Pental Fabric Pastels

Awhile back my husband purchased me the Pentel Arts Pastel Dye Sticks I had never used these particular art sticks before so I thought I would test them out. First these are much softer than I thought they would be. They glided onto the fabric easily. They did not go on as smoothly as I thought they would, however, for a first attempt I think the project came out alright. Now it states to remove any starch or sizing from the fabric to maintain the color after washing. You use an iron to heat set the color onto the fabric. I did not remove the sizing from the panel that I used as it would have made the fabric very slippery as I was coloring it. And since I will only be washing this periodically as it will be a wall hanging, I felt that it would be easier to just leave the sizing in. 

Pentel Arts Pastel Dye Sticks

I placed a piece of comic board between the fabric and the work area, that was in case there was any color bleed from the pastels. As these pastels feel much like oil pastels they can disperse through the fabric onto your work table.

This was the panel prior to adding color, this panel can be gotten here at Fabric.com

This is after I added the color. The colors came out lighter then I thought they would.However, I believe that I came out fairly well.

 All in all I believe that these deserve some more playtime from me. Once I quilt this panel I will post an updated post. I will wash the panel after the quilting is finished and will know how the color holds up.

Dark Fairy Tales

Awhile back I bought some embroidery designs from Urban Threads if anyone has a embroidery machine or likes hand embroidery patterns this site has quite a few really nice patterns. I used my Singer Quintet embroidery machine and Metro embroidery thread

The Rapunzel has 13618 stitches, The Red Riding Hood has 22,208 stitches, poisoned apple has 14,147 stitches, the glass slipper has 13,553 stitches, The ugly duckling has 17,401 stitches, and the enchanted castle has 22,667 stitches. That is 103,594 stitches, each piece was created on a black canvas cloth with Metro thread number 1618 which is a white and 1656 which is red. I love the look of the filled in designs mixed in with the outlined design and lettering. These designs were fairly easy to stitch out and the only semi-negative on these designs is the lettering is a bit difficult to read at first.

I then stretched each design across 11" X 14" wooden frame and stapled them just like an artist canvas. Then each framed design was joined with the other designs to create the bottom collage. We added the wooden blocks to give it stability and added strength. The over all piece measures about 48" X 28".

The link to the set that I got is here:

Dark Fairytales Embroidery Designs