Printed Fabric Bee: Molas

This past month’s The Printed Fabric Bee challenge was Molas. Julie Basseches Booth, the Queen Bee, chose this topic requesting colors of red, black or other bright colors.

Here is the collection of giveaway fabric. See information on the giveaway below.

If you don’t know what molas are, they are the colorful appliqué patterns of the Kuna Indians that originated in the San Blas Islands of Panama. If you’d like more information, google molas or check out this link.

I will say this was one of the most difficult challenges yet. How could I convert an applique pattern to a surface design?  After many, many (did I say many?) stencil designs,  I finally came up with one I liked. However, I kept having trouble getting it to cut out like I wanted it.

I was feeling like I was finally figuring out what I wanted for my stencil and cut this out. But after playing with it, I was still not happy.

Finally after so may tries I finally arrived at one I really liked and the process could begin.

I started with another piece of that fabric I had dyed for Ange’s stole.

Here is the final stencil taped down to the fabric.

  I am using ProChem Bright Red, Lemon Yellow and White Opaque fabric paints. I just bought these for a class I’m taking and I absolutely love them. They will definitely be my go to fabric paints.

If you are wondering about the white, I didn’t think the yellow appeared bright enough so I added the white to it.

Once the paint was dry I outlined the design with a blue fabric pen. I love the way it make the image pop. In the past I would have outlined it in black, but I found outlining it with the color that’s closest to the background fabric really looks better and not quite so stark. But of course, that’s my opinion.

Here is the final piece before I added the outline.

And the finished piece. The difference to me is really big.

Here is the piece that is part of the giveaway.

I was really happy with how this turned out. It was quite a challenge but I made it through.

Now for the giveaway, if you’d love to win this collection of 6 x 6 inch fabrics, just leave a comment on Julie’s blog or on the Printed Fabric Bee blog post. Deadline is April 14. Once you have commented, stop by the other members’ blogs to see how they created their pieces. Good Luck!