For most of the
Spring and early Summer of 2014, I have
been working on a tablecloth, my entry for the ‘Tomorrow’s Heirlooms’
competition to celebrate the Centenary of the WI in 2015. Now it has finally been completed and
delivered, I am able to share how it was
made.
The main
coloured panel started out white and evolved (or grew) as the result of various
textile experiments. The first addition
of colour, olive green and tropical green, was the unpredictable result of ice-dyeing,
where salt-soaked fabric was covered with ice cubes with dye crystals sprinkled
on top.
This technique results in a
pattern created by nature as the dye falls on the fabric where the ice melts. I
did the ice-dyeing back in February when it was so cold the ice wouldn’t melt
naturally and I had to use a heat gun to speed up the process!
When it was
dry, the fabric reminded me of looking up through a canopy of leaves. To add to
this effect, I used some of the fabric to cut out 47 leaves which were appliqued
in the four corners. These represent the
47 members of Throop WI; they are all a bit different, none of them are
perfect, some are a little frayed around the edges. I used green, red and mult-coloured thread to
attach the leaves.
In order for
the cloth to look a little less like army- issue camouflage, the fabric was
then over-dyed by sprinkling the
salt-soaked fabric with ocean blue dye. By
this time I had already stitched on the leaves so in order for this not to go
blue I masked them off with leaf shaped cards.
The dye was sprinkled on from the back.
The result
was a beautiful multi-colour effect, reminiscent of Monet’s Water lilies. The
pink ‘flowers’ were randomly scattered by Mother Nature (pink particles being
an ingredient in the blue dye.)
The cream
borders on the four edges are hand-embroidered with words to describe the WI’s
contribution to society over the past 100 years:
The WI
Inspiring Women since 1915
Throop WI ~
Women Working Together
Community
Friendship
I used a
water-soluble pen to write the words then embroidered them in green thread
using backstitch. The borders are made
with a self-facing so that no messy stitching shows on the back. On the four corner squares are four gold
leaves to mark this special anniversary.
I nearly gave
up and was ready to take the scissors to it several times, but now it’s
finished, I’m happy. Many hours have
been spent sewing in all the threads, so that it is as neat on the back as it
is on the front.
Finally the tablecloth was carefully folded so that the word
friendship is uppermost when the box is opened.
I included a summary of how I made the cloth
and a tag with wash care instructions.
Wish me luck!!
Love Jane xx