Stitching and Rooting

I was pleased with the eco printing results onto concertina'd paper - beautiful and subtle effects from the initial bold red petals.  A few thoughts add to their story with stitched additions.

Pressed buttercups and other dried stems secured with stitches to echo the buttercup prints.

Loosely couched threads to echo the rose petal shapes - used thread that wrapped the folded paper concertina that picked up some of the rose pigment.

Fine dried stems stitched with 'crows foot' stitch to echo rose thorns.

A different way of using my garden flowers - mashing and boiling to reduce to an ink 

Buttercup ink makes a very subtle but beautiful colouring. I foolishly let it boil too long so the liquid became cloudy.  

The cotton organdie fabrics below were coloured with my buttercup ink.

Ready to make more ink; this time with rose petals. 

Starting to chop them into bits and noticed how they changed as they dried the following morning. 

Hope the colouring strength hasn't weakened!

Loved the effects made at this stage when using a circular cutting blade to chop the petals.