Day two of our weekend textile workshop with Lena Larsson. Yesterday we printed on fabric; today we’re embroidering on our printed fabrics.

Lena uses a lot of applique in her embroidery, and she has a particular technique for this that I haven’t run across in anyone else’s work. During the first half of the day I experimented with her technique. She puts a layer of thin, translucent fabric such as organza or tulle on top of her printed fabric, and then sets applique pieces between these two layers. Then she stitches along the contours of the applique pieces. So the applique pieces are not actually sewn to the fabric – they’re only held in place by the contouring stitches. They almost hover in place.

I tried light green organza over a fabric with plenty of green, strips of patterned silk in between, and couched contours. I liked the technique, but I think my fabric choice wasn’t the best. I thought green and purple would give me vibrant contrast, and they would have, if they had been side by side – but the green organza on top of the purple silk strips just made them look washed out and muddy. I tried bringing back some of their colour with embroidery, but I still don’t like the look.

After lunch I switched techniques and experimented with stacking layers of tulle on top of each other, and embroidering on that.

Ten people, all given the same materials and instructions, ended up with ten very different results.