Completing my ABC's

(thanks for help with the title Michelle)

ABC's stand for Anything But Cotton. I'm in a Surface Design swap & we were to create a postcard from anything but cotton. When I first signed up for the swap, I thought this was going to be an easy task, but it proved to be wrong.

I first thought of rubber stamping organza, stitching it down to a base fabric that had been painted & foiled & then hitting the organza with a heat gun. The base fabric.........what could I use that wouldn't melt right along with the organza? Every possible fabric I came up with had some sort of cotton in it.

Ok, how about melting some Tyvek instead? Had the same problem with coming up with a non-cotton base.

I then remembered my Texture Class with Lynda & Carol. In one of the samples I created in their class, I used Peltex, couched yarns & paint (no cotton whatsoever). My first two trials turned out just horribly. They were SO heavy & so bulky, I told Michelle that I'd send one of them to her to use as a door stop for her studio door. The yarn I used for these were just too bulky for what I was trying to achieve.

I abandoned the idea entirely & went back to trying to find a non-cotton base for the melted organza or Tyvek pieces. After a week of stalling & coming up with no ideas, the couched painted threads idea resurfaced. I was really happy with the sample in my class, why had it failed so badly the second time around?

Some lighter weight yarn, this time & more patience & here's what happened............

© 2009 Tracy Borders

© 2009 Tracy Borders

I couched eyelash yarn & thicker (bumpy) yarn right onto the Peltex. I then painted the entire surface with white latex house paint. Because of the thickness of the bumpy yarn, I had to wait for the latex paint to dry & applied a second coat to achieve total coverage.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

I then applied different colors of Golden Fluid Acrylics over the entire pc (it's a good thing it washes so easily off your hands,) a brush couldn't get into all of the recessed areas so I ditched the brush & used my fingers.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

After the Golden Acrylics dried, I applied Treasure Gold Wax to the raised surfaces (yes, by fingers) :) It really brought out the texture of the eyelash yarn.

(closeup)

They're quite different from what I normally create & I hope the ladies that these are going to won't be too disappointed, worse case, they'll make pretty door stops. :)