Another paper collage in progress

11" x 14" paper

 I showed this paper string art piece on my last post.  Friday I decided to start to 'work' on it.  This was how the piece looked when I first created the string art on paper, which is the flower image.  Then I added some soy wax and dyes.  You can see how I created this piece on this post.

I liked the colors but they needed to be brighter.  So what to do but get out the Gelato crayons (by Faber-Castell).   Hilary uses them in quite a bit in her work and has shown us how easy it is to enhance your art work or painted or dyed papers easily with these crayons.  

See the difference!  It's so much brighter and a big difference.  I even used a pale blue/gray to enhance the flower/petals before I added the purple/blue crayon.

Next up, using Judy's suggestion on needle size for sewing with Lana threads, I played with stitching on a small painted piece.  It's hard to see but I used both a light gray and copper Lana thread.  

The light gray gave me some issues until I started to loosen up the top tension.  Same with the burnt orange thread.  I did find I couldn't do free motion quilting.  I'm thinking I need to move a lot slower if stitching with the heavier thread(s).  

So I sandwiched some batting and started stitching!

This is a closeup of how far I got..not very...had errands to run but I'm pleased. 

Actually, I didn't have any Lana thread in the color I need for the blue area but I had a Sulky #12 wt thread and used that instead.  I also kept the #16 topstitch needle in.  Worked great!  

So guess that means I need to order more thread!  The blue appears to be more on the periwinkle shade of blue/purple.  Always need an excuse to order threads, fabric or crayons, right!