The finished product! As of the end of the first post, we had a painted piece of fabric with fiddleheads sewn to it. It waited the recommended 72 hours before being machine washed and dried, and then pressed.
I left the edges of the fiddleheads unsewn in the hopes that they would fray in the wash, and then realized that saturated with paint, even dilute paint, they might not. Fortunately they did. Before ironing and trimming the longer threads I realized a strange thing: the green is lighter underneath the fiddleheads, which doesn’t make sense to me if the paint was soaking up through the fabric.
Then I had to figure out what to do with it. We already have more wall hangings than wall space, and there was no little cubby in need of a curtain, so after hemming and hawing I sewed it into a bag. Well, actually, there was a bit more hemming and hawing on fabric choices, but I went with a somewhat contrasting batik. I used a fabric I like but is not applicable to many situations (somewhat heavy, with a handwriting pattern) to back each piece separately, and then sewed them together. My original plan was to chop off the bottom corners to make it a shorter, boxier bag (as in the reversible drawstring bags), but I realized that would pull the fiddleheads too far down and they would look odd. So instead, I made a fold-over-top laptop or portfolio bag. I do wish the handle were longer (this was already cut corner to corner in my fabric), but I can perhaps graft in a center section later.
It is a poor day for photos, but April’s end is nigh, so without further ado: the finished bag.
You could even use the bag as a purse, provided you don’t load it down with too many heavy items. I love the batik (but then, I love all batik fabric…)– the touches of orange in the batik bring out the orange in the painted piece.
Thanks! Batiks are beautiful. I am trying to go in the smaller purse direction (and a giant open space would be bad for me finding things), about which there will be something on the blog soon.