More on the free motion yellow gum blossom piece

Trying to be frugal, I printed two images out onto preprepared silk. This was a mistake, neither of them fit into the hoop.

They both fit onto an A4 piece of paper, so are quite small. 

I have worked on the yellow one. I cut the two images apart as I decided that they would fit the hoop in one direction but not the other sides, so I might as well treat the unused one carefully and not wrench it around in the hoop.

But the image was too small to fit the hoop properly, so I backed it with the sticky soluble fabric. This worked well as a stabiliser - but probably wasn't frugal in the long run!

However, when I rinsed it out, I found that the lovely sheen from some of the threads was gone. I had forgotten that about using soluble fabric, you nearly always lose the lustre and the colour darkens.

This is it while still wet, so the colours are even darker. 

And it shrinks a bit. I did pin it while it was drying but it has definitely shrunk.

Then I remembered having heard someone say that she soaks her pieces overnight and that gets more of the gluey substance out. So I put the sewing back into a tub of water and waited patiently.

Here it is, there is some sheen visible. So maybe I will try that method again with the other image I have printed out. But I will need to work out how to frame it, it doesn't fit a standard frame and the edge is so close on one side that I am not sure how I will attach it to a backing board.