the edges.

These got soaked in water until the product disappeared.  It happens pretty fast with Aqua Mesh and takes a little longer with Solvay.  I feel like the Solvay also leaves a bit of residue which stiffens the leaves a tad.  After they're soaked and blotted with a towel, I laid them on a sheet of non-stick Teflon.  (These sheets are sometimes called applique sheets.)  

One last thing that you'll notice in the picture above are the transparent leaves.  I made a base "fabric" with threads that were sandwiched between dissolving foundation and quilted.  Before I rinsed that out, I followed the same steps for transferring and sewing the leaves. 

 

Some of it fell apart, but most of it stayed together and I laid them out along with the other leaves to dry.

I hope you like my process for making leaves!