The Printed Fabric Bee: Forest Floor

Carol Eaton is the "queen bee" this month for The Printed Fabric Bee and she chose "forest floor" as her theme.

I started by creating a textured background on brown fabric. I wrapped plastic wrap around a handheld rolling pin,

then rolled it in brown and tan paint. I was inspired by Julie Booth's awesome new book Fabric Printing at Home.

Here's the background of that first layer.

For the second layer, I decided to do gelli prints. I gathered two leaves right from the back yard, plus paint and my gelli plate. (I wish I had a bigger plate.)

I brushed green and maroon paint onto the plate,

then placed leaves over the paint,

the pressed the fabric into the gelli plate. Then I peeled the leaves off. Here you can see the print on the fabric and the remaining paint left on the plate from where the leaves were.

The I pressed the fabric onto the plate again to pick up that positive print left by the leaf shapes.

Busy printing table!

Here is my 6x6 inch square that will be part of the monthly give away for The Printed Fabric Bee!

Here's the 8x16 inch piece that I'll be sending off to Carol.

When I joined The Printed Fabric Bee, I decided I'd make notes each month about what worked and what didn't work with my process for each theme.

Successful:

• Using a rolling pin, I will definitely do more of this. So many possibilities.
• Combining the positive and negative prints from the gelli plate.
• I really like the sharp edges from the shape of the gelli plate itself. 
• I like this brown, green and maroon color story.

Less Than Successful:

• I wish the background was a bit more interesting.
• I'm not sure I really like the plastic wrap. Some other texture would probably be more interesting.
• The design doesn't work as well on the 6x6 piece as on the larger piece of fabric.
• It might have been interesting to add another layer of gelli plates in a different color and overlap that square shape even more.