Hidden Treasures revealed

My entry to the theme of Hidden Treasures.

What I wanted to create was a piece where you didn’t see much at first glance. I wanted it to be camouflaged. The fabric I used just happened to be a piece that was left over from a bag I made recently. It is a blend of fibres possibly cotton with some nice shiny threads in it. The pattern on the fabric was quite wild and so I figured it would do.

To break up the piece, and to give the eye some rest, I took some black cotton broadcloth and distress dyed it with bleach.

I had done very little bleach dyeing before but this time I had a plan in mind. I wanted lines – some of which would intersect. I used a small paint brush to apply the bleach and I needed only about a one foot square part of the whole piece since I knew that I would be cutting it into one inch or one and one-half inch strips. I was quite pleased with the result after it was thoroughly rinsed and ironed. Different blacks turn different colours when bleached.

I knew that I wanted either a door or a window or some sort of opening that wasn’t ‘seen’ at first. Inside would be the treasure. Hence, Hidden Treasures. Since everyone has a different idea on what their ‘treasures’ were, I was stumped as to what to put behind each door or window. One thing that was definitely a treasure was love. All things are possible with love – love of family, love of friends, love of pets, etc. I then decided to just wing it and used a silver pen I purchased at the dollar store of all places and, using a stencil, I stenciled in the hearts.

For the other door/window opening, I just didn't know what to put in it. I googled Hidden Treasures, I asked my family what they thought of when I said hidden treasures. All the answers were different. I was stumped. One thing I did come up with from my daugher-in-law was that it should have colour. So then I thought of all of us and what treasures we use in our work. Colour, fabric, trims, lace, beads, notions, etc. Those are our tools and our treasures. It is what we use to compose our pieces and this is what I came up with.

Fabric, colour, lace, beads and some findings. I could have added a lot more, but that would have been overwhelming.

Here is the entire piece REVEALED.

This piece was totally machine stitched (except for adding the beads and findings) and nothing was really planned out as to what the size would be. It just grew on its own. The finished size is 21 x 13 ½ inches or 53 x 34 cm.