When I started module 3 and was looking at the activities that were coming up, I thought what a coincidence it was, as I had just been reading about broderie perse at womenfolk.com. It is one of the techniques I am learning in this module. Take a look at the article at womenfolk.com to learn something about the history of this technique.
Well this weekend I started the activity that is a modern form of broderie perse. First of all I stamped some leaf motifs onto fabric using acrylic paint and my felt leaf stamps. I have often read that acrylic paint alters the hand of the fabric so I was interested to see the effect for myself. Here is a photo of the stamped motifs.
After they had dried the fabric did feel quite stiff, but as the next step was to iron “wonder under” or Vliesofix, as it’s called here in Germany, onto the fabric it really didn’t matter much. The bonding glue makes the fabric stiff too.
I had originally in mind to make a kind of autumn wreath on some yellow ochre coloured fabric from one of my dyeing classes. I pulled out the fabric in all the gradations and auditioned the cut out leaves. It wasn’t quite right so I though I’d try some of the various green fabrics that I have dyed. As I was looking for them I found the monoprinted fabrics from module 2 and one of those seemed just the right choice. Here is the current state of play:
I am now embroidering around the edges of the leaves in blanket stitch using 2 strands of stranded embroidery thread. I could have done it by machine as mine does a quite reasonable blanket stitch, but I felt like doing some hand embroidery. It is quite hard work though – getting the needle through 2 layers of fabric, acrylic paint and the bonding glue! I’ve done about a third so far and I do think it will be worth the effort. You’ll have to wait for the next post to see the results 
I really like this sample Ruth, it’s worked really well. Gill