I have started on a new piece of work - from the journal page that I did on the 8th January.
Yesterday I dyed the fabric, today I started laying on sheers and organza fabrics and tacking them down. The finished piece will be slightly bigger than this - approximately 12 ins x 12 ins.
I usually use a scoured felt - prepared for dying as my background fabric for a piece of work. Felt is a wonderful ground fabric when you are doing a lot of Free Machine Embroidery, and building up layers. I use heat fix silk dyes, and acrylic paint to add colour to the background fabric.
TIP - If you are tacking fabrics down before free machine embroidery - use a thread which breaks easily and is a good colour match to the overall picture. When you do dense FME it is impossible to get all the tacking out - especially if like me you work in layers. I tack fabrics down - and then overlay more fabric on top. If you use tacking thread that matches the picture - when you have little ends that refuse to come out - they look meant!