MAGNIFICATION by Gladys Love

I started out the same way as everyone else on this one.....out with my camera and snapping shots of leaves, seed pods and flowers.  The photos were lovely and some unique, but not inspiring.  Then I decided to go through my library of photographs and see if anything I already had inspired me.  I found this one.  It was taken in Monterey, CA.  I loved this sea lion and his obvious lack of care for what is going on around him.  

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Isn't he hilarious???  However, since the theme was magnification, and I was fascinated by the way the photo captured the water, I clipped a section out of the photo to work with. It is taken from the right hand side, just above the railing.  Here it is.  

This clip has not been enhanced or "photo shopped" in any way.  The colors and reflections are exactly as they are in a tiny little section of the photograph.  I loved it instantly and decided this would be my 12 x 12.  Magnified water.  Fabulous idea! To top it off, it would make it harder for everyone to guess what it is because I think it really looks a bit like First Nations art.  Do you agree?  

So, how to execute my fabulous idea.....After much thought I decided that I would trace the light blue water lines onto freezer paper, iron it onto a piece of light blue fabric that I had applied Misty Fuse to the back of,  and then cut it all out and lay it out on a dark blue hand dye fabric.  This worked nicely.  Then I cut some darker blue, some dark rose and some gold & brown and fiddled it in under the light blue so that it duplicated the photo above.  Here is the photo of my project as I approached it for stitching.  

But, in truth, it was a little horrifying when I pressed everything together and then removed the freezer paper. The polyester satin that I chose for this project did not react well.  When the paper was pulled off, and I was very gentle, all the edges frayed a little bit, losing the crisp look I wanted.  I had planned to stitch along all the edges of the light blue, but after it frayed with the removal of paper, I was a little nervous that it would fray further, so I decided to try stitching inside the light areas.  You can see that in the darkest pink pieces.  

But I didn't like that.  It wasn't the look I was going for.  I left it for a week or so while I pondered how to handle this dilemma.  When I went back to it, I tried applying Fray Check to the edges with a toothpick.  Not satisfactory.  Then I thought perhaps if I painted the surface it would stabilize it more.  Here is what that looked like.  I am still not happy. 

So, since the piece was bigger than 12 x 12 and I am experimenting on the edges, I thought I'd try something else.  The next solution was to couch some beautiful pale blue sparkly ribbon along the edge of the light blue, hopefully adding to the watery look and covering the frayed bits.  I tried doing it with a couching foot.  That proved too difficult to see where I was going on all the tight corners.  But I liked the look of it. 

That is, until I took it out of the machine and looked at it.  No matter what I set the stitch as, the ribbon puckered and looked dimpled or gathered and I felt it took away from the slick look I wanted for the water.  Here's a close up of the stitching and you can see a tail of the ribbon hanging off where I started. 

I didn't like it one little bit.  And now, because I've handled it so much, it is fraying more.  So...here is the finished project.