Poppies and crosses

My poppy project has been morphing slightly in my subconscious. I often wake up early in the morning with a new idea to try. Originally I was going to have several images of poppies tranferred onto fabric with only one of them red and rest black and white botanical drawings. On top of that I wanted to superimpose a red flanders poppy centred over some gauze bandage in the shape of a cross. I still want that for the top layer, but below that I want something to represent the hundreds of crosses in the WW2 war cemeteries.

A week of mixed success with experiments. I have made two trial poppies for the top layer of my 3 level proposed remembrance textile/plexiglass artwork. One is so almost what I was aiming for that I might use it. I embroidered the stamens with machine and hand stitches and then beaded the centre. I fused 3 layers of sheers with two layers of misty fuse in the sandwiches. I did several different blends of sparkle organza, nylon, acetate and others in reds and oranges. I traced the poppy shape, which is basically two layers, with 2 petals in each. Then cut them out with a burning tool. Some cut really cleanly and some gave a black tarry edge, which I then cut off. Since the pieces are fused anyway, I probably don't need to sear the edges. I tried embroidering the edge of one half, and drew shading line on the other half. But from 6 feet the plain one looks just as good, and maintains the fragility of the petals.

I tried drawing and crayonning with various media on a scrap of TAP (transfer paper) which I ironed on to the knitted off white fabric I want to use for the bottom layer. I ironed it on the normal cotton setting, and although every colour and ink transferred apart from the watercolour, quite a lot was left on the Transfer backing, which isn't supposed to happen.

I bought some grass green canvas to embroider crosses on and spent ages with photoshop elements trying to isolate the crosses to use for a stencil. I think I am abandoning the canvas, as the embroidered crosses don't have enough impact from a distance. Then I tried a freezer paper stencil on the back of a silkscreen and pulled opaque white ink through it onto blotchy green and black fabric. I like that look. Not sure if I want a whole layer of them or just half a layer, or some bold and some fading away. The screen is not precise enough - too easy to get odd droplets of ink where you don't want them. My next thought is carve a stamp, which would be much easier to place.

The most spectacular failure was with trying to tranfer inkjet prints onto plastic standing in for the plexiglass. I think mainly because the acetate sheets were for carbon toner not inkjet. Maybe I should have let the ink dry a whole day first. I also tried printing onto the shiny side of freezer paper which wouldn't even feed through the printer taped to a carrier sheet. I really had to give up at that stage, but will revisit it later. I bought an Epson printer this week because I wanted the pigment ink. It was only $71, whereas the replacement cartridges are more than $25 each. Does this mean I have to buy a new printer every time the cartridge runs out?

I am wanting a botanical print of a poppy plant, complete with root system. Since I can't draw, I have been trawling for free online images, with not a great deal of success. I have found a simple tap root drawing in one of Jane's books, which I could graft on to the poppy plant possibly.

I'm off to Quilt Wellington on Friday, so poppies will have to wait.