Go Green Challenge Finished

A lovely spring photo at the cottage of two contrasting coloured trees in our neighbour's yard. Nature has the best colours!



As program leader for my stitchery guild. I planned a 'Go Green' challenge this year for our members. We exchanged bags of recycled materials in October and presented our final projects last night at our meeting. My bag consisted of pieces of leather, some from old purses, a variety of laces, ribbons and some vintage dress embellishments including beads and sequins. Just a very bit of fabric and 2 balls of yarn.
I decided to make a background of fabric paper using Beryl Taylor's recipe. I used muslin, bits of collage paper and tissue paper. I embedded a couple of pieces of lace and netting into the tissue paper. I painted, gilded it with gold paint, stamped and sprayed on walnut ink.




With the other materials I made little units that I crocheted, felted, embroidered and beaded.





I assembled a little leather bird and cut the leaves from the purse. I cut up the vintage embellishment and mounted it onto black felt with the gold ribbon. I tried to arrange it all on the background, but it didn't look right. Finally one night, I thought: ' cut it into pieces'. And I did! This project was really a difficult challenge! Here is the final effort on black felt.




I made use of some of each material in my bag except some green lace. I added a few of my own coloured beads and some little gold jewelery findings. The backing also is recycled fabric and the felt and batting are from my studio. It is hand stitched, embroidered, beaded and machine quilted. I named it 'Pretty in Pink'.



I am showing my Go Green quilt at our meeting Monday night. Finally finished! I learned a lot about using what you have and ultimately that is the challenge. Thanks to Beryl Taylor's Mixed Media Explorations book for some of the techniques used in my quilt. Until next time, remember to 'Go Green' for the planet!