Spring's First Blush - Part XII

Needs Embellishment

Thank you all for the well wishes for vacation - we had a nice time and now are ready to resume our regular schedules!

Now that the quilting is complete and the skirt construction is mostly underway, I can now get a better idea of how the skirt will look once completed.  After giving it a good look on the dress form, I noticed that from a distance, the quilted flowers and leaves seemed to disappear.  If you're close up, you can see them, but from anywhere over 5 feet away, they just fade away. 

This wasn't a problem with the necklace, due to the wood burning tool cut flowers.  Now that they've been removed, I have the same problem with what is now the yoke of the top. 

What to do?  Add color, of course.  The only question now is how to do that effectively.  Applique is out - it would be difficult and time consuming to applique in such a way to fit what I've already free motion quilted.  I cut out and add more flowers, but I'm not sure I want to do that as that still won't allow me to add color on the stems. 

After a little more thinking, I decided that colored pencils are the way to go.  I've got a small set of Prismacolor colored pencils and a group of individuals that I bought from the art supply store in Concord.  A quick survey of the pink colors I already owned (bought for some previous project, can't remember which - Bluebird of Happiness, maybe?) turned up a potential three or four colors.  A quick experiment on a sample piece showed exactly what colors I wanted:

The technique is quick and simple:  color and shade flowers, stems and leaves, then heat set carefully with the iron.  I did use a paper towel between the fabric and iron - I didn't want colored residue from the pencils to melt onto the iron soleplate.  I gradually built up the color in layers and shaded with a bit of white pencil, so as not to make the color too dark or too bright.  I'm really happy with the result:

Yes, I did add some beaded flower centers.  After trying a couple different color combos of sequins, I settled on the ones shown below. 

The last time I had to order sequins, I bought a bunch of extra colors because Cartwright's (see link at the right) has a minimum order amount.  Usually I don't need that many sequins, so I buy colors to fill in the color gaps in my collection and to get the minimum dollar amount for the order.  I had quite a few pink colors from my Garden Path order, which worked perfectly with this project. 

Much better and very easy to do!  Now I just need to finish the skirt; just a waist finish and hem.

Parting Shot:  June's Vintage Shirt.  I finally got a photo of June's vintage shirt.  I really like this one - I think the pockets turned out just fine even with a bit of show through.