Rest of the Postcards

It's a wet dreary day so perfect for hunkering down in the studio and finishing up my oak leaf postcards. It would appear I need to apologize to my scanner - it helps to check settings when results are not as expected. I don't know how but the "unsharp mask filter" got turned off and that is why I couldn't get a sharp scan showing the stitching in the first group. Above is number 4 of the first set, and because it was so light, I chose a different color thread for the edge finish - an Oliver Twist hand-dyed cotton. I also did some inking to even out the way the variegation was reading.

The second set of four had a similar variance in the prints from light to dark and rather than stick with my "winning" thread combination from the first round, I decided to try out some other ideas. It occurred to me that since I'd spent so much time and effort cutting out those leaf veins which showed so well on the darker prints, maybe I shouldn't obscure them with colored thread. So these two got the veins quilted with invisible thread.

I also outlined one with invisible thread, the other with an Essentials thread color called Cedar. No discernible difference between the way the two read. The background on both of these is different from what I tried on the others too - a King Tut called Nile Delta - it has green mixed in with the yellow. My apologies for the colors being all over the map. The true colors are probably somewhere between the two.

On the lighter prints, I went back to quilting the veins and outlining the leaves with regular thread - the Cedar. Thinking to keep things simple and rather like it. And for a change of pace, I introduced green thread into the background.

This didn't work as well as I'd hoped, making for too busy of a background in my opinion. I was hoping the dark green Essentials Dark Olive thread would make the lighter leaf (bottom) stand out but it just adds more lines that read dark and not necessarily green. The other one (top) is a little better with the lighter variegated King Tut color called English Ivy.

It always fascinates me how thread color can change how the fabric it is stitched across reads. The postcards on the left read cool with that green thread in the background while the ones on the right read warm with the predominantly yellow thread in the background - almost like using two different colorways of the underlying print. Without color in the veins, the Cedar thread worked well for the satin stitched edge but to my surprise, the Turkey Red thread from the first set accented the other postcards better. It seemed to make that cedar thread in the veins pop out more, looking more red.

So that's it for these oak leaves for now. Most of them are being mailed off and the idea to group a set of them on a background for a quilt is for another day. I think it's time I got back to that beading project.