The First Quarter Challenge is all about adding mixed media to surface design. I wrote earlier about adding poured paint to the surface of felt and cotton fabric. It took several days for the poured paint to dry but it eventually did.

Here are two photos of the poured paint on felt piece. The photo on the left is when the paint was still wet and the photo on the right is when it was dry. Quite a change for sure. It isn’t quite as hideous as it was.

Here’s a comparison of the cotton piece, left is wet and right is dry. So the pieces do change quite a bit as they dry. If you try this, don’t get too attached to a pattern that is still wet.

I peeled the felt and cotton off the canvases because I wanted to add machine stitch to the fabric. One lesson I learned is that I should have pulled the felt/fabric off the canvas when it wasn’t bone dry. It did come off but both pieces were really glued down to the canvas.

Here are the two canvases after the felt and fabric was removed. The one on the left is from the felt and the one on the right is the cotton. I am considering whether I will add more paint to the one on the right as it looks very “galaxy” like. But I haven’t decided yet.

Here’s the back side of the felt on the left and the cotton on the right. It’s interesting how different the front is from the back side. I considered stitching on the back side of the felt but I really didn’t like the look of the white paint. It reminds me of bird poop and I just couldn’t get that out of my mind. So I stitched on the front side.

The felt was very stiff and pretty thick with the paint on it but I used a size 90 embroidery needle on my machine and free motion stitched some simple organic lines. I used orange and blue green threads. If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you can see that there are more than three stitched lines. I used straight stitch and zig zag stitch. It actually stitched much more easily than I thought it would. The needle did make some awful noises when it hit a hard piece of thick paint but it didn’t break the needle or even cause much issue with thread breaking. I probably should change that needle though before I sew something else. I decided to keep the stitching fairly simple and not spend an enormous amount of time on this piece. It isn’t the worst or ugliest thing I have ever made but it certainly isn’t a masterpiece either.

Here’s the back after stitching. I do think this side adds a bit more excitement to the piece but I still see bird poop.

After stitching, I stapled the felt back on to the canvas. Not bad considering how ugly it was after I poured it. You can see how much surface texture there is in the close up. The paint certainly gives the felt a different look. So I may try this again. If so, I would try a finer felted surface such as merino to see how it accepts the paint.

Now I have to decide what to do with the piece of cotton. Should I add stitching to this one? Or should I cut it up and applique it to another surface? Or should I make it into a small bag? It’s only 8″ x 10″ so the bag would be small. But it has a nice feel to the fabric because the paint gives it some ‘body’, almost like leather. What would you do?