a few sets of image transfer towels, just a quickie!

several months ago i visited a friend for a few days, and because i enjoy making things for people i love and care about, i decided to make her a belated thank you gift/hostess gift.

in this case, my friend had semi-recently purchased into her first house, so i wanted the gift to be a sort of housewarming as well.

once she had left for work one morning, i roamed the house taking random photos. (luckily her roommates were still asleep or off doing their own thing!)

i knew i wanted to take photos in her bathroom, because that's what inspired me in the first place (everything in her bathroom is purple. toilet, sink, bathtub, floor, counters. i was SO JEALOUS!!), but i also took a few outside, and in her kitchen, in her main living area. i didn't know exactly what i wanted to do, but i focused on slightly off centre shots, on textures and colour combinations.

once i got home, a lightbulb went off in my head, duh, tea towels! who doesn't need more tea towels, really? plus, they're the perfect way to use some of the photos i took!

(i posted a tutorial for image transfer tea towels last spring, if you wanna see how they're made!)

i made two sets of tea towels using images from around the house


this set has a photo of the kitchen door, which was a great textured glass, and a photo of one of her shiny red vinyl and chrome kitchen chairs


and this set shows the iron work at the front door, along with the mary hanging on it, and her front porch and entry way.

and i made a set of hand towels for the bathroom, and they're totally my favourite!


the bathroom has these wonderful vintage tiles on the floor, that i completely fell in love with. i searched everywhere for purple hand towels (so much harder to find than i'd expected!), and edited my photos in photoshop to create an image that would go all the way across the towels. i love how they turned out, and hopefully the recipient did too!

this is what democracy looks like! embroidered pillow

i actually made this pillow right around the time of the intent, it's fucking magic pillow, but kinda forgot to post about it....

however, i LOVE how it turned out, and i've already brainstormed a bunch of other projects to be done using the same technique.



i started out with a photo, one i posted on my olympics post back in february. it's a photo i took at the anti-2010 rally the same night as the olympics opening ceremony, and it doesn't even come close to showing how many people were there that day.

the day after especially, but for many days afterwards, i had protest calls and shouts running through my head, the most frequent one being "this is what democracy looks like!" (i was less enamoured by the "this is what democracy feels like" chant after it started raining and my back seized up, let me tell you!)

i knew i needed to stitch it up, and i really wanted to SHOW what democracy looked like in the same piece, so this technique worked really well.

angle


i sized the photo to how large i wanted the pillow, reversed it, and then printed it out onto two iron on transfer sheets. i carefully ironed them onto a good quality white cotton (i've found that the quality of fabric has a huge effect on the longevity of the transfer)

paper covering


after i transferred the image, i left the paper covering on. i knew i'd want to iron it after i finished stitching, and ironing it without the protective paper would ruin the transfer. i transferred the writing onto the protective paper, and used it as my stitching pattern.

i couldn't hoop this without interfering with the transfer, but it was fine, because the paper backing kept it stabilized.

i stitched in yellow floss, so that it would show up against the photo.
embroidery back


once i finished the embroidery, i decided to do a bit of patchwork around the image, to try to pull some other colours out of the image. i took the photo with me to the fabric store, and bought 3 different calico prints. i made a patchwork border and sewed it on, still with the paper attached.

patchwork


and then i made up the back, with a bit of piecing in the middle cause i love how that pulls everything together.
back


i also added a strip of yellow almost as a fake piping around the edges.

and this was the result!



(taken with flash)


it's not quite as clear as i was envisioning, i should have done the writing a little higher up, rather than centred on the photo, but it is a lot clearer in person than it is in a photo. and i love it anyway!