Block Printed & Stitched Nymph Friends: Beatrix

Beatrix is a little shy being new to the world. Allow me to share her 6-week voyage from start to finish before I give her a proper introduction.

Her maiden voyage began with faux dyeing white Evolon non-woven fiber into one of these orange squares complete with a touch of sparkle thanks to a bit of metallic acrylic paint added during the faux dyeing process. 

For this new block-printed and stitched nymph friend, I challenged myself to create a new face using a completely different combination of blocks from her friend Agalia! See if you can spot the different cheek and eye brow combinations in the tile auditions below. 

After finetuning the placement of the various shapes, I gathered the blocks and my ink pad for block printing. Just as I was about to hit record, I pulled out two small scraps of paper to help outline the paper tiles and help align the block printing. This worked quite well in preserving my original layout! You can watch the recording here to see those two small scraps in use.

Here's my freshly block-printed friend ready for stitching!

This next transformation begins with thread, lots of thread! I start by choosing a few colors that pair well with the background and pull out pretty much all and any threads in that colorway, taking care to include a variety of textures and weights. And despite this large initial thread pull, the thread palette tends to evolve and grow once stitching commences...

The stitching tends to be very improvisational. I just get started and see what threads speak to me on that particular evening. I may tackle a few areas in an evening and then take a few evenings off as I percolate what to stitch next. I wanted the cheeks and lips to have a bit of extra dimension, so I stitched on an extra layer of batting for a trapunto effect. 

Blue painter's tape was used frequently towards the end to help me mark out the two halves of the face, curly hair, and to audition potential facial shapes. Initially I quilted a large and symmetrical hexagon for the face but after the quilting was complete, more tape was used to audition assymmetrical shapes for a skinny vs. wide cheeks/chin.

Once the quilting was complete, I layered a square of Pellon's 70 Peltex® Sew-In Ultra Firm Stabilizer onto the backside before stitching twice around the perimeter. With the edges secure, I could trim away the background. While the face was fairly easy to trim, the uneven hair edges were considerably more challenging. The edges were then finished by painting with a lime-green Tulip dimensional fabric paint. The face was then propped up onto some containers to allow the painted edges to dry overnight.

Fairly early into the stitching process, I started to pull out some fabrics for potential backgrounds. My search immediately stopped when I found this highly textured hexagon fabric that I rescued from Fabmo Creative Reuse center for less than $1! Not only did it beautifully complement the orange Evolon, but it has incredible texture and the hexagon pattern inspired the finished shape of the face.    

The hexagon swatch is pretty amazing all on its own, but I wanted to embellish with a bit of hand embroidery. To avoid wasting thread or time, I auditioned placement of the face against the background and then marked the perimeter of the face with blue painter's tape. Green painter's tape was then used to fill in the center and outline a no-stitch zone. Small scraps of tape were also used to mark which hexagons to embellish with more marked hexagons added as additional colors/motifs were added to the mix.

Initially, I planned to stitch hexagons in the indented areas which I still did. But as I stitched my way into the center, I opted to repeat the asterisk motif that is stitched into different facial features. I immediately loved the asterisks and embroidered additional colors and sizes into the background area.

And while I was very much planning the placement of these stitched motifs, I was aiming for random placement rather than even distribution. 

Much of the earlier hand embroidery was completed while watching episodes of The Bridgertons on Netflix. Following their example in which the Bridgerton children are named alphabetically in order of age, from oldest to youngest, I am opting to title each piece in this new series in alphabetical order. As this is the second in my growing series, I put out a request for name suggestions starting with the letter B and wow did I got lots of awesome title suggestions: Brandy, Belinda, Bryony, Brigid, Bronwyn, Brigitta, Brystion, Bia, Bad Ass Bertha, Bernadette, and Baudicca/Boadicea. 

Once the piece was completed, I chose Beatrix, which means "voyager, traveller" with it's latin adaptation meaning "blessed, happy." I thought this was a fitting title given her 6-week start-to-finish voyage and the amount of happiness I experienced during the printing and stitching stages. How fitting that her Name Day in Hungary is in just a few days--August 29th!  

Meet Beatrix, Finishes 15" x 16"

I continue to be awed by the stitched transformation that these block-printed pieces undergo! This journey is certainly a spectacular one...  

Thanks for joining Beatrix and I along this journey. I'm already looking forward to starting the next Nymph friend in this series and will be looking for C-name suggestions! 😉